Please join us for this exciting QUBIC Seminar Series event hosted by our UTS node.

Errors and Misconduct in Biomedical Research

Speaker: Elisabeth Bik
Date: Monday 21 October
Time: 2pm – 3pm AEDT / 1pm – 2pm AEST
Location: Grid room (CB-4.05.430), UTS
Zoom: Click here to join the seminar.

Abstract: Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed post-publication, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Elisabeth Bik is an image forensics detective who left her paid job in industry to search for and report biomedical articles that contain errors or data of concern. She has done a systematic scan of 20,000 papers in 40 journals and found that about 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk, she will present several types of inappropriately duplicated images, how to report such problems and how journals and institutions handle such allegations. Finally, she will address the growing problems of ‘paper mills’, for-profit networks that produce and sell large amounts of low-quality or fake papers.

Bio: Elisabeth Bik, PhD is a Dutch-American microbiologist who has worked for 15 years at Stanford University and 2 years in industry. Since 2019, she is a science integrity volunteer and consultant who scans the biomedical literature for images or other data of concern. She has found over 8,000 scientific papers, and her work resulted in over 1,200 retractions and another 1,000 corrections. For her work in science communication and exposing research misconduct, she received the 2021 John Maddox Prize.