Scientific research requires accuracy, authenticity, integrity
CAO XUETAO, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Nankai University, is under investigation for suspected misconduct. Academic misconduct is a serious issue that relates not only to the reputation of the researchers but also the entire academic community, which requires exhaustive investigation to clarify the facts. China Daily writer Wang Yiqing comments:
US researcher Elisabeth Bik claimed to have found traces of possible inappropriate "image duplication" in the graph results in 18 papers supervised by Cao. On foreign academic exchange platform PubPeer, more than 40 papers with possible image duplications have Cao's name among the paper authors.
On Sunday night, Cao posted a response to Bik on PubPeer, which said the papers in question are studies conducted at the National Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology and Institute of Immunology at the Second Military Medical University, and he is the corresponding author of the papers, which means that he was responsible for overseeing the research.
