Unusual Fraud Claim Against Scientific Co-Author Over Alleged Research Problems Fizzles Out
From Judge Wendy Beetlestone’s opinion today in Pratico v. Giannopoulos (E.D. Pa.):
According to his Complaint, well-pleaded allegations from which are taken as true, Praticò is a professor at Temple University, where he researches “clinical pharmacology ….” Giannopoulos graduated from Temple with a PhD in 2015. While he was at Temple, Praticò served as his advisor, and he conducted original research in Praticò’s lab, which helped form the basis for his doctoral dissertation. Praticò also helped Giannopoulos publish that data, including in a journal from Springer Nature Academic Publishing … in 2018 and 2019.
As part of that process, the parties communicated via email, and Praticò notified Giannopoulos that his data was being put together and that he would “be in the authorship.” The first article lists Praticò and Giannopoulos as authors, while the second article lists them and another person named Jian Chiu as authors. Giannopoulos allowed the Springer Nature papers to be featured on his profile on the website ResearchGate.
In March 2020, individuals challenged the accuracy of the data underlying these articles on a website called Pubpeer. Praticò responded by “email[ing] Dr. Giannopoulos to schedule a conversation.” Giannopoulos did not, at this point, “say anything about [the] authorship” of these papers. Later, in 2023, further criticism of Giannopoulos’s work came out.
In response to an inquiry from Springer Nature, Giannopoulos’s attorney sent a letter to its Associate Editor and Publisher, which insisted that: (1) his “name was placed as the lead author [of these papers] without his consent, nor was he informed of the submission of these manuscripts;” (2) he “has never met, worked with, and cannot identify” Chiu; and, (3) he “did not receive any form of communication from the corresponding author regarding these manuscripts.” This, as far as Praticò knows, was the first time that Giannopoulos had disputed the authorship of these articles.
The feedback from third parties led Praticò to r
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