Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
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elisabethbik.bsky.social
Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
@elisabethbik.bsky.social
50K followers 32K following 2.3K posts
Science integrity consultant and crowdfunded volunteer, PhD.
Ex-Stanford University. Maddox Prize/Einstein F Award winner
NL/USA/SFO.
#ImageForensics
@MicrobiomDigest on X.
Blog: ScienceIntegrityDigest.com
Support me: https://www.patreon.com/elisabethbik
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elisabethbik.bsky.social
A lovely dinner with @smutclyde.bsky.social et al.
Four people sitting in a rounded booth inside a restaurant.
November 10, 2025 at 7:39 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
I hope to see some of you today in Wellington, NZ for my talk at Massey University / Public Health Observatory (PHONZ) at noon, either in person or via zoom.
Screenshot of flyer: Errors and Misconduct in Biomedical Research 12.00 pm – 1.30 pm Monday 10 November 2025 Lecture Theatre LT100, Level C, Block 3 Wallace Street, Mt Cook, Wellington Via Zoom: https://massey.zoom.us/j/87871336956 Zoom passcode: PHONZ
November 9, 2025 at 9:05 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
This is the result of a meeting held this summer in Stockholm, organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, where I was one of the attendees.

Proposed actions against fake science presented after meeting
www.kva.se/en/news/prop...
Screenshot of the article linked to in the post. It shows the headline and some introductionary text: "Proposed actions against fake science presented after meeting Today, Dan Larhammar, Uppsala University and former president of the Academy, and Bernhard Sabel from Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany, have published the Stockholm Declaration, which outlines a number of proposed countermeasures against fake science, often produced by AI. This growing problem was discussed early this summer at a workshop held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences." Below that a group photo of the attendees on the steps of the main building of the Royal Swedish Academy.
November 9, 2025 at 8:54 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
My current office at Lake Taupō, New Zealand.
Wooden outdoor table with a laptop showing mirrored tree leaves. Next to it a glass filled with red wine and a white porcelain bowl with some chips. View over a light blue lake with some trees in the foreground and some sail-ships and a mountain in the background
November 5, 2025 at 5:35 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
In conclusion, the Expression of Concern should have been issued already last year, all problems pointed out on PubPeer should have been taken into account, and, given the serious concerns with the paper, this should have been a retraction.
Screenshot of a comment made by Matthew Schrag on PubPeer, https://pubpeer.com/publications/AEDCEA87FEA7DC7FB73C10171A4E17#4 He writes: "I have a significant concern about figure 1 in this paper. There is a large area in the background of one of the blots which appears to be duplicated." Under that we see top left a screenshot of the title/authors of the paper, on the right a screenshot of the Western blot in Figure 1G with a large duplicated area marked with red boxes, and on the bottom left a description of that duplication. "There seems to be a cloned region in the background of this image. This is a critical experiment..."
October 28, 2025 at 6:12 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
A third problem:
The journal states that no misconduct could be confirmed. But a journal does not need to prove that. They should retract the paper if the images appear manipulated and the reliability of the findings is compromised.
This should have been a retraction.
