On July 30th, the responsible person of the journal “Nature” stated that two papers by Chinese university scholars have been officially retracted, with one issuing a correction statement, while investigations into other questionable papers are still ongoing.
Specifically, the paper by the team of Wang Ping from Tongji University published in the main edition of “Nature” in 2025 and the paper by the team of Chen Quan from Nankai University published in “Nature Cancer” have been retracted. The paper by the team of Li Dali from East China Normal University has issued a correction statement.
Since April this year, well-known Chinese academic watchdog “Geng Xue” has been continuously releasing videos to report academic misconduct by scholars from several prestigious universities in the 985 Project, alleging falsification in papers published in top academic journals like “Nature”, including the aforementioned two papers. This has sparked continued public attention and led to the dismissal of several university presidents.
Among them, Wang Ping, Dean of the School of Life Sciences and Technology at Tongji University, was dismissed on May 6th, Kuang Dongming, Vice Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University, on May 30th, Chen Quan, Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Nankai University, on May 30th, and Su Jiacan, Dean of the School of Translational Medicine at Shanghai University, on June 12th.
“Nature” has stated that besides the three papers that have been dealt with in this round, ongoing investigations into the academic integrity of numerous top-level publications by university scholars are still in progress, with no conclusions reached yet.