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 has been a science integrity consultant who scans the biomedical literature for images or other data of concern. She has found over 9,000 problematic scientific papers.  Her work has resulted in over 1,500 retractions and another 1,100 corrections. For her work on exposing threats to research integrity, she received the 2021 John Maddox Prize and the 2024 Einstein Foundation Award.

ABSTRACT:

Errors and Misconduct in Biomedical Research Images

Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Several high-profile cases of science misconduct have been reported, but many more remain undetected. 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 conducted a systematic review of 20,000 papers across 40 journals and found that approximately 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk, she will present her work and show several types of inappropriately duplicated images and other examples of research misconduct. In addition, she will discuss how Artificial Intelligence can both help identify cases of misconduct and also create them, as well as the growing threat of scientific paper mills.