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Elisabeth Bik

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Elisabeth Bik
Bik in 2019
Born
Elisabeth Margaretha Bik

1966 (age 57–58)
Netherlands
Alma materUtrecht University (MSc, PhD)
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisCholera: vaccine development and evolution of epidemic Vibrio cholerae strains (1996)
Notes
Voice of Elisabeth Bik

Elisabeth Margaretha Harbers-Bik (born 1966) is a Dutch microbiologist and scientific integrity consultant.[1] Bik is known for her work detecting photo manipulation in scientific publications,[2][3][4] and identifying over 4,000 potential cases of improper research conduct.[5] Bik is the founder of Microbiome Digest,[6] a blog with daily updates on microbiome research, and the Science Integrity Digest blog.[7][8]

Bik was awarded the 2021 John Maddox Prize for "outstanding work exposing widespread threats to research integrity in scientific papers".[9]

Early life and education

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Bik was born in the Netherlands. Since childhood, she had a good ability to spot repeating patterns.[10] She studied at the Utrecht University, where she obtained her MSc degree and subsequently a PhD in 1996, both in microbiology. Her dissertation was about developing vaccines for new strains of Vibrio cholerae involved in cholera epidemics across India and Bangladesh.[11][12][13][14] She conducted her doctorate and her postdoctoral studies at the molecular microbiology department in the National Institute of Health and the Environment in Bilthoven.[15]

Career

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Public sector

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After receiving her doctorate, Bik worked for the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein, where she organized the development of new molecular techniques for identifying infectious agents.[16][17]

Academia

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In 2001, Bik moved to California to work at Stanford University in the laboratory of David Relman, where her work focused on human microbiomes, previously unidentified microbial species in them, and their diversity across individuals.[18][19] Her work explored other mucosal microbiomes, confirming that the human oral microbiota contains distinct genera from the gut microbiota.[20]

While at Stanford, Bik worked on an Office of Naval Research project to study the microbiome of dolphins and sea lions in San Diego. She found that their microbiome was distinct from other mammals, and influenced by the sea they lived in.[21]

Private sector

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In 2016, Bik left Stanford to work for uBiome, a biotech company involved in the sequencing of human microbiomes, before leaving the company in 2018 to work full-time on analyzing scientific papers for image duplication and other malpractices.[14]

Science integrity

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See also: Scientific misconduct § Photo manipulation
A scientific graph with three subtle image duplications.
Two examples of image duplications (highlighted) that were discovered by Elisabeth Bik in microbiology research publications. Different panels represent different experimental conditions. The source article states that these might have been “honest errors during assembly of the figures”, and that the relevant papers have been corrected.

Bik started to focus on science integrity in 2013, when she discovered that one of her publications had been plagiarised.[22] One evening in January 2014, she found duplicated images with manipulations in papers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.[10] She decided to dedicate her free time to looking for questionable practices in scientific publications, and specialized in tracking down image manipulation in studies.

In 2014, she started the blog Microbiome Digest, where she provided easy-to-understand commentaries on recent scientific papers.[23] The blog soon became a success, and Bik enlisted help from her colleagues on Twitter to manage the content.[23] She is also an active contributor to Retraction Watch[4] and PubPeer,[24] highlighting scientific papers that present falsified, duplicated, and questionable data, such as in western blot images.

Together with Arturo Casadevall and Ferric Fang, Bik published an mBio paper investigating the prevalence of these questionable practices within published scientific papers, where they found nearly 400 papers with intentional figure manipulation (i.e. about 800 duplicate images).[25] She estimates half of these were created with the intention to mislead. Bik is active on Twitter, where she posts potentially duplicated figures for her more than 114,000 followers (as of November 2021) to investigate. Her investigations have exposed significant levels of scientific misconduct in several journals.[14] In 2018, Bik was featured on the pop science podcast "Everything Hertz."[26]

