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Doctored (book)
''Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's'' is a 2025 non-fiction book by investigative journalist Charles Piller about scientific misconduct in Alzheimer's disease research. Synopsis ''Doctored'' explores alleged image manipulation in studies used to promote simufilam as an Alzheimer's treatment as well as the retraction of Sylvain Lesné's seminal research supporting the amyloid hypothesis. Reception ''Publishers Weekly'' characterized ''Doctored'' as "a troubling look at the corruption of Big Science." James Ball of ''The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...'' praised the depth of Piller's reporting, calling the book "compulsory reading" for science policymakers, but described some portions of the writing as "repe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Piller
Charles Piller is an American investigative journalist and author who writes for ''Science'' magazine . He has published books on the history of both biological warfare and Alzheimer's disease. Journalism Prior to writing at ''Science'', Piller was an associate editor at ''Macworld'' magazine and wrote for the ''Los Angeles Times'', the STAT website, and ''The Sacramento Bee''. At the ''Times'', he investigated the impact of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Africa. In July 2022, he authored an article in ''Science'' that investigated allegations of research fraud at Cassava Sciences in the development of the drug simufilam, and questioned the authenticity of images used in Sylvain Lesné's research on Alzheimer's disease; Lesné was formerly at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Center for Public Integrity Along with Charles Lewis and Alejandro Benes, Piller was a founding member of the Center for Public Integrity, where he served as board chair. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Misconduct
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly method, scholarly conduct and ethics, ethical behavior in the publication of professional science, scientific research. It is the violation of scientific integrity: violation of the scientific method and of research ethics in science, including in the design of experiments, design, experiment, conduct, and scientific literature, reporting of research. A ''The Lancet, Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries'' provides the following sample definitions, reproduced in The COPE report 1999: * Danish definition: "Intention or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist" * Swedish definition: "Intention[al] distortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another researcher's manuscript form or publication; or distortion of the research process in other ways. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation (including easily getting lost), mood swings, loss of motivation, self-neglect, and behavioral issues. As a person's condition declines, they often withdraw from family and society. Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death. Although the speed of progression can vary, the average life expectancy following diagnosis is three to twelve years. The causes of Alzheimer's disease remain poorly understood. There are many environmental and genetic risk factors associated with its development. The strongest genetic risk factor is from an allele of apolipoprotein E. Other risk factors include a history of head injury, clinical depression, and high blood pressure. The progression of the di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atria Publishing Group
Atria Publishing Group is a general interest publisher and a division of Simon & Schuster. The publishing group launched as Atria Books in 2002. The Atria Publishing Group was later created internally at Simon & Schuster to house a number of imprints including Atria Books, Atria Trade Paperbacks, Atria Books Espanol, Atria Unbound, Washington Square Press, Emily Bestler Books, Atria/Beyond Words, Cash Money Content, Howard Books, Marble Arch Press, Strebor Books, 37 Ink, Keywords Press and Enliven Books. Atria is also known for creating innovative imprints and co-publishing deals with African-American writers as well as known for experimenting with digital or non-traditional print formats and authors. As of 2021, Libby McGuire is the Publisher and Senior Vice President of the Atria Publishing Group. Early years The Atria Books imprint was launched in 2002 by Judith Curr. According to a ''Publishers Weekly'' interview with Curr marking the imprint's 10th anniversary, the name At ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as casebound (At p. 247.)) book is one bookbinding, bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally Calf-binding, leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Overview Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassava Sciences
Cassava Sciences is an American pharmaceutical company based in Austin, Texas. The company was developing simufilam (previously known as PTI-125 and sumifilam), an oral-tablet drug candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Development of simufilam was discontinued in November 2024 after it failed to show clinical benefit in phase III clinical trials. In June 2024, the United States Department of Justice charged an advisor to Cassava Sciences, Hoau-Yan Wang, with fraud over research results related to the experimental drug. Less than a month later, the president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board, Remi Barbier, resigned along with Lindsay Burns, his wife, who was a Cassava senior vice president and Wang's co-author. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges in September 2024 against Cassava, Barbier, Burns and Wang. The parties did not admit wrongdoing, but a settlement of the SEC charges, pending court approval, would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simufilam
