By Veronica H. Paulus and Akshaya Ravi
Top Harvard Medical School neuroscientist Khalid Shah allegedly falsified data and plagiarized images across 21 papers, data manipulation expert Elisabeth M. Bik said.
In an analysis shared with The Crimson, Bik alleged that Shah, the vice chair of research in the department of neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, presented images from other scientists’ research as his own original experimental data.
Though Bik alleged 44 instances of data falsification in papers spanning 2001 to 2023, she said the “most damning” concerns appeared in a 2022 paper by Shah and 32 other authors in Nature Communications, for which Shah was the corresponding author.
Shah is the latest prominent scientist to have his research face scrutiny by Bik, who has emerged as a leading figure among scientists concerned with research integrity.
She contributed to data falsification allegationsagainst four top scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — leading to the retraction of six and correction of 31 papers — and independently reviewed research misconduct allegations reported by the Stanford Daily against former Stanford president Marc T. Tessier-Lavigne, which played a part in his resignation last summer.
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“Most of the problems in this set of 28 could be explained by honest error,” Bik said, for example if a researcher mislabeled their images and pasted in the wrong ones. She added that looking at published data alone makes it difficult to distinguish an error from misconduct. “There are a couple of papers that stand out that suggest an intention to mislead.”
“The sheer number of examples justify some concern,” said Matthew Schrag, a neurologist and researcher at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who outside his work at the institution reviewed Bik’s assessment. Schrag said he agreed with Bik’s observations in almost all cases and believed the issues warranted an institutional review.
Bik on Tuesday posted her observations on PubPeer, an online forum that scientists use to question details in published studies. On Wednesday, she emailed her allegations to Harvard Medical School’s Office for Academic and Research Integrity and Mass General Brigham’s Anderson, and several journals.
One anomaly in the group is a 2022 paper in the journal Nature Communications which has images similar to those in nearly a dozen other sources, including papers published earlier, according to Bik. “I’ve never seen this,” she said.