In 2019, Bik announced via Twitter that she was taking a year off paid work to investigate scientific misconduct,[23][27][28] the subject on which she co-authored a preregistered test suggesting that "academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies", but not pressure to publish, may affect scientific integrity, with nationality being a stronger predictor than individual attributes.[29] Her analysis of 960 recent papers published in Molecular and Cellular Biology found that 59 (6.1%) contained inappropriately duplicated images, from which 5 papers were subsequently retracted and 41 papers had corrections published, and led to a pilot image screening program at the journal identifying problems with 14.5% of subsequent submissions.[30]

In February 2020, Science reported that Bik had identified over 400 research papers published in China over the previous three years, apparently all originating from the same research paper mill company providing full service production of articles describing fake research for medical students on demand.[31] Bik said, "students in China need to have a paper published to get their MD, but they do not have time to do research, so that is an unrealistic goal."[32]

In March 2020, commenting on the publication of the results of a clinical trial by Didier Raoult on the effect of hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19, she identified a conflict of interest and strongly criticized the methodology of the study.[33][34] The owners of the journal that published the results admitted that the publication was not at the level expected by the society, in particular due to a lack of justification of the criteria for patient selection and triage.[35] They then rebutted allegations of a conflict of interest, stating that the peer review process prior to publication was respected because Jean-Marc Rolain, one of the co-authors of the article and editor of the journal, did not participate in the evaluation. The publisher Elsevier then announced an additional independent evaluation to determine whether the concerns about the article were well founded.[36]

On May 5, 2021, the French non profit association Citizen4Science, made up of scientists and citizens, published a press release in response to an announcement by Didier Raoult's lawyer that IHU Marseille was suing Bik. Citizen4Science linked a petition denouncing the harassment of scientists and defenders of science integrity, specifically mentioning Bik and calling on French authorities to intervene and journalists to look into the matter.[37] On May 8, 2021, Lonni Besançon, a French postdoctoral research fellow at Monash University, also wrote an open letter signed by scientists to support Bik.[38] The letter, also mentioned in The Guardian,[39] Science,[40] and Nature,[41] gathered signatures from more than 2,200 scientists and 30 scholarly societies.[42]

On May 22, 2021, The Guardian reported that Raoult had begun legal proceedings against Bik.[39] A Science article updated on June 4, 2021, in print issue 6546, stated that more than 3,000 signatories supported the Citizen4Science petition.[40]

In September 2021, Bik discovered repetitive elements in published images that indicated digital tampering by authors of a paper by the controversial Comet Research Group claiming the discovery of the Biblical Sodom, and evidence that it had been destroyed by a cosmic airburst.[43] The authors initially denied tampering with the photos but eventually published a correction in which they admitted to inappropriate image manipulation.[44] On February 15, 2023, the following editor’s note was posted on this paper, "Readers are alerted that concerns raised about the data presented and the conclusions of this article are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues".[45]

During a session of the 2022 European Hematology Association Congress, Bik presented information about artificial intelligence being used to fraudulently generate Western blot images.[46]

Awards

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Bik received the following awards:

