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How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

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Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#41

Exactly what is the "data" that's being shown here? Is it essentially some kind of marketing material showing "this sort of thing is what you should expect to see" or is it actually data or for compliance? If it's essentially marketing material or an instructional example that isn't meant to be representative it being magically clearer than real life doesn't seem like a great sin (unless it's being claimed it is repr…

Doing a western blot right takes a bit of practice and there are a couple failure modes you need to watch out for. Stuff like background "noise", smears, drifts can make it hard to get binary decision out of your experiment. E.g. antibodies are usually very very specific, but they can have impurities, unspecific bindings to other proteins etc which make interpretation harder. If they remove these from the advertised images you'll have a hard time comparing your own results to them. ESPECIALLY if they remove whole bands from the gel picture, which imho should be very much verboten.

Typically these catalogues have some numbers with regards to the antibodies binding affinity / impurities so you can have a general idea of what to expect, but having a clean image might mislead you into thinking that you did something wrong in your own setup. Seeing how wide spread it is, it's easy to imagine that their own lab is not run very "cleanly" and they have antibody contaminations in their gels, or issues with their own protocol that they're trying to edit out. Doubt that's the case, but it's really not a good look.

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#42
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Editorial choices on raw scientific data are a big no-no. I don't think you can find a picture in an article that hasn't been photoshopped in one way or another (which is mostly ok as long as it is not misleading) Edit: TF's reply is interesting https://www.thermofisher.com/es/es/home/life-science/antibod... Basically they say they are reviewing the images

Usually, journals require raw, unmodified data to be deposited as supplementary information.

Yes, as supplementary information

(Also journals are usually more rigorous than marketing material)

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#46
https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/antibod...

> Moving forward, where an original image is not present or available, the Company will ensure that website users are informed that antibody images may have been optimized for presentation and clarity on the website.

wut. Bro if you don't have an original valiation image then the answer is not to say "oh we'll make sure we communicate that we're making up a random image" - it's to say you don't have the damn image. It's validation data wtf. It's not a pretty background image it's validation data if you don't have the data wtf are you "optimizing for presentation?" This faq is unreal - pure CYA except by someone who doesn't seem to know what they're trying to cover. If you've got cut and pasted/rotated bands that's just fake data. Not "optimized for presentation."

Yes labs should and usually do always validate new antibodies as well. It's a waste of time and taxpayer money for them to spend their time on bad antibodies they purchased based on fake validation data. And just fundamentally - don't make up validation data. If it's not there it's not there. What are you optimizing for presentation if there's no original!? What does that say about the rest of your process?

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#47
My first, second, and third instinct here is to say this is pretty obvious and sloppy fraud. But it did remind me of the famous case discovered by David Kriesel where Xerox scanners changed documents in surprising ways. The caption on the YouTube video linked here is entertainingly accurate.

https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres...

"On the scale of things too horrible to contemplate, "document-altering scanner" is right up there with "flesh-eating bacteria". Since 2006, Xerox scancopiers literally are making stuff up. They, for example, replace digits with others in scans. The replacement digits are layouted perfectly into the page, so the errors are hard to see. Sounds unbelievably insidious, but it's true. Drug prescriptions, construction plans, just anything can be affected. "

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#48
The guy who uncovered this, Sholto David, is basically just awesome?

Watch him cycle from Wales -> China in 90 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgHZPfivVA

This isn't his first fraud rodeo either. For his discovery of serious fraud by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2024, he received $2.6 million.

Be more like Sholto, exercise your free will!

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#49

The guy who uncovered this, Sholto David, is basically just awesome? Watch him cycle from Wales -> China in 90 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgHZPfivVA This isn't his first fraud rodeo either. For his discovery of serious fraud by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2024, he received $2.6 million. Be more like Sholto, exercise your free will!

I didn't realize whistleblowers could recover part of fraud settlements:

> The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Sholto David. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. David will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dana-farber-cancer-institute-...

Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?

#50
post #49

The guy who uncovered this, Sholto David, is basically just awesome? Watch him cycle from Wales -> China in 90 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgHZPfivVA This isn't his first fraud rodeo either. For his discovery of serious fraud by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2024, he received $2.6 million. Be more like Sholto, exercise your free will!

I didn't realize whistleblowers could recover part of fraud settlements: > The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Sholto David. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. David will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement. https://ww…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/marine-sarah-fei...

$40m for this person in the US

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