Thread by @Ayjchan

"The Guangdong (pangolin CoV) strains, which were isolated or sequenced by different research groups from smuggled pangolins, have 99.8% sequence identity with each other."

I wonder how that could happen!

nature.com/articles/s4157…

Let me clear this up. The same senior authors have repeatedly published this -singular- batch of pangolin samples. Did they actually isolate the virus in culture? If so, why not share this with other researchers worldwide? See details here: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Pro-tip for scientists: if you have one set of hot data, you should keep re-sampling that data in various ways, re-sequencing it, combining different samples, making up new samples (sans data), and submitting the data to different journals so none of them can make sense of it.

This way, you'll have multiple peer-reviewed articles on your CV for several years while you apply, successfully, for grants and jobs. The journals won't even know what to do with this blatant disrespect for science.

I've seen/heard of misconduct during my trainee years as a postdoc (thankfully, I had a 100% awesome PhD training + my current postdoc, science = science 🔥💕🧪)... but the GD pangolin CoV data falsification is next level.

I'd like to know who are the peer reviewers who reviewed this paper and our preprint, and what professional feedback you were able to provide to the journal. Do you need some responsible conduct of research training? biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

This could be helpful to you: "Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record." ori.hhs.gov/definition-mis…

This is one reason why I strongly advocate for peer reviews to be public, even if anonymized, alongside author responses. I want to see what the experts have said about the work. I want to see how the authors have responded to the reviews.

If there are top scientists who think it is acceptable to intentionally obscure/falsify data, without making strong efforts to protect the integrity of research - correcting inaccuracies+unsubstantiated conclusions in peer-reviewed top journals...

I want to know who you are.

"Detection of RaTG13, RmYN02 and pangolin coronaviruses implies that diverse coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 are circulating in wildlife."

Can I point out that ALL of these SARS2-like CoVs were only unveiled in 2020?

And that none of these or -any- of the dozens/100s of SARS-like CoVs have exhibited an S1/S2 furin cleavage site? Only distantly related CoVs (e.g. MERS), and artificially engineered SARS?

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1266805310313967617

Sure, other human CoVs like MERS have an S1/S2 FCS site (PRSVR). But no other beta b lineage CoV (including dozens, maybe 100s, of SARS-CoV sampled from nature) has been found with such a site. Finding a PRRAR in SARS2 is like finding a unicorn.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1267091572857995264?s=20

Looks completely natural to me.

Totally natural.

Totally natural.

Many animals have horns naturally, so why are people making such a big deal out of unicorns?

According to Google, Xiao et al. @Nature has been cited 103 times; Liu et al. @PLoSPathogens has been cited 73x. Both were preprinted in Feb, accepted, and made available by the journals in May. Our preprint finally made available in July - cited 3 times. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Should I make public the emails and responses from these authors from May and July of this year before the journals have a good wake-up call as to what to do in situations where research integrity has been breached?

To the peer reviewers and others who are enabling misinformation/research misconduct... you think this is a one-time thing. It's not. One small lie leads into multiple small lies. Multiple small lies lead into multiple big lies. It won't stop until it reaches epic proportions.

My tweets barely reach anyone on the grand scale of things, but if anyone knows who are the peer reviewers of these pangolin CoV papers, will you please reach out to them and encourage them to tell the journals how important it is for data to be reported accurately and honestly?

Tell the peer reviewers to send the journals another email, today & every other day, telling them how important it is to correct/retract papers that engaged in research misconduct, whether by intention or severe negligence.

It is not okay for 100s of papers to use this data.

Since July...

How can you have different "strains" when these sequences were assembled using the same datasets and/or samples?!

The Xiao et al. genome (GISAID: EPI_ISL_410721) and Liu et al. genome MP789 (GenBank; updated on May 18) share 99.95% nucleotide identity.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…