  • November 2020: the Peter Wildy Prize by the Microbiology Society for communication of microbiology in education and to the public.[47]
  • 2021: the John Maddox Prize for "outstanding work exposing widespread threats to research integrity in scientific papers".[9]
  • 2021: the Ockham Award for Skeptical Activism by The Skeptic magazine.[48]
  • July 2023: the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science commendation award.[49]
  • 2024: included on the STATUS List by STAT News in recognition of her work as a scientific integrity analyst and her expertise in scientific image analysis.[50]
  • November 2024: Einstein Foundation Individual Award for research integrity.[51]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Abbott, Alison (2019-11-19). "The science institutions hiring integrity inspectors to vet their papers". Nature. 575 (7783): 430–433. Bibcode:2019Natur.575..430A. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03529-w. PMID 31745367.
  2. ^ Shen, Helen (13 May 2020). "Meet this super-spotter of duplicated images in science papers". Nature. 581 (7807): 132–136. Bibcode:2020Natur.581..132S. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01363-z. PMID 32405024.
  3. ^ Adee, Sally (12 February 2019). "The Fraud Finder: A conversation with Elisabeth Bik". The Last Word On Nothing.
  4. ^ a b Oransky, Ivan (2019-05-07). "Meet Elisabeth Bik, who finds problematic images in scientific papers for free". Retraction Watch. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  5. ^ "The science detective on a mission to stamp out shoddy research". Times Higher Education (THE). 2021-04-07. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  6. ^ "Microbiome Digest". MicrobiomeDigest.com. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  7. ^ "Science Integrity Digest". ScienceIntegrityDigest.com. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
  8. ^ "Maddox Prize 2019". senseaboutscience.org. Sense about Science. 11 November 2019.
  9. ^ a b "John Maddox Prize 2021 Winners Announcement". Sense About Science. December 2021. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  10. ^ a b Bik, Elisabeth (2022-10-29). "Opinion | Science Has a Nasty Photoshopping Problem". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-11-05.
  11. ^ Bik, Elisabeth M (1996). Cholera: vaccine development and evolution of epidemic Vibrio cholerae strains (Dissertation). Utrecht University. ISBN 90-90091-73-4.
  12. ^ Bik, Elisabeth M.; Mooi, Frits R. (1997-04-01). "The evolution of epidemic Vibrio cholerae strains". Trends in Microbiology. 5 (4): 161–165. doi:10.1016/S0966-842X(96)10086-X. ISSN 0966-842X. PMID 9141191.
  13. ^ Mooi, F. R.; Gouw, R. D.; Bunschoten, A. E.; Bik, E. M. (1995-01-01). "Genesis of the novel epidemic Vibrio cholerae O139 strain: evidence for horizontal transfer of genes involved in polysaccharide synthesis". The EMBO Journal. 14 (2): 209–216. doi:10.1002/j.1460-2075.1995.tb06993.x. ISSN 1460-2075. PMC 398072. PMID 7835331.
  14. ^ a b c "Eye for Manipulation: A Profile of Elisabeth Bik". The Scientist Magazine®. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  15. ^ Bik, Elisabeth. "Elisabeth Bik – Consultant – Harbers Bik LLC". www.linkedin.com. LinkedIn. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  16. ^ "Elisabeth Bik". Microbiome Digest - Bik's Picks. 2016-04-28. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  17. ^ "Profile - Elisabeth Bik". peerj.com. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  18. ^ Relman, David A.; Nelson, Karen E.; Gill, Steven R.; Sargent, Michael; Dethlefsen, Les; Purdom, Elizabeth; Bernstein, Charles N.; Bik, Elisabeth M.; Eckburg, Paul B. (2005-06-10). "Diversity of the Human Intestinal Microbial Flora". Science. 308 (5728): 1635–1638. Bibcode:2005Sci...308.1635E. doi:10.1126/science.1110591. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 1395357. PMID 15831718.
