‘I’m nauseated’: Alzheimer’s whistleblower finds possible misconduct by his mentor in their papers

Matthew Schrag knew that his motives and analyses would be scrutinized when he went public with his concerns about Alzheimer's papers. He said that he expected his work to stand up to scrutiny.

Schrag assumed there would be an innocent explanation when he got an email from PubPeer, a web forum where scientific wrongdoing charges are often leveled. Two of his own articles had been flagged as containing questionable images.

Othman Ghribi, Schrag's first mentor and still a trusted friend, might have engaged in misconduct.

The papers were published in 2006 when Schrag was an undergrad at the University of North Dakota. Many Alzheimer's researchers believe the disease is caused by amyloid in the brain. There was a large pattern of questionable research before and after they worked together.

Schrag said that the senior scientist emotionally acknowledged the problems in many of his papers and accepted responsibility. Ghribi admitted to exaggerating data but insisted that the underlying findings were correct. Schrag said that he was nauseated talking about it.

After agreeing to an in-person interview with Science, Ghribi backed out a few days before the appointment due to a pending UND investigation. He didn't reply to a request to verify Schrag's account of their talk or to comment on the suspect images in his papers. In an email to Science, Ghribi said he wanted to expose any wrongdoing with the manuscripts he co-authored in his lab.

Schrag contacted a UND official to see if any of the original images could be found. The official was unable to identify any documents. According to a 10 October notification to Ghribi obtained by Science, the university found Schrag's concerns about the papers, along with PubPeer comments on those and other publications, to be justified.

John Mihelich, a UND vice president, told Science in an email that they are taking all reasonable steps to secure the records. The appropriate federal research offices and sponsors are communicating with us.

It might be difficult to resolve the matter. The University of Texas is located in the Rio Grande Valley. According to Schrag, Ghribi said during a recent phone call that he had discarded his scholarly awards and deleted his data from his computer. A review of Ghribi's papers could be hampered because proof of image manipulation requires uncropped original images.

Schrag asked two journals to stop publishing his papers. The publisher was waiting for a response from Ghribi. The journal's editors applied forensic analysis and concluded there were issues with the publication. They said that Ghribi agreed that the paper should be taken back. Schrag contacted the journal to share his concerns about the images that appeared in 2008 in the journal Hippocampus.

Schrag decided to take a deeper look at his mentor's work after reviewing more comments posted to PubPeer. In order to minimize legal risks, he enlisted the help of a microbiologist and forensic image analyst, as well as another image sleuth who uses a different name. Thousands of manipulated or duplicated images have been identified by Bik and Cheshire in recent years.

Three papers co-authored with Schrag were found to have suspect images in them. The only author shared by all the papers was Ghribi, and he was usually the first or last author. Micrographs of brain tissue were included in the problematic images. More than 100 apparently problematic images, many from work funded by the National Institutes of Health, are shown in a 67-page dossier provided by Schrag. In an email to Schrag, the agency said it would look into the issues.

There are at least five Ghribi papers in the Journal of Neuroscience that may have been altered. Those cases will be carefully evaluated in a timely way. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease featured four papers with suspect images. The chief editor of the journal was surprised to find many suspicious images, but he has no expertise in forensic image analysis. He considers Ghribi to be a person of integrity.

He contacted Ghribi to find out more about his role on the journal's editorial board. He says that the journal will look at the claims and issue errata or retractions if necessary.

Schrag acknowledges Ghribi's influence in his career and feels sad about his former mentor. Schrag says he had an obligation to correct the scientific record. It's important to have a religious commitment to research integrity. He says that the rules have to apply to everyone.