ICMR Virology Head accused of plagiarism, denies allegations

New Delhi: The head of virology at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been accused of doing image manipulation and plagiarism in two research papers that they co-authored.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Print on the matter, the researcher has denied the allegations.

One of the two papers was co-authored by the researcher along with JNU researchers.

The first paper, "Epidemiology and molecular typing of Candida isolates from burn patients", was in the journal in Mycopathologia in 2004. And the second one was a review published in the International Journal of Biomedical and Advance Research in 2015.

A Dutch microbiologist and scientific research integrity expert raised the allegations about the paper on Saturday in PubPeer.

PubPeer is a website that is used by academics to post their concerns about peer-reviewed published papers. The same concerns were raised by the microbiologist on the social media platform, Twitter.

The first paper was done in a duration of 2 years, describing the Candida infections in burn patients.

The abstract of the paper states, "fingerprinting analyses of all the C. Albicans strains revealed that strains collected from different patients were different."

DNA fingerprinting is a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of living things. DNA fingerprints are ideally unique and the fingerprints of two organisms might be similar but cannot be identical.

The Dutch-based researcher however mentioned that several columns in the DNA fingerprint analysis images presented in the paper were identical to each even though they were from different experimental groups.

The co-authors of the paper were researchers from the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi.

However, the ICMR virology head denied any manipulation of images being done in the work. She stated that she did the work while pursuing PHD from JNU and while working at Safdarjung Hospital in 2004, adding that she was guided by the head of the Burns & Plastic Surgery Department. The latter was one of the research authors who along with her PhD guide at JNU could access all raw data generated in the experiments.

The ICMR virology head spoke to the Print, "Some of the columns that look repeated correspond to different swab samples taken from different body locations of the same patient. "

The second set of columns in the figure for instance consists of the fingerprints that look identical which are oral, wound, tissue biopsy and blood samples from patient number 23.

She said, "This means that the Candida infection has invaded the bloodstream in burn patients, who are immunocompromised and had caused septicaemia, which is why the fingerprints are identical."

The researcher added that when the paper was published, it was path-breaking as it one of the first in India to document the spread of Candida infections in the burns ward. She added that the findings helped in saving many lives since dooctors now know that antifungals have to be given in septicaemic burn patients when they do not respond to antibiotics.

The dutch based researcher who flagged the allegations, noted that the second paper consisted of plagiarism from different research papers.

Responding to the allegations of the second paper, the Virology head noted that the second one is a review compiled for the health ministry in which she was neither the first nor the corresponding author. She said, "This was not our original research, but a review of existing research. In review articles, we quote other research papers."

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