A top neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School has been accused of falsifying data and plagiarizing images in 21 separate papers, marking the latest episode in Harvard’s season of academic scandal.
Neuroscientist Khalid Shah, who is the vice chairman of research in the department of neurosurgery at Harvard teaching hospital Brigham and Women’s Hospital, allegedly manipulated data and plagiarized images in research papers, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Data manipulation expert Elizabeth M. Bik shared an analysis with the school’s newspaper claiming to show data falsification on 44 occasions in Shah’s work from 2001 to 2023. Those allegations were subsequently reviewed by Vanderbilt University Medical Center neurology professor Matthew S. Schrag and Image Data Integrity, a consultation service that identifies data manipulation in images used for biomedical research.
Schrag and Mike Rossner, the president of Image Data Integrity, both told the Harvard Crimson that the allegations have merit and call into question the integrity of the papers.
Bik’s findings reveal images taken from seven papers used by Shah in a 2022 article that were not credited to their original source.
But Schrag told the Harvard Crimson that the images were not just copied from a vendor catalog but also manipulated because “the vendor is saying this is a different antibody than the one that the authors are saying it is.”
“This is a really unusual sort of thing that I cannot imagine how this happens by accident,” he continued.
Another example of manipulation is from a 2001 study for which Shah is the primary author; Schrag said the manipulation in that study was likely to alter the study’s findings.
Shah is the latest entry on a growing list of alleged misconduct against Harvard researchers and other academics as a spotlight was put on the school after mass plagiarism concerns arose with since-ousted university President Claudine Gay.
All inquiries into misconduct have begun with third parties and not from an internal culture of academic accountability.
In addition to Gay and Shah, earlier this week, Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, faced new allegations that she plagiarized on at least 40 occasions throughout her relatively impotent academic career.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Charleston was accused in an anonymous complaint filed with the school Monday.
That complaint details extensive portions of unattributed content in her 2009 dissertation, including the use of material written verbatim from other sources but lacking quotation marks and mention of those sources.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
It also shows a paper she co-authored by with her husband, LaVar Charleston, where old research from LaVar was presented as new research. That paper is the only peer-reviewed journal article under Sherri Ann Charleston’s academic belt. LaVar Charleston is the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In addition, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, another of Harvard’s three teaching hospitals, is under the spotlight for data falsification after an investigation found the need to retract six full papers and issue corrections for 31 written by four Harvard researchers.
