Larry Melidis Siskin

Biophysicist/mathematician, Postdoc @ Balasubramanian Group CRUK-CI, University of Cambridge.
Interested in dynamic equilibria in the living matter.

[Alex Borodavka @AlexBoRNA]

Please consider joining our interdisciplinary team studying viruses, RNA, and condensates, also if you’d like to move to Cambridge, UK, while this position remains open: https://t.co/XbuJVfQcZZ

[Larry Melidis Siskin @LarryEMS]

https://t.co/krZrHMEyOP

[The Nogales Lab @NogalesLab]

Looking forward to this!

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

A life-saving cancer drug from Cambridge is #ChangingTheStoryOfCancer 💊

Over 140,000 breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic #cancer patients have received olaparib, developed by @SPJacksonGroup @CRUKCamCentre

What's the story behind the drug? 👉 https://t.co/AyAqpVZKex

[Tony Kouzarides Lab @TKLABUK]

Congratulations, Sir Tony! 🤩👇

[Andrew Akbashev @Andrew_Akbashev]

It’s a story of how academia goes wrong. And how it self-corrects.

A must read for everyone:

2020 - A discovery of room-temperature superconductivity is published in Nature by Ranga Dias

2023 - The second RT superconductor is reported by Dias in Nature

2024 - The first paper is retracted. Then the second. No one could replicate his results.

The forth investigation by external experts showed that ‘he concealed information from his students, manipulated them and shut them out of key steps in the research process’.

▫️

The story looks like this:

1. Dias proposed that adding carbon to H3S might lead to RT superconductivity.

2. His PhD students could NOT observe the signs of superconductivity in the samples (no resistivity drop, no susceptibility change).

3. Suddenly, Dias emailed everyone and announced the discovery of RT superconductivity. Students were shocked.

4. The draft was sent to the team at 5.13 p.m. and SUBMITTED to Nature at 8.26 p.m. In just TWO hours! No one had time to read it.

5. Dias told the students he ‘had taken all the resistance and magnetic-susceptibility data before coming to Rochester’.

6. 3 reviewers were concerned. Only one supported publication. It was published on 14 October 2020.

7. A year(!!!) later Dias made raw data publicly available. This prompted data check where ‘data points were separated by suspiciously regular intervals’.

8. Then, Nature initiated post-publication review by 4 experts. Two said there were big problems.

9. Following rebuttal & responses, Nature retracted the manuscript. Dias did NOT tell the students about the post-publication review process and data fabrication concerns.

▫️

Now, the 2nd paper raised concerns about PhD students:

- Dias sent them the draft at 2.09 am and asked for comments by 10.30 am (same day). The draft had NO figures.

- The students convinced Dias to postpone submission by one day.

- The students raised concerns about the pressure data because none of it was “anything that we actually measured”. Dias dismissed it with: “Pressure is a joke.”

- Then ‘Dias gave them an ultimatum: remove their names, or let him send the draft’. It was very intimidating. The students gave in: “What if I [object] and he makes the rest of my life miserable?”

▫️

My conclusions:

1. This situation shows how easily a supervisor can manipulate inexperienced students into publishing and believing the results. I am sure there are many other examples in academia that just haven’t surfaced.

2. All data must be publicly available. Before publication.

3. Nature took the case professionally, asking for extra refereeing and post-publication review multiple times as things were unfolding. BUT it's not so common. I heard many stories where some journals just didn’t care.

4. Finally and MOST importantly - students suffer the most.

As one of them said:

“My thesis is going to be full of fabricated data. How am I supposed to graduate in this lab?”

#academia #PhD #research

[Larry Melidis Siskin @LarryEMS]

https://t.co/rt2cVygRBZ
An elegant way to explore the role of G4s in promoters by the Balasubramanian group! @ACSPublications

[Florian Markowetz @markowetzlab]

In comp bio

Amateurs talk architectures

Professionals talk biology

[Isabel Esain @isabelesain]

Exciting news !!👩🏻‍🔬🧬🧪🥂We CRISPRed DNA structure to hijack a cancer gene! Our mechanistic study shows that DNA structures, rather than DNA sequence, can drive transcription is OUT NOW 🧵1/6
@PNASNews @Cambridge_Uni @CRUK_CI #Epigenetics #CRISPR #Science
https://t.co/FatER1g8Q3

[Nature Biotechnology @NatureBiotech]

KARR-seq reveals cellular higher-order RNA structures and RNA–RNA interactions https://t.co/rAbgewY34q

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

In today's @Nature, a study shows that remote teams produce fewer breakthroughs! Disruptive science is more likely to come from groups working in close collaboration. 'Night science' discussions may require the kind of energy that's communicated in person.
https://t.co/1MVQpMIvWY

[The Lucks Lab @LucksLab]

Exciting Professor of Synthetic Biology/Engineering Biology search at Cambridge University!

Apply! https://t.co/6TVje2ROsP

[Harvard Book Store @HarvardBooks]

Tonight! 🗓️ Thu, Oct 19, 6PM: Theoretical physicist @jimalkhalili discusses his latest book, 'The Joy of Science,' presented with @HarvardSciTalks.

📍 at Hall C of the Harvard Science Center
☑️ Free RSVP at https://t.co/UFVEfeWOxB

[Nature Biotechnology @NatureBiotech]

The chemistry of next-generation sequencing https://t.co/PXVEquudyn

[Maria Alcolea @MariaPAlcolea]

Still time to apply! Join us! Computational researcher post opening in the lab!

[Maria Leptin @mleptin]

Finally!!! A huge and warm welcome back to all researchers in the UK to @ERC_Research

https://t.co/tzBTUihHjd

[Olivier Duss @OlivierDuss]

@Nature: Combining #smFRET and #MDsimulations the Schuler & @rob_best_ labs track the dynamics of different IDRs in condensates across various time- and length scales demonstrating that at atomic scale the dynamics are similar in liquid versus dense phases https://t.co/JgLz4Sho8T

[Mike Hannon @HannonGroup]

We are lucky to have great HPC computational facilities @UoBChemistry @uob_bear. @samdettmer99 has written a short blog about why this has become so important to our research @HannonGroup.

read it here: https://t.co/m8ejZ1Ecnw

#DNA #RNA #Bioinorganic #Supramolecular