And this is just fraud that was done with incompetence, so easily caught. How much is done competently?
How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
31–40 of 97 posts
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#32There have been efforts to standardize antibody reagent testing that are sorely underfunded/undervalued, https://ycharos.com/ (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-024-01095-8)
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#33My most generous interpretation would be: the marketing/website team didn't get the pictures in time from the respective teams, so without much thinking they edited some. Like those print-on-demand t-shirt websites that don't have real models wearing the real shirts but crappy photoshop composites.
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: > This image is supposed to demonstrate that the antibody being sold works as intended. (…) Antibodies are near-ubiquitous but notoriously fickle laboratory reagents in biomedical research. For many applications, it is absolutely crucial that the antibodies that you use are selective (i.e., the antibody binds strongly to the target protein) and specific (i.e., the antibody binds to the protein of in…
I would be more worried if the blotted area was different (the dark blob) - or if data in a datasheet (something like test specificity, level of detection, etc) was wrong Now, if while preparing the images they needed to do some editorial choices (or it is well possible a person in the editorial group was told to 'enhance the images' but wasn't aware of the details) because of limitations in doing the experiment then…
It is obvious that they edited the images to make blobs look shorter vertically. And in some cases, simply copy-pasted non-existing blobs.
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#35Exactly 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…
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Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#36Exactly 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…
I'd treat this about the same as datasheets for mechanical or electrical parts. When I buy an electronic component as a regular consumer I expect the datasheet "typical" values to be accurate 90% of the time. I can imagine larger industrial customers would really raise a stink if it's worse than that. However, any critical components in my circuit must be verified and "binned", and that's on me.
This is the thing. Yes, the marketing material is bad. But, no one in lab trusts an antibody just because of where you bought it. A new antibody always gets tested and validated before use.
That is to say, this looks bad for Thermo Fisher. But, that’s as far as the damage should go.
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd treat this about the same as datasheets for mechanical or electrical parts. When I buy an electronic component as a regular consumer I expect the datasheet "typical" values to be accurate 90% of the time. I can imagine larger industrial customers would really raise a stink if it's worse than that. However, any critical components in my circuit must be verified and "binned", and that's on me.
This is the thing. Yes, the marketing material is bad. But, no one in lab trusts an antibody just because of where you bought it. A new antibody always gets tested and validated before use. That is to say, this looks bad for Thermo Fisher. But, that’s as far as the damage should go.
Why would you even generate fake pictures of this type? Don't you already have real ones? I mean, it's actually more work, unless you don't have the real ones.
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#38What would happen if I drank these antibodies?
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#39Exactly 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…
I'd treat this about the same as datasheets for mechanical or electrical parts. When I buy an electronic component as a regular consumer I expect the datasheet "typical" values to be accurate 90% of the time. I can imagine larger industrial customers would really raise a stink if it's worse than that. However, any critical components in my circuit must be verified and "binned", and that's on me.
Would it be the same idea as an x ray of a critically welded part?
Re: How much of Thermo Fisher's antibody data has been manipulated?
#40Exactly 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…
It is intentional fabrication: it requires a lot more brain cycles to surreptitiously produce false data, it would literally be less work to Prepare the Western blots and scan them. Its the stuff they sell, so they have ready access to the products and would be much easier and cost-effective to simply perform (if it worked). Only if the product is known not to perform as specified is there a profit incentive for fabricating such "evidence".
It's more than just false advertising, it's criminal negligence wasting research attention, research time (repeating experiments to understand whats not working), naive nameplate quotations in the scientific literature also corrupts the scientific record (the author knows they are simply restating the nameplate specifications, but the reader may confuse it as a claim by the author).
Wondering if its sort of OK because it might just be marketing material, think of how the tobacco and other lobbies manipulate the scientific record. I mean technically it is marketing material... if one cynically views the scientific record as a poster wall where the highest bidder is allowed to plaster their spam all over the place.