Gel (see footnote at end for a brief description of gels aimed at non-biologists) splicing is a term that describes the cutting and pasting of images of lanes (where 1 lane = 1 sample) and placing the images of the lanes in a different order or even combining lanes from different gels. A more extreme form is to simply shift the subsection of the lane, corresponding to the probed molecule, from one lane to the next.
This is wrong and it always has been. However, in post publication peer review on PubPeer, it is often defended, particularly for “older” papers, from a decade or more ago. This then raises arguments about what was acceptable then and are we shifting the goalposts of scientific integrity? The matter has even been a “Topic” on PubPeer. (more…)
Archive for January 6th, 2015
Why gel splicing is not OK
Posted in Biochemistry, Imaging, Post publication peer review, Research integrity, Science publishing, tagged Gel electrophoresis, protein chemistry, Research integrity, Science fraud, Science progress, Western blotting on January 6, 2015| 6 Comments »
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