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A strong controversy is the one that is shaking the world of science in Chile after the German researcher Leonid Schneider accuse his colleague, the Chilean scientist Claudio Hetz, of having edited scientific images of publications.
The accusation was published in a lengthy article called The ballad of Claudio Hetz three days ago on the For Better Science site and recently picked up by national media. In detail, Hetz, who is the current director of the Millennium Institute for Biomedical Neuroscience (BNI), would have altered several research images from 2002 to 2020.
“Hetz is an artist, a blues musician, but his artistic talent does not end there: he is also a professor of neuroscience, his goal is to save the lives of those suffering from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. And don’t hesitate: Hetz achieves it thanks to his creativity. And Photoshop “, the scientist author of the accusation presents with irony.
As shown in images collected in studies of the Chilean author, he would have “copied and pasted”, edited and not verified, several images that support the results of his research. Schenider’s accusations also point to his colleague, the German physicist Herbert Kroemer, who received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 shared with other authors.
Leonid Schenider, a molecular cell biologist with particular expertise in stem cells and responses to molecular stress, currently working as a freelance science journalist, In his publication, he also criticized the lack of rigor of the scientists and editors in the area who published the Chilean’s articles.
Why would Hetz edit the images? The German author assured that these editions would have been made to “satisfy those small requirements of the magazines”, among other unknown motivations.
Hetz and his relationship with the Minister of Sciences
However, a “detail” that had gone unnoticed so far is that the current Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, Andrés Couve, is listed as one of the co-authors of one of the investigations allegedly altered.
In this article, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, Couve appears on the list of the twenty scientists who worked, verified and contributed to the research.
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Among them, there are also other scientists who worked on the research published in July 18 from the Institute of Biomedical Neurosciences (BNI), Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile: Hery Urra, José Cánovas, Amado Carreras-Sureda, Eduardo Pulgar, Younis M. Hazari, Celia M. Limia, Ricardo Figueroa, Rene L. Vidal, Claudia A. Rivera, Miguel L. Concha, as well as Andrés Couve and Claudio Hetz.
BNI Response
So far, the two aforementioned Chilean scientists have not publicly referred to the issue. For its part, the BNI issued a statement. “The aforementioned sayings correspond to partial and malicious comments spread on a blog “They responded from the investigation body.
“All published ISI manuscripts go through an extensive and rigorous review process,” they wrote but also added: “However, they are not 100% infallible and certain errors may not be detected in the internal review process, or in the peer review process.”
Release
In this regard, the molecular biologist and popularizer of science, Gabriel LeonHe told the newspaper El Mercurio that “errors exist, it is not an invention”; however, he estimated that this situation “it’s bad”. “Not only does it impact these investigations and their authors, but it also affects the credibility of science”, estimated.
“It is serious not because one believes that there is fraud, but because it shows that something is happening there that causes the information to not be presented in a good way“, Expanded the scientific communicator.
“Here there were errors that Claudio and the editors of the magazines ignored,” he said, adding that “one would expect that in a laboratory of that level, with the resources it receives, the control of the integrity of the data would be perfect”.
Until now, Minister Andrés Couve has not referred to the issue. Still, less than a week ago he had congratulated Claudio Hetz and his team for being recognized worldwide for their publications.
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It should be remembered that, according to the page of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, Claudio Hetz is a tenured professor, participates in the Cell Biology program of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Center for Cell Molecular Studies (CEMC) and has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, MA, USA).
In the same way, he is Alternate Director of the Institute of Biomedical Neuroscience of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile.
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