  19. ^ Relman, David A.; Blaser, Martin J.; Perez-Perez, Guillermo; Francois, Fritz; Purdom, Elizabeth A.; Nelson, Karen E.; Gill, Steven R.; Eckburg, Paul B.; Bik, Elisabeth M. (2006-01-17). "Molecular analysis of the bacterial microbiota in the human stomach". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (3): 732–737. Bibcode:2006PNAS..103..732B. doi:10.1073/pnas.0506655103. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1334644. PMID 16407106.
  20. ^ Relman, David A.; Fraser-Liggett, Claire M.; Gill, Steven R.; Nelson, Karen E.; Emmanuel F. Mongodin; Emerson, Joanne; Loomer, Peter; Armitage, Gary C.; Long, Clara Davis (August 2010). "Bacterial diversity in the oral cavity of 10 healthy individuals". The ISME Journal. 4 (8): 962–974. doi:10.1038/ismej.2010.30. ISSN 1751-7370. PMC 2941673. PMID 20336157.
  21. ^ Bik, Elisabeth M.; Costello, Elizabeth K.; Switzer, Alexandra D.; Callahan, Benjamin J.; Holmes, Susan P.; Wells, Randall S.; Carlin, Kevin P.; Jensen, Eric D.; Venn-Watson, Stephanie; Relman, David A. (2016-02-03). "Marine mammals harbor unique microbiotas shaped by and yet distinct from the sea". Nature Communications. 7 (1): 10516. Bibcode:2016NatCo...710516B. doi:10.1038/ncomms10516. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 4742810. PMID 26839246.
  22. ^ Laurens, Clémentine (2021-12-14). "Elisabeth Bik, gendarme de l'éthique scientifique" [Elisabeth Bik, watchdog of science ethics]. Ouest-France (in French) (23577): last page. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  23. ^ a b c "I have found about 2,000 problematic papers, says Dr. Elisabeth Bik". Editage Insights. 2019-08-08. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  24. ^ "PubPeer - Search publications and join the conversation". pubpeer.com. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  25. ^ Fang, Ferric C.; Casadevall, Arturo; Bik, Elisabeth M. (2016-07-06). "The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications". mBio. 7 (3): e00809–16. doi:10.1128/mBio.00809-16. ISSN 2150-7511. PMC 4941872. PMID 27273827.
  26. ^ "Everything Hertz - Elisabeth Bik". everythinghertz.com. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
  27. ^ @MicrobiomDigest (April 26, 2019). "I am taking a year off from paid work to focus more on my science misconduct volunteer work. Science needs more help to detect image duplication, plagiarism, fabricated results, and predatory publishers" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  28. ^ "About the Participants". FotoFocus Cincinnati 2019. 13 July 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  29. ^ Fanelli, Daniele; Costas, Rodrigo; Fang, Ferric C.; Casadevall, Arturo; Bik, Elisabeth M. (1 June 2019). "Testing Hypotheses on Risk Factors for Scientific Misconduct via Matched-Control Analysis of Papers Containing Problematic Image Duplications". Science and Engineering Ethics. 25 (3): 771–789. doi:10.1007/s11948-018-0023-7. ISSN 1471-5546. PMC 6591179. PMID 29460082.
  30. ^ Bik, Elisabeth M.; Fang, Ferric C.; Kullas, Amy L.; Davis, Roger J.; Casadevall, Arturo (15 October 2018). "Analysis and Correction of Inappropriate Image Duplication: the Molecular and Cellular Biology Experience". Molecular and Cellular Biology. 38 (20). doi:10.1128/MCB.00309-18. ISSN 0270-7306. PMC 6168979. PMID 30037982.
  31. ^ Dalmeet Singh Chawla (27 February 2020). "A single paper mill appears to have churned out 400 papers, sleuths find". Science. doi:10.1126/science.abb4930. S2CID 213824536.
  32. ^ Basu, Mohana (26 February 2020). "Researchers flag over 400 'dubious papers' published in China in last 3 years". ThePrint. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  33. ^ Piller, Charles (2020-04-23). "'This is insane!' Many scientists lament Trump's embrace of risky malaria drugs for coronavirus". Science. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  34. ^ Lee, Stephanie M. (18 October 2021). "A Data Sleuth Challenged A Powerful COVID Scientist. Then He Came After Her". BuzzFeed News.
