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I just removed the mention of the drug's discovery at the Univerity of Western Australia from the lead sentence; it is not necessary to be in the first sentence. It also was not sourced, and so I didn't feel it should simply be moved later in the article. Moreover, there was an edit that inserted the supposed inventor's name, Matthew Piggot, by an editor Piggo the chemist; given the name similarity I have posted on their talk page about a potential WP:COI. Given that the name addition also wasn't sourced, I removed that as well. Kimen8 (talk) 23:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kimen8,
I'm happy to confirm (shockingly) that I am Matt Piggott, the medicinal chemist based at the University of Western Australia, who invented UWA-101. You are a good Wiki citizen, but I'm quite sure it is not a conflict of interest to tell the truth about inventorship. It is not an opinion, and the evidence is already cited on the Wiki page. If you click on the link to the FASEB paper: doi:10.1096/fj.11-195016 you will see I am a corresponding author of the UWA-101 paper, and my affiliated institution is the University of Western Australia (hence the code name UWA-101). My co-corresponding author Jon Brotchie is a neurobiologist. He will gladly tell you I invented the compound. You could also google my name and you will see I have published a number of papers on novel MDMA analogues. So, you can accuse me of vanity, but not unethical practice.
If I recall correctly, at the time I made the change I was influenced by other Wiki pages that stated the origin story of chemical substances of interest. Here is one that has a similar opening structure: "2,N,N-trimethyltryptamine, 2,N,N-TMT, or 2-Me-DMT is a tryptamine derivative that is a psychedelic drug. It was invented by Alexander Shulgin and reported in his book TiHKAL (#34)."
I would like to restore the information you omitted from the page. Regarding the placement, it seems you think it appropriate for this to be later in the piece. Maybe here: "...as a continuation of earlier work from the same team led by medicinal chemist Matthew Piggott, at the University of Western Australia,...". Of course, that does not explicitly state that I was the inventor, but it is obvious to anyone who follows the citations.
I am not accusing you of any impropriety by making a conflict-of-interest edit, and as you say the information is truthful and supported by the sources. From the WP:COI page, Someone having a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgment about that person's opinions, integrity, or good faith. And Editors with a COI […] are expected to disclose it whenever they seek to change an affected article's content; in this case, resolving it should be as simple as disclosing your conflict of interest.
Feel free to add the information back; where you've suggested seems like as good a place as any. Just be sure to include the source reference (<ref name=JohnstonMillar2012/>) wherever you do add it (the lack of a source for the insertion was what prompted me to look at and remove it in the first place).
Taking another look at this since I posted my previous reply too quickly:
The compound being developed at UWA is supported by the source; it does not directly support that Matt Piggott invented the compound, nor even that he was among the team that worked on it. If you wish for that specific claim to remain, I think it will need a source, especially given the COI situation. Kimen8 (talk) 02:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why you would think that; perhaps because you do not see my name in the lists of authors for any of the cited references? But these are truncated lists and, as I am a senior author, my name appears at the end of the lists (i.e. the "et al."). This is another reason why I felt it was appropriate to explicitly state the origin of UWA-121, because as it stood, I received no acknowledgement. If you click on the hyperlink to the doi's fo ref 6 (UWA-101) or 9 (UWA-121), you will see my name and that I am a corresponding author. As for inventorship, I am the senior chemist on the paper that first discloses UWA-121. There is no other source I can cite to verify my inventorship. UWA-121 could not be patented because of an earlier disclosure of UWA-101, which is too structurally similar to UWA-121 to enable patenting.
I am a Wiki novice and I know very little about html code, but I will have a go at making revisions and adding a note about COI. Thanks for alerting to this etiquette. I'd be grateful if you could vouch for the changes I make in the article's talk page. Piggo the chemist (talk) 10:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you have a conflict of interest whether or not your claim is true or you can prove it. You need to follow the requirements in WP:COI, which includes WP:DISCLOSE.