Microbiologist Elisabeth Bik became a prominent investigator of research-integrity failures after discovering plagiarism in one of her own papers in 2013 and duplicated or digitally altered figures at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in January 2014. With Arturo Casadevall and Ferric Fang, she analyzed published papers and identified nearly 400 papers containing intentional figure manipulation, involving about 800 duplicate images. Bik has since reported more than 4,000 potential cases of improper research conduct through PubPeer, Retraction Watch, and her Science Integrity Digest work. Her findings helped demonstrate how image-based fraud can evade conventional peer review and prompted journals to introduce screening systems.
A 2019 analysis of 960 Molecular and Cellular Biology papers found inappropriate image duplication in 59 papers, or 6.1%; five were later retracted and 41 corrected. A subsequent pilot screening program found problems in 14.5% of submissions. In February 2020, Science reported that Bik had identified more than 400 papers from China that apparently originated from a research-paper mill supplying fabricated studies. Her scrutiny also challenged Didier Raoult’s 2020 hydroxychloroquine study, whose journal retracted the article in December 2024 over publishing-ethics, human-participant, methodology, and conclusions concerns. Raoult began legal proceedings against Bik in 2021, while more than 2,200 scientists and 30 scholarly societies signed a public statement supporting her; the proceedings’ ultimate outcome is not established here.
