Science 6 March 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5919, pp. 1280 - 1281
DOI: 10.1126/science.323.5919.1280
News of the Week
SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT:
Retractions Put Spotlight on China's Part-Time Professor System
Hao Xin
BEIJING--Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a slippery subject: In herbal concoctions, it's often difficult to discern active compounds from fillers and contaminants. Sorting wheat from chaff is all the harder when data themselves are concocted. In the latest scandal to grip Chinese academia, Zhejiang University (Zheda) in Hangzhou last November fired an associate professor in a recently established TCM research lab after finding him guilty of scientific misconduct, the university said in a statement. Three journal articles have been retracted so far out of eight that the university has charged contain plagiarized or fabricated data. Since then, more questionable papers have come to light.
本周新闻
论文撤稿凸显中国教授兼职制度之弊端
《科学》2009年3月6日
Vol. 323. no. 5919, pp. 1280 - 1281
郝炘
北京——传统中医药是难以捉摸的研究领域：通常很难在草药掺杂物中将活性物质从填充物和污染物中分离出来。如果实验数据是掺杂编造的，那就更是艰难如大海捞针。最近，一件丑闻引起了中国学术界的关注：地处杭州的浙江大学（浙大）去年11月开除了一名发现有科研不端行为的任职于新成立不久的中药实验室的副教授。已有八篇论文被浙大指控剽窃或伪造数据，至今，其中三篇期刊论文已被撤稿。随后，还有更多可疑论文也已被曝光。
The case, which came to national attention in February, could have widespread fallout. Some observers criticize Zheda for firing the junior researcher, He Haibo, before the investigation is complete. "I don't think Zhejiang University handled the case properly," says Zhang Haixia, a professor at Peking (Beijing) University who led a misconduct inquiry a few years back. "What about the responsibility of the corresponding author?" asks Zhang. The handling of the case has sparked an outcry in Chinese media and on the Internet focused on the senior scientist who established the TCM lab and, more broadly, on a system that critics say gives power but little accountability to academicians.
此事件于二月份引起全国关注，可能会造成广泛影响。一些观察家们批评浙大在调查结束前就将低资历研究人员贺海波予以开除。“我认为浙江大学处理此事不妥。”几年前曾牵头一项学术不端调查的北京大学教授张海霞说。“通讯作者的责任该怎么负？”张海霞问。浙大对此事的处理激起了中国媒体和互联网上的强烈抗议，主要针对创建中药实验室的那位高资历科学家，更广泛地说，针对批评者所说的给予院士权力却很少让其负责的制度。
In 2004, Zheda recruited Li Lianda, who was elected the previous year as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, to be part-time dean of its College of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Li, an expert on TCM modernization, also set up a lab at Zheda and has supported it with a 5-year, $430,000 grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology to study TCM drugs for cardiovascular disease. But Li spends most of his time in his main lab in Beijing, where official meetings require his presence, as he has explained to Chinese media.
2004年，浙大聘请了上一年刚当选中国工程院院士的李连达担任其药学院的兼职院长。中药现代化专家李连达还在浙大成立了实验室，并提供了来自科技部的五年共43万美元资金，用于研究治疗心血管疾病的中药。不过，李连达却将大部分时间花在他在北京的主实验室，如他对中国媒体所解释的，一些正式会议要求他在北京出席。
He Haibo joined the Hangzhou lab as its first postdoc in July 2006 after receiving a Ph.D. from China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing 1 month earlier. Judging from his publication record, He was a dynamo. Between April and November 2007, he submitted eight manuscripts on which he was first author to international journals; all appeared in print in 2007 or 2008. According to a Chinese reporter who tracked down a former grad student in the lab, He was well-liked because he helped students fulfill the college's requirement that Ph.D. candidates publish one first-authored and at least a second paper in a journal in the Science Citation Index database. (Since 2006, Zheda has published more indexed papers than has any other Chinese university.) As a reward for He's remarkable productivity, Zheda hired him as an associate professor last July.
贺海波从在杭州的中国药科大学获得博士学位一个月后，2006年6月成为李连达杭州实验室的第一个博士后。从论文发表记录来看，贺海波相当高产。2007年4月到11月，他向国际期刊提交了八篇他作为第一作者的论文手稿，全部于2007年或2008年发表。据采访到该实验室前研究生的一名中国记者报道，贺海波很受欢迎，因为他帮学生们完成了学院要求的博士候选人需在科学引文索引收录的杂志上发表一篇第一作者论文和至少另一篇论文。（自2006年起，浙大发表的索引论文比其他任何一个中国大学都多。）作为对贺海波非凡高产的回报，浙大去年7月聘任他为副教授。
Figure 1 In the crossfire. Academician Li Lianda remotely oversees a lab that has been shaken by allegations of plagiarism.