Screenshot of the bottom part of the Editorial Expression of Concern statement found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627325007937 "After consulting with external advisors and carefully considering the evidence available after over 20 years post publication, our investigation of the alleged concerns could not conclusively confirm misconduct. This editorial expression of concern serves to alert our readers to the above figure issues. The paper reported that immunization against human alpha-synuclein reduced alpha-synuclein levels and other neurodegeneration markers in transgenic mice engineered to overexpress human alpha-synuclein under the control of the platelet-derived growth factor β promoter. The main conclusion has been independently validated by other groups using various rodent models and alternative immunotherapy strategies. We believe that careful scrutiny in science is fundamental. Close examination of published data is essential to correct the scientific record, sharpen our understanding of complex biological processes, and refine hypotheses. Over recent years, greater attention to data integrity has brought stronger expectations for methodological rigor, accurate record keeping, and transparent reporting. Alongside these advances, journals have adopted more stringent data- and methods-reporting criteria and have implemented tools to screen manuscripts to identify potential issues early. Ultimately, critical thinking, re-evaluation of research findings, and building upon existing literature are fundamental principles of the scientific enterprise. Ideally, science has the capacity to self-correct over time."
October 28, 2025 at 6:06 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Second, while the journal agrees that Figure 1G contains repetitive areas, and Figure S1D was reused from an older paper, they completely ignore apparent photoshopping in Figures 5A, 5C, and 5D.
pubpeer.com/publications...
Screenshot of Figure 5D, showing two blots (light grey background, horizontal dark lines (bands) showing the presence of proteins). I have added rectangular boxes in blue, red, green, and orange to show bands that appear duplicated.
October 28, 2025 at 6:01 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Paper by former top NIH official and neuropathologist Eliezer Masliah received an Expression of Concern last week by Neuron.
While it benefits other scientists that the paper is now flagged, two things could have been done much better.
/
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Screenshot of first two paragraphs of the "Expression of Concern". Editorial expression of concern Effects of α-Synuclein Immunization in a Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease Eliezer Masliah,* Edward Rockenstein, Anthony Adame, Michael Alford, Leslie Crews, Makoto Hashimoto, Peter Seubert, Michael Lee, Jason Goldstein, Tamie Chilcote, Dora Games, and Dale Schenk (Neuron, Vol. 46, 857–868; June 16, 2005) Concerned readers alerted the Neuron editorial team to a number of potential issues with this paper. Concerns include suspected image manipulation in blots and fluorescence immunostaining, as well as the reuse of a previously published figure panel to illustrate a histology section. Some sections of the western blots appear to have been duplicated. The fluorescent signal in certain panels with double immunohistochemistry is alleged to have been inappropriately enhanced by adjusting the gain or background, which may distort the true signal. We, the editors of Neuron, contacted the corresponding author, Eliezer Masliah, for an explanation. Co-authors Dora Games and Leslie Crews concur with E. Masliah. Co-authors Edward Rockenstein, Michael Alford, and Dale Schenk have passed away. E. Masliah was not able to locate the other co-authors, most of whom retired several years ago. E. Masliah provided some original images for our evaluation and offered an explanation of how these issues might have occurred.
October 28, 2025 at 5:50 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Happy #Caturday from Buster!
Orange cat with white socks lying on a brown leather ottoman.
October 25, 2025 at 7:46 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
I grabbed the first paper from this researcher that came up in a search, and bam!, here is Figure 1A.
Can you find the problem?