  35. ^ "Publisher Now Says Study Touting Hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 Cure Doesn't Meet Its 'Standard'". News Parliament. The ISAC Board believes the article does not meet the Society's expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety. 2020-04-06. Archived from the original on 2020-04-20. Retrieved 2020-04-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  36. ^ "Joint ISAC and Elsevier statement on Gautret et al. paper [PMID 32205204]". International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (Press release). 11 April 2020.
  37. ^ "Harassment of scientific spokespersons and defenders of scientific integrity: Citizen4Science calls on the authorities to intervene urgently". Citizen4Science (Press release). 5 May 2021.
  38. ^ Besançon, Lonni; Samuel, Alexander; Sana, Thibault; Rebeaud, Mathieu; Guihur, Anthony; Robinson-Rechavi, Marc; Berre, Nicolas Le; Mulot, Matthieu; Meyerowitz-Katz, Gideon; Maisonneuve; Nosek, Brian A (18 May 2021). Open letter: Scientists stand up to protect academic whistleblowers and post-publication peer review. doi:10.31219/osf.io/2awsv. S2CID 243194323. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  39. ^ a b Davey, Melissa (22 May 2021). "World expert in scientific misconduct faces legal action for challenging integrity of hydroxychloroquine study". The Guardian. London, United Kingdom. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  40. ^ a b O'Grady, Cathleen (2021-06-04). "Image sleuth faces legal threats". Science. 372 (6546): 1021–1022. Bibcode:2021Sci...372.1021O. doi:10.1126/science.372.6546.1021. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 34083467. S2CID 235334811.
  41. ^ Bry K, Andersson LC, Kuusi T, Kinnunen PK (1979). "Monoacylglycerol hydrolase in human platelets". Biochim Biophys Acta. 575 (1): 121–7. doi:10.1016/0005-2760(79)90137-1. PMID 41586.
  42. ^ Besançon, Lonni; Samuel, Alexander; Sana, Thibault; Rebeaud, Mathieu; Guihur, Anthony; Robinson-Rechavi, Marc; Berre, Nicolas Le; Mulot, Matthieu; Meyerowitz-Katz, Gideon; Maisonneuve; Nosek, Brian A (8 May 2021). "Supplementary materials of 'Open letter: Scientists stand up to protect academic whistleblowers and post-publication peer review'". Research Integrity and Peer Review. 8 (1): 9. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/ZKX5H. PMC 10398994. PMID 37533089. S2CID 236542185.
  43. ^ Boslough M (January 2022). "Sodom Meteor Strike Claims Should Be Taken with a Pillar of Salt: A controversial, widely publicized paper claiming that a cosmic impact destroyed a biblical city has had key images photoshopped and rotated to fit the biblical hypothesis". Skeptical Inquirer. 46 (1). New York City: Committee for Skeptical Inquiry: 10–14. ISSN 0194-6730. Wikidata Q110293090.
  44. ^ Bunch, Ted E.; LeCompte, Malcolm A.; Adedeji, A. Victor; Wittke, James H.; Burleigh, T. David; Hermes, Robert E.; Mooney, Charles; Batchelor, Dale; et al. (22 February 2022). "Author Correction: A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea" (PDF). Scientific Reports. 12 (1): 3265. doi:10.1038/S41598-022-06266-9. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8864031. PMID 35194042. Wikidata Q111021706.
  45. ^ Kincaid, Ellie (February 21, 2023). "Journal investigating Sodom comet paper for data problems". Retraction Watch. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
  46. ^ Mattina, Christina (June 11, 2022). "AI Holds Potential to Support Ethical Principles in Hematology—but There's a Dark Side". The American Journal of Managed Care. Archived from the original on June 11, 2022. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  47. ^ "Prize lecture winners 2021". The Microbiology Society. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  48. ^ Marshall, Michael (2021-12-09). "Dr Elisabeth Bik wins Skeptical Activism Ockham award". The Skeptic. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  49. ^ "AIMOS Commendation Award Winners". Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
  50. ^ Balthazar, Deborah (2024-02-28). "Q&A: The scientific integrity sleuth taking on the widespread problem of research misconduct". STAT. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
  51. ^ "Einstein Foundation Awards". award.einsteinfoundation.de. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
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