CREDIT: HE TAO/SCIENCE NEWS
图一 深陷困境。李连达院士在外地遥控的实验室受到剽窃指控的冲击。
Things quickly unraveled for He. In October, an editor at the International Journal of Cardiology came across a paper in Phytotherapy Research with figures and tables similar to those in a manuscript IJC was about to publish. The manuscript reported a study on two molecules in a signaling pathway involved in irregular heart palpitations caused by inflamed cardio muscles in rats, whereas the published paper is about the same pathway during a heart attack. On 11 October, the editor contacted the manuscript's senior author, pharmacologist Dai De-Zai of China Pharmaceutical University, for an explanation, according to Dai's blog. Dai--who was He's Ph.D. adviser--wrote in his blog that he was surprised to see that his former student had, as Dai alleged, plagiarized graphs, tables, and texts from his lab. In his blog, Dai says he got in touch with the executive vice dean of Zheda's pharmacology school and contacted the journal that published He's paper. Contacted by e-mail, Dai declined to provide further comment.
贺海波很快被揭穿。10月份，《国际心血管》（IJC）杂志编辑读到《本草疗法研究》杂志上的一篇论文，其图表跟IJC即将出版的一份手稿中的相似。【??手稿报告了两种分子在某信号通道中涉及小鼠心肌发炎引起的不规则心悸的研究，而已发表的论文是关于心脏病发作时的同一信号通道。??】10月11日，该编辑联系了手稿的高资历作者、中国药科大学药理学家戴德哉，要求予以解释（据戴德哉博客）。戴德哉是贺海波的博士导师。他在博客中写道，他对发现其前学生剽窃（戴所指控）其实验室的插图、表格、文字感到震惊。在博客中，戴说他联系了浙大药学院常务副院长，并联系了发表贺的论文的杂志。经电子邮件联系，戴拒绝提供进一步评论。
According to a Zheda statement received by Science on 13 February, the college confronted He on 16 October; administrators asked him to retract the fraudulent paper, reflect on his mistakes, and apologize to his former adviser. Ten days later, according to the statement, He submitted a self-criticism essay in which he cleared Li of any knowledge of his wrongdoing and then left the college. To protect privacy, the university says, it is not making He's essay public. Zheda President Yang Wei told Chinese media that He, in his self-criticism, said he committed misconduct because he was desperate for a faculty position, which would enable him to remain at Zheda and earn a living. After ascertaining that He had e-mailed the requisite retraction to Phytotherapy Research, Zheda says, the university fired him on 13 November. He Haibo could not be reached by telephone and did not respond to e-mail messages.
据《科学》于2月13日收到的一份浙大声明，药学院于去年10月16日与贺海波谈话；领导要求他撤回造假论文，反省错误，并向其前导师道歉。声明说，贺十天后交了一份检讨书，澄清了李连达对其不正当行为不知情，然后离开了药学院。浙大说，为了保护隐私，浙大不公开贺的检讨书。浙大校长杨卫对中国媒体说，贺在其检讨书中说，他为获得教职以留在浙大并养家糊口，铤而走险犯下了错误。在确信贺已经发电子邮件要求从《本草疗法研究》撤稿后，浙大于11月13日将其开除。《科学》通过电话联系不上贺海波，且未收到其电子邮件回复。
The story did not end there. Li and his lab came under fire on the Internet. On 23 October, an anonymous posting on New Threads (www.xysforum.org) alleged that Li's Zheda lab published duplicate articles in Pharmacological Research and Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology. Apparently, before he disappeared, He e-mailed both journals to retract the papers, giving "duplicate publication" as the reason, according to e-mails provided to Science. The journal editors alerted Zheda to the retractions. Three days later, another anonymous posting on New Threads alleged that the duplicate papers, along with a third in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, contain fabricated data.
此事并未就此结束。李连达及其实验室在互联网上饱受抨击。10月23日，新语丝发布一份匿名指控李连达实验室在《本草疗法研究》和《Naunyn-Schmiedeberg药理学文献》一稿两投的帖子。据提供给《科学》的电子邮件，贺海波显然在失踪前电子邮件通知两杂志撤稿，理由是一稿两投。杂志编辑通知了浙大撤稿一事。三天后，新语丝发布另一份匿名指控一稿两投的帖子，同时还指控发表在《药理学杂志》上的第三篇论文含有假造数据。
The postings caught the eye of Zhu Guo-Guang, a TCM practitioner in Oulu, Finland. Zhu downloaded the three papers for a closer look and says he found fabricated data "written in black and white." To Zhu, the alleged misconduct is a big blow to TCM research. "Fake research worsens the reputation of traditional Chinese medicine," he says. As a vice chair of the Pan European Federation of TCM Societies, Zhu says he felt a responsibility to report his findings to the three journals and to Zheda. Zhu assembled the evidence and mailed hard copies to the journal editors and to Yang Wei in mid-November. As Chinese netizens turned up more questionable journal articles from Li's Hangzhou lab, Zhu set up a blog to post his analysis and provide updates.
