ReviewNucleic acids research2022
Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills.
Review in Nucleic acids research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolutionary and functional constraints structure human gene research visibility.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Machine learning based screening of potential paper mill publications in cancer research: methodological and cross sectional study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Article
- Fake publications in biomedical science: red-flagging method indicates mass production.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Reply to Singer: Strike paper mills at the root.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- More science friction for less science fiction.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- The undeclared use of third-party service providers in academic publishing is unethical: an epistemic reflection and scoping review.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- A call for research to address the threat of paper mills.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Finding the truth in science.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2024Article
- Verification of nucleotide sequence reagent identities in original publications in high impact factor cancer research journals.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- Large-scale falsification of research papers risks public trust in biomedical sciences.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2024Article
- Article
- Meta-Research: understudied genes are lost in a leaky pipeline between genome-wide assays and reporting of results.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Distortion of journal impact factors in the era of paper mills.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Human gene research generates new biology insights with translational potential, yet few studies have considered the health of the human gene literature. The accessibility of human genes for targeted research, combined with unreasonable publication pressures and recent developments in scholarly publishing, may have created a market for low-quality or fraudulent human gene research articles, including articles produced by contract cheating organizations known as paper mills. This review summarises the evidence that paper mills contribute to the human gene research literature at scale and outlines why targeted gene research may be particularly vulnerable to systematic research fraud. To raise awareness of targeted gene research from paper mills, we highlight features of problematic manuscripts and publications that can be detected by gene researchers and/or journal staff. As improved awareness and detection could drive the further evolution of paper mill-supported publications, we also propose changes to academic publishing to more effectively deter and correct problematic publications at scale. In summary, the threat of paper mill-supported gene research highlights the need for all researchers to approach the literature with a more critical mindset, and demand publications that are underpinned by plausible research justifications, rigorous experiments and fully transparent reporting.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.