Spanish researcher snagged in stem cell research fraud
by Michael Cook | 23 Sep 2017 |
Earlier this week the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology retracted a 2003 paper by Susana Gonzalez, an experienced researcher at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain. It explained in a brief note: “After publication, this article was found to have problematic figures. Digital experts have informed us that some of the published data in this paper were very likely digitally manipulated.”
This is the fifth paper by Gonzalez which has been retracted. Other retracted publications have appeared in Nature Communications, Cell Cycle, and Nature.
Gonzalez has been dismissed from the CNIC and has lost a huge EU research grant, after publishing in some of the world’s leading journals. According to the newspaper El Pais (as reported in Retraction Watch):
The Spanish media is describing the succession of retractions as an international scandal, as the 2003 paper in Molecular and Cellular biology was based on work that Gonzalez at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. A sixth paper, in the journal Cancer Research, is also being investigated.In 2014, the European Research Council awarded her a Consolidator Grant, reserved for the elite of European science and worth two million euros. This followed her success in getting mice with life-threatening heart failure to make a remarkable recovery. Her experiments opened the door to the rejuvenation of the heart in old or ailing people.
According to the newspaper El Pais, “everyone” knew that something was fishy about Gonzalez’s research while she was working at the National Centre for Cancer Resarch in Madrid (CNIO). But other researchers expressed their astonishment at the revelations. One colleague told El Pais: “I was a witness of how hard Susana worked in those years. She out everything she had into her projects. I know that this was always the case wherever she worked. Her dedication to her professional work is unquestionable.”
Saturday, September 23, 2017
There is a gap in the Nobel Prizes: there's no award for bioethics. There is the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. Both of them touch on bioethical issues in some fashion, but only tangentially.
True, some Nobel laureates have provoked bioethical controversies. The 1918 laureate in chemistry, Fritz Haber, was “the father of chemical warfare”. The 1956 laureate in Physics, William Shockley, was interested in eugenics and sterilizing people with IQs under 100. The 2010 laureate in Medicine, Robert Edwards, developed IVF. James Watson, the 1962 laureate in Medicine, was interested in designer babies. António Egas Moniz, the 1949 laureate in Medicine, developed the frontal lobotomy.
However, the time has come. As reported below, the 2018 Dan David Prize, worth US$1 million will be awarded “to an outstanding individual or organization in any field of the humanities or social sciences who have transformed our understanding of the moral and ethical significance of biological and medical innovations in our times.”
It appears that this will be the last time that the Dan David Prize will be awarded for bioethics. So it’s a great opportunity. Send us your nomination, with a brief explanation. If we get enough entries, we will publish them next week.
True, some Nobel laureates have provoked bioethical controversies. The 1918 laureate in chemistry, Fritz Haber, was “the father of chemical warfare”. The 1956 laureate in Physics, William Shockley, was interested in eugenics and sterilizing people with IQs under 100. The 2010 laureate in Medicine, Robert Edwards, developed IVF. James Watson, the 1962 laureate in Medicine, was interested in designer babies. António Egas Moniz, the 1949 laureate in Medicine, developed the frontal lobotomy.
However, the time has come. As reported below, the 2018 Dan David Prize, worth US$1 million will be awarded “to an outstanding individual or organization in any field of the humanities or social sciences who have transformed our understanding of the moral and ethical significance of biological and medical innovations in our times.”
It appears that this will be the last time that the Dan David Prize will be awarded for bioethics. So it’s a great opportunity. Send us your nomination, with a brief explanation. If we get enough entries, we will publish them next week.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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