这些帖子引起了芬兰奥卢中医从业者祝国光的注意。祝下载了这三篇论文仔细研究。他说，他发现假造数据“白纸黑字”。在祝看来，被指控的不端行为对中医药研究是大冲击。“假研究损害中医声誉。”他说。作为全欧中医药协会联合会副主席，祝说他感到有责任将他的发现报告给三家杂志和浙大。祝于11月中旬整理好证据，将复印件邮寄给杂志编辑们和杨卫。中国网友们找到来自李连达实验室的更多可疑期刊论文，祝也开通了博客以发布他的分析并提供更新。
Figure 2 Vanishing data. Three of at least eight challenged papers have been withdrawn or corrected.
图二 数据消失。至少八篇被质疑论文中的三篇已被撤销或更正。
Zhu's allegations grabbed national attention after they were reported in a 3 February article in the Chinese newspaper 21st Century Business Herald. Zheda issued a statement the next day, laying the blame on He and stating that Li's name had been given as a coauthor of the fraudulent papers without Li's authorization. Yang Wei says he is now personally sending out retraction requests.
祝国光的指控于2月3日被中文报纸《21世纪经济报道》报道，随后获得了全国关注。浙大次日发布声明，将过错归于贺海波，并声明，李连达的名字被作为造假论文的共同作者未经李连达授权。
Meanwhile, more anonymous postings appeared on New Threads; Zheda now says that 19 publications allegedly have problems, including papers from Li's lab at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing and by other members of the Hangzhou lab that did not include He as an author.
同时，新语丝上出现了更多的匿名帖子。浙大现在说有19篇论文被指控有问题，包括来自李连达在北京的中国中医科学院的实验室的论文，以及贺海波并非作者的杭州实验室其他成员的论文。
A team led by Harold Garner of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has analyzed several papers and added them to the Déjà vu database of extremely similar publications (spore.swmed.edu/dejavu/duplicate/74404/); also see entries 75181 through 75184. "We try to provide the most unbiased data possible which an appropriate body, such as an editorial board or a university ethics board, can use to make their own evaluations," says Garner.
【??此段似与全文无关??】
The scandal has prompted fresh debate about moonlighting by academicians. Many, like Li, hold two or more positions in addition to their main job, often in different cities as part-time deans or lab chiefs. Universities eagerly recruit academicians because these elite scientists advise various levels of government on research and funding priorities, review grants, and evaluate achievements. At least two-thirds of Zheda's 15 science and engineering deans are such part-timers.
这件丑闻激起了前所未有的关于院士兼职现象的辩论。象李连达这样，很多院士在其本职之外，还拥有两个或更多职位，通常都在不同的城市当兼职院长或实验室主任。各大学热衷于聘请院士们，因为这些精英科学家们在科研和基金优先权、资金审核、成果验收等方面为各级政府提供意见。浙大15个科学和工程方面的院长中，至少有三分之二是这种兼职院士。
Li acknowledges that he visits Hangzhou only a half-dozen times a year, spends 3 to 5 days in the college, and has only 1 day for his five or six grad students in the TCM lab. Wu Limao, who received his Ph.D. from Li's Beijing lab in 2004, ran the lab's day-to-day operations until August 2008 when Wu left to spend 2 years as a visiting researcher at Yale University. Li says that, as a victim of He's fraud, he has become a subject of investigation.
李连达承认，他每年仅去杭州五六次，每次在药学院花三五天，其中仅有一天见他在中药实验室的五、六个研究生。实验室的日常运作原由2004年在李连达北京实验室获得博士学位的吴理茂负责，直到2008年8月吴前往耶鲁大学作两年的访问学者。李连达说，他作为贺海波造假的一名受害人，他已经成为调查对象。
In the meantime, Zheda has expanded its probe and has asked Wu to return to Hangzhou to answer some questions. Wu is corresponding author on eight papers that Zheda has found to be fraudulent and first or corresponding author of other papers called into question. According to a preliminary investigation report received by Science on 25 February, the university faults Wu for not reviewing the papers before publication. Wu declined to comment for this article.
同时，浙大已经扩大了调查范围，要求吴理茂返回杭州回答一些问题。吴是浙大已经发现造假的8篇论文的通讯作者，也是其他出现问题的论文的第一或通讯作者。据2月25日《科学》收到的初步调查报告，浙大认为吴的错误在于论文发表前没有审核。吴拒绝就本文发表评论。
The saga is inflicting collateral damage on researchers who have collaborated with Li's labs. Phytotherapy Research Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Williamson says the journal is preparing to retract more articles from Li's labs and has held up all manuscripts with authors whose names appear on suspicious papers, pending Zheda's further investigation. "I don't want to penalize honest people, but it's getting difficult to know who to trust these days," she says.
这件带有传奇色彩的事件正在对与李连达实验室合作的研究人员造成附带损害。《本草疗法研究》主编Elizabeth Williamson说，该杂志正准备将来自李连达实验室的更多论文撤稿，并且扣下了名字曾出现在可疑论文上的作者的手稿，以等待浙大的进一步调查。她说：“我并不想惩罚诚实的人，可是，这年头越来越难搞明白谁能信得过。”