Mauro Lago-Docampo

Biologist, Ph.D. & gamer. TFs & ncDNA lover. PostDoc at the Rabinovitch Lab @stanfordCVI. Cloning, iPSCs and chromatin to understand penetrance in #PAH.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

I was definitely not expecting that tweet to hit that hard.

I had to silence the tweet because it was distracting me too much lol, but I will try to reply slowly to whoever is left.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@Dr_5GH Dmed you

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

In January, I reviewed a Review for a crappy MDPI journal.

It was 100% AI, missing citations, etc. I sent a massive report, and the authors withdrew it.

Today, I see it published without a single change in another even crappier MDPI journal.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@VoxBHU @MicrobiomDigest @PhD_Genie Man, English is not even my second language. I use AI to finetune the writing, and I think that is an acceptable use.

The data is 100% generated and analyzed by me.

Writing 100% of a review paper using AI and not citing anything is a completely different issue.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@seekergupta Dming you

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@furryteef One of my collaborators had a paper accepted without putting the figures.

The peer review was 3 reviewers writing two phrases each.

The paper had been rejected from 2 of the top respiratory journals with pretty reasonable comments highlighting the limitations.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@Oggie_A @furryteef This applies to molecular biology/genetics. I have reviewed in quite a few journals from them and the worst by far have been IJMS, Genes and Cells.

The in-house editors are just lenient in accepting papers that do not support their claims. It feels as if they are pressured.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@random_sudani There were a few things:
- Plenty of big words and the cadence you find in AI summaries.
- Very few citations in general and missing a lot of the key contributions, it could have a whole paragraph with maybe one citation.
- The use of the double long hyphen — everywhere.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@MicrobiomDigest @NonwayneWayne I was doubting what to do, for Reviews is not like I caught them faking their data. Is just so badly done and automatically generated that it hurts the field.

Btw, big fan of your work!

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@YvanDutil I can only speak for molecular biology/genetics journals. The worst I have reviewed so far was for the International Journal of Molecular Sciences; it is an absolute shitshow. Genes and Cells have also been very "accept-lenient" 😶‍🌫️

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@drseanmullen I have some collaborators who sent a couple of papers there. When I saw the review comments, I knew the journals were terrible...

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@KoswasCrypto I have tried to reject so many, sometimes they just ignore you and accept it, even if you justify it very well.

But I can only speak of molecular biology related journals (and they have a bunch).

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@KaiPapaDesu0918 @tsuyomiyakawa Maybe I am an idealist trying to lower the amount of junk published.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

I still think MDPI journals can have legit papers every now and then, but they are totally buried in a mountain of low-quality papers and terrible reviews.

Long story short, I avoid citing MDPI stuff in general because they ignore reviewers.

[Cristina Muñoz Pinedo @crismunozp]

Are we using the scarce ERC money in the most efficient way?

I argue in the Times Higher Education (THE) that this may not be the best distribution for keeping talent in Europe:

[Confederación de Sociedades Científicas de España @COSCEorg]

🔬 “La ciencia no puede operar con la lógica de una oficina municipal”

Rafael Vázquez, investigador en @IISLaFe y miembro de la Comisión COSCE de estudio de la burocracia, explica en @el_pais las trabas que sufre la #investigación en España y reivindica las propuestas del Manifiesto COSCE por un SECTI más eficiente.

https://t.co/1A0nJhMODG

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@James_West_PhD Thank you! I will have to test this one with them

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

I find it hilarious that I was able to get better Sanger sequencing in Spain than in the Bay.

Now, I have to choose between the core facility giving me the worst peaks ever seen by mankind, or Quintara, which is like gambling, either decent or absolute crap.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@rebelempiricist @James_West_PhD I do plenty of nanopore these days, but if I am generating monoclonal lines after CRISPR, even a marginal error can mislead me into amplifying a clone with abnormalities and waste a lot of time. So I do Sanger to screen all clones for the locus I edit.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

@James_West_PhD Thank you James. Any recommendation is appreciated.
We have a blanket PO with them because they used to be reliable when I joined, but this year, I have no clue what they are doing. The number of times I have to ask them to redo things is crazy.

[Mauro Lago-Docampo @MuruLago]

Same amplicon, same primers, our core in Spain vs Quintara 😂

Maybe they are sequencing the DNA from outside the tube instead of the one inside.