We have been following the saga of Ranga Dias since he first burst onto the scene with experiences of a high-pressure, room-temperature superconductor, revealed in Nature in 2020. At the same time as that paper was being retracted because of issues concerning the validity of a few of its knowledge, Dias revealed a second paper claiming the same breakthrough: a superconductor that works at excessive temperatures however considerably decrease pressures. Shortly afterward, that received retracted as nicely.
On Wednesday, the College of Rochester, the place Dias relies, introduced that it had concluded an investigation into Dias and located that he had dedicated analysis misconduct. (The result was first reported by The Wall Road Journal.)
The result is prone to imply the top of Dias’ profession, in addition to the corporate he based to commercialize the supposed breakthroughs. However it’s unlikely we’ll ever see the complete particulars of the investigation’s conclusions.
Questionable analysis
Dias’ lab was targeted on high-pressure superconductivity. At excessive pressures, the orbitals the place electrons hang around get distorted, which may alter the chemistry and digital properties of supplies. This may imply the formation of chemical compounds that do not exist at regular pressures, together with distinct conductivity. In plenty of instances, these modifications enabled superconductivity at unusually excessive temperatures, though nonetheless nicely beneath the freezing level of water.
Dias, nonetheless, supposedly discovered a mix of chemical compounds that will enhance the transition to superconductivity to close room temperature, though solely at excessive pressures. Whereas the outcomes had been believable, the small print concerning how among the knowledge was processed to supply one of many paper’s key graphs had been missing, and Dias did not present a transparent clarification. Nature finally pulled the paper, and the College of Rochester initiated investigations (plural!) of his work.
These investigations cleared Dias of misconduct, and he shortly was again with a report of one other high-temperature superconductor, this one forming at much less excessive pressures—considerably surprisingly, revealed once more by Nature. This time, issues fell aside way more quickly, with potential issues shortly turning into obvious, and most of the paper’s authors, not together with Dias, known as for its retraction.
The College of Rochester began yet one more investigation, which is the one which has now concluded that Dias engaged in analysis misconduct.
The extent of this misconduct, nonetheless, would possibly by no means be revealed. These inner college investigations are typically not made public, even when it could be within the public’s curiosity to know. The one current exception is a case the place a researcher accused of misconduct sued her college for defamation over the result of the investigation. The college submitted its investigation report as proof, permitting it to turn into a part of the general public file.
Behind the scenes
That mentioned, we have now discovered a good bit about what has occurred inside Dias’ lab, because of Nature Information, a sister publication of the scientific journal that revealed each of Dias’ papers. It performed a tour-de-force of investigative journalism, speaking to Dias’ grad college students and acquiring the peer assessment evaluations of Dias’ two papers.
The investigation confirmed that, for the primary paper, Dias merely informed his graduate college students that the important thing knowledge got here from earlier than he had arrange his personal lab, which explains why they weren’t conscious of it. The scholars claimed that the following investigations did not contact any of them, suggesting they had been extraordinarily comparable in scope. In contrast, the scholars declare to have been extra conscious that the outcomes introduced within the second paper did not match up with experiments and, in at the least one case, steered Dias clearly misrepresented his lab’s work. (The paper claimed to have synthesized a chemical that the scholars say was merely bought from a provider.)
They had been those who organized the hassle to retract the paper and mentioned that the ultimate investigation really sought their enter.
In the meantime, on the peer assessment facet, the reporting doesn’t depart Nature trying particularly good. Each papers required a number of rounds of revision and assessment earlier than being accepted, and even in any case this work, a lot of the reviewers had been ambiguous at greatest about whether or not the paper ought to be revealed. It was an editorial determination to go forward regardless of that.
Whereas issues appear to have labored out ultimately, the main establishments concerned right here—Nature and the College of Rochester—aren’t popping out of this unscathed. Neither appears to have taken early indications of misconduct as critically because it ought to have. As for Dias, the reporting within the Nature Information piece ought to be career-ending. And it is price contemplating that, within the absence of the reporter’s work, the analysis group would in all probability stay unaware of a lot of the particulars of Dias’ misconduct.
