Lab supply companies have been selling antibodies using manipulated images
Summary
Researchers found that many companies selling antibodies for scientific research used manipulated images to show how well their products work. These altered images could mislead scientists about the quality and effectiveness of the antibodies they buy.Key Facts
- Antibodies are important tools used in labs to detect specific proteins in cells and tissues.
- Companies sell commercial antibodies and use images from lab experiments to market them.
- Reese Richardson, a researcher at Northwestern University, discovered image manipulations in antibody marketing materials.
- Manipulations included removing background noise and copying parts of images to hide problems.
- About 17,500 antibodies from 16 different companies showed signs of image manipulation.
- Nearly 7% of the images examined contained problematic changes that could mislead buyers.
- These manipulations would be unacceptable in academic research and could cause wrong conclusions in experiments.
- The issue was revealed by partially automating methods to detect misleading image edits in antibody data.
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