Exosome Scientist Douglas Taylor Stole and Mislabeled Images: Report

Source:

An investigation by the US Office of Research Integrity has found that exosome biologist Douglas Taylor engaged in research misconduct while funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. The former University of Louisville School of Medicine professor and current scientific officer at biotech company Exosome Sciences “used falsely labeled images to falsely report data in figures” in 13 grant applications, one of which was funded, and in two published papers, according to the ORI case summary, which was updated yesterday (November 22).

For those of us who aren't so knowledgeable (like me) the word 'exosome' bears some description if we are to get understand this better.

As I understand it (important point - not a scientist, not a doctor) an exosome is a kind of self-contained object (vesicles) created within a cell. They perform various biological functions generally, but specifically - this researcher (Taylor) - made his mark focusing on tumors and how the vesicles, or exosomes, they produced contribute (at least) to the spreading of cancerous growth in the body.

Investigations into Taylor’s misconduct stretch back to at least 2015, Retraction Watch reports, when the University of Louisville (UL) conducted an investigation into Taylor’s potential misconduct. Its institutional investigation committee determined that multiple figures in a 2006 paper on which he was the first author were falsified and requested that the paper be retracted from the Journal of Immunology, according to a 2015 retraction statement on the journal’s website.

This person also happens to be closely tied with a company that makes new medicines...

I was wondering, given things as they are in real life...

He is certainly not the first scientists to manipulate figures and reports to neatly accommodate the goals of his research - and since that must be true... how many medicines have been introduced into our lives that were based on manufactured evidence?

I am happy that we discovered it before someone suffered needlessly - and also before he got rich and appointed.

But his work - now suspect... what does it affect?

Taylor has also previously investigated exosomes in pregnancy and preterm birth; the flagged grant applications and papers all concern exosomes in cancer or pregnancy, and both flagged papers were published in the journal Gynecologic Oncology. The second flagged paper, which characterized microRNA signatures of tumor-derived exosomes, has been cited more than 1,780 times, Retraction Watch notes.

How does bad data spread? That's how.