#ImageForensics
Figure 1 from a scientific paper (not mentioned which one), showing 6 panels with blue and green or red fluorescent cells. Labeled a through f.
October 24, 2025 at 6:43 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Retraction #8 for Australian neuroscientist Gilles Guillemin, published in and retracted by Oncotarget.
'The corresponding author Dr. Guillemin agreed with the retraction, but the rest of the authors either did not respond directly or could not be reached.'
pubpeer.com/publications...
Screenshot of three figures from the scientific paper, showing several Western blot panels (each with three dark horizontal lines on a light grey background). I have marked several bands with colored boxes to highlight unexpected duplications.
October 24, 2025 at 5:22 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Retraction @plosone.org for concerns I partially reported in 2015 with additional problems I later posted on @pubpeer.com:

pubpeer.com/publications...
Figure from a scientific paper showing 'scratch assays' (Wound healing assays) - they show green fluorescent cells growing back after making a scratch with a pipette tip. I have marked some panels for duplications and alterations in some photos.
October 23, 2025 at 8:12 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Hey @tandfresearch.bsky.social, - you should not allow authors to address photoshopped tumors by just leaving out the photoshopped tumors. This paper was 1 year old at the time of correction. Where are the originals?
Horrible editorial decision.
#ImageForensics
Screenshot of the original published figure (left) and the corrected figure (right). In the left photo we see tumors in a grid of 5 columns and 6 rows. Two sets of tumors are marked by me with blue and green boxes respectively. In the right photo the duplicated tumors are just left out.
October 20, 2025 at 9:21 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
At Utrecht CS.
My right hand holding Stan van Pelt’s book Sloppy Science. In the blurry background we see white tiles, blue train departure signs and people walking in a train station.
October 14, 2025 at 9:48 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
#ImageForensics, XRD edition.
Do you spot something of concern?
#ResearchIntegrity
Figure from a scientific paper showing three X-ray diffraction plots. They look like nearly horizontal wiggly plots with some peaks and hills. The top one is blue and has only 1 big peak. The middle one is red and has a 'hill' on the left and is more noisy than the top one. The bottom one is in purple and shows some small peaks.
October 13, 2025 at 12:07 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
I will be bringing my copy of @stanvanpelt.bsky.social's new book Sloppy Science (in Dutch) to read in the train.

I hope he can sign it for me!

www.lebowskipublishers.nl/boek/3331/st...
Photo of my right hand holding a book. It has a white cover with black letters: Stan van Pelt Sloppy Science Alles over wetenschapsfraude: van foutjes to nepcongressen And it features a blue abstract smear on the front
October 13, 2025 at 8:17 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
The conference is held in the French Embassy in Berlin, next to the Brandenburger Tor.
Phone connection is sparse, and there are some restrictions due to the conference venue, so I cannot do much live posting.

www.ys2c.org/index.php
Photo of the Brandenburger Tor, a big gate with 6 columns and horses on top. Blue morning sky with some pinkish morning clouds.
October 9, 2025 at 7:18 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Good morning from Berlin, where the conference will start in 30 min. This was the foggy view from my hotel room this morning.
#YS2C
Berlin Fernsehturm TV tower in the fog.
October 9, 2025 at 6:38 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Arrived in Berlin for the 3rd Young Scientist Cancer Congress.
Hope to see some of you there!
#YS2C
Photo of the Alexanderplatz train station, showing a big rounded structure with glass, and red letters spelling ALEXANDERPLATZ. In the background a cloudy, gloomy sky, with the big Berlin TV tower. It looks like the tower is sprouting out of the train station, but it stands behind it.
October 8, 2025 at 11:30 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Oh great. I am in the Netherlands trying to get to AMS airport and there are no trains going to the airport. The Dutch railways NS app says there are fewer trains, but there is just no train going. No bus bridge offered.
Screenshot from NS, the Dutch Railways app, showing “Disruption” with all trains going from Utrecht to Schiphol (AMS airport)
October 8, 2025 at 5:27 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Another retraction (#10?) for Srikanta Dash at @tulaneu.bsky.social

I reported this to the journal and the university in March 2021 - more than four years ago.
Despite 10 retractions, he is still a full professor at Tulane.

sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Screenshots of two figures from the paper, both are showing green fluorescent cells on a black background. I have added colored boxes to highlight duplications/overlaps.
October 6, 2025 at 7:56 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”
Cartoon from the Nobel Assembly showing the three prize winners, their names, and “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”
October 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
An Oncotarget pearl.
Find at least five sets of duplicated areas.
#ImageForensics
Panel from a scientific paper. It shows a photo of a tissue slice, with blue nuclei and here and there some brown staining, with arrows highlighting areas called "SC" or "CA".
October 5, 2025 at 11:18 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
I mean, is this her eye or her butthole?

I like to know which side of my pet I am looking at.
A photo showing either the front or the back of the robo-pet, showing a black hole or eye surrounded by fur.
October 3, 2025 at 5:13 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Moflin (Casio's AI pet) creeps me out with his one-eye look.
Image result for a Google search for "Moflin". It shows lots of photos of the furry AI pet, but in all photos you just see one eye. The 'pet' is a little furry robot, the size of a guinea pig.
October 3, 2025 at 5:11 AM