Simufilam (PTI-125) is an experimental medication for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It was being developed by the American pharmaceutical firm Cassava Sciences. Development of simufilam was discontinued in November 2024 after it failed to show clinical benefit during phase III clinical trials. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received a citizen petition in August 2021 to stop the clinical trials and investigate Cassava Sciences. Scientists questioned the preclinical results, citing the small sample size, alleged methodological flaws in an ''in vitro'' technique, alleged manipulations of western blot images and potential conflict of interest. After the FDA said that the citizen petition was the improper procedure to request an investigation, Reuters reported in July 2022 that a criminal investigation of Cassava Sciences was started by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) over research results related to the experimental drug. The U.S. Securities and Ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retraction In Academic Publishing
In academic publishing, a retraction is a mechanism by which a published paper in an academic journal is flagged for being seriously flawed to the extent that their results and conclusions can no longer be relied upon. Retracted articles are not removed from the published literature but marked as retracted. In some cases it may be necessary to remove an article from publication, such as when the article is clearly defamatory, violates personal privacy, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a serious health risk to the general public. Although the majority of retractions are linked to scientific misconduct, they are often cited as evidence of the self-correcting nature of science. However, some scholars argue this view is misleading, describing it as a myth. Procedure A retraction may be initiated by the editors of a journal, or by the author(s) of the papers (or their institution). Retractions are typically accompanied by a retraction notice written by the editors or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvain Lesné
Sylvain E. Lesné (born 1974) is a French neuroscientist and former associate professor at the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota (UMN) Medical School, known for his research into Alzheimer's disease. He is the primary author of a controversial 2006 ''Nature'' paper, "A specific amyloid-β protein assembly in the brain impairs memory". Lesné's work in the 2006 publication and others has been investigated since June 2022 on charges that he manipulated images to inflate the role of Aβ*56 in Alzheimer's. Retracted in 2024, the paper was foundational in the hypothesis that one specific toxic oligomer of the amyloid beta protein, known as Aβ*56, caused memory impairment in Alzheimer's, aligned with the prevailing amyloid hypothesis. Karen Ashe, the senior author of the 2006 ''Nature'' paper – and all authors except Lesné – agreed to retract the paper which, according to Retraction Watch, makes it the second most highly cited paper ever retracted. Respons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amyloid Hypothesis
The biochemistry of Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia, is not yet very well understood. Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been identified as a proteopathy: a protein misfolding disease due to the accumulation of abnormally folded amyloid beta (Aβ) protein in the brain. Amyloid beta is a short peptide that is an abnormal proteolytic byproduct of the transmembrane protein amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP), whose function is unclear but thought to be involved in neuronal development. The presenilins are components of proteolytic complex involved in APP processing and degradation. Amyloid beta monomers are soluble and contain short regions of beta sheet and polyproline II helix secondary structures in solution, though they are largely alpha helical in membranes; however, at sufficiently high concentration, they undergo a dramatic conformational change to form a beta sheet-rich tertiary structure that aggregates to form amyloid fibrils. These fibrils and oligomeric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling." With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews. History Nineteenth century The magazine was founded by bibliographer Frederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s and had various titles until Leypoldt settled on the name ''The Publishers' Weekly'' (with an apostrophe) in 1872. The publication was a compilation of information about newly published books, collected from publishers and from other sources by Leypoldt, for an audience of booksellers. By 1876, ''The Publishers' Weekly'' was being read by nine tenths of the booksellers in the country. In 1878, Leypoldt sold ''The Publishers' Weekly'' to his friend Richard Rogers Bowker, in order to free up time for his other bibliographic endeavors. Augu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
