Chinese scientists leave posts after whistle-blower raises alarm over their research

Three more senior Chinese scientists have been disciplined by their universities after a high-profile blogger raised red flags about their research.Nankai University in Tianjin announced on Saturday that Chen Quan had been removed as dean of its College of Life Sciences.The university said that Chen, as a corresponding author, failed to properly oversee the quality and authenticity of experimental data in a paper published in Nature Cancer in 2024.Meanwhile, Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou said Kang Tiebang had been removed as deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, and Kuang Dongming was no longer associate dean of its School of Life Sciences.The university said Kang was the corresponding author for a paper published in Cell-biology" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="132141" data-entity-type="organization">Nature Cell Biology in 2020 that had various data and image errors.Kuang was accused of similar misconduct associated with three papers published in Cell-biology" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="132141" data-entity-type="organization">Nature Cell Biology, Science Advances and Cell.