Jennifer Byrne is Director of Biobanking- NSW Health with NSW Health Pathology, and conjoint Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Sydney. She was awarded the University Medal for her science studies at the University of Queensland, where she also obtained her PhD in cancer genetics. Jennifer is now based at the NSW Health Statewide Biobank and leads the PRIMeR group (Publication and Research Integrity in Medical Research) at the University of Sydney, supported by NHMRC funding. She holds the Australian Academy of Science’s Professor David Vaux Research Integrity Fellowship award for 2025-2026.

ABSTRACT

Paper Mills, Fraud and more …

Researchers rely on the integrity of the academic literature. Whereas experienced researchers can be well placed to identify low-quality or questionable publications in their fields, this can be more challenging for students and early career researchers. Assessments of publication quality are also more challenging where researchers are reading outside their fields of expertise, where they may be less empowered to detect low-quality or questionable research. The PRIMeR group at the University of Sydney seeks to identify features of biomedical research papers that describe unreliable results. We have described features of concern such as wrongly identified oligonucleotide reagents, and claimed human circular RNAs and cell lines whose identities cannot be independently verified. Although these errors could be made or repeated in genuine research settings, shared features of many papers with wrongly identified or non-verifiable reagents suggest possible support by paper mills. This presentation will provide a brief overview of our research, and offer practical recommendations to improve the quality and integrity of academic publications.