A CHEMIST IN INDIA has been found guilty of plagiarizing and/or falsifying more than 70 research papers published in a wide variety of Western scientific journals between 2004 and 2007, according to documents from his university, copies of which were obtained by C&EN. Some journal editors left reeling by the incident say it is one of the most spectacular and outrageous cases of scientific fraud they have ever seen.No wonder he did not get caught. Who reads these journals anyway? ;) But on a more serious note, this really points again to the massive information overload everyone has to deal with.
The culprit, sources say, is chemistry professor Pattium Chiranjeevi of Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, India. SVU conducted an investigation into Chiranjeevi's work after a journal editor presented evidence to university officials that the professor had plagiarized and possibly falsified several manuscript submissions. Chiranjeevi, who communicates through a wide variety of e-mail addresses, has not responded to multiple requests for comment by C&EN.
Chiranjeevi retains his teaching position at SVU, according to a university source who has requested anonymity. "He is a permanent employee of the university, and the administration cannot fire him easily," the source says. Instead, Chiranjeevi has been barred from research and research supervision and from holding any administrative post at the university.
"Chiranjeevi claimed to be using advanced instrumentation not available at the university," the source says. "The chemistry in most of his papers is illogical—the chemistry itself is wrong. How did this get past reviewers?"
"I hated seeing papers from this guy," says Gary D. Christian, who is editor-in-chief of the Elsevier analytical chemistry journal Talanta, one of the journals that published Chiranjeevi's research. Christian, who is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, says Chiranjeevi's tactic was to flood journals with manuscript submissions in the hopes of wearing down editors who would eventually publish some of his work. "He published 70-plus papers in 25 journals in three years," Christian says. "The case is unprecedented."
Chiranjeevi's papers have appeared in Talanta and four other Elsevier journals: Food Chemistry, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Analytica Chimica Acta, and Chemosphere.
C & EN news story
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"Chiranjeevi's tactic was to flood journals with manuscript submissions in the hopes of wearing down editors who would eventually publish some of his work."
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this works???? Eventually wouldn't they just discard submissions from the guy without reading them? I guess I should give the editors credit for taking each submission seriously.
Yeah, even I was surprised. I guess he took good advantage of the sincerity of the editors. A lazier editor ironically would have just discarded a few as you said.
ReplyDeletesurprised that there is no surprise that he still retains his uni post.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder he did not get caught. Who reads these journals anyway? ;)
ReplyDeleteLook who's talking. I looked. I did not see too many papers of yours even printed on toilet paper, man!
However you see it, Talanta is a badass name for... well, for anything
ReplyDeleteAnon: maybe you need to look up the Dictionary of Contemporary Human Expressions for the meaning of the symbol ";)"
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I do have papers printed on toilet paper, but nobody knows about them since there's no peer review.
Excimer: Granted. When I first heard about it, I thought it was an anagram of Atlanta, or some weird combination of "tantalum" and atlanta.
this is bullshit... a big fucking story... do u ppl think 70+papers in 3 years is a easy matter?? this is a high drama created by a professor who is jealous of Mr. Chiranjeevi. how could u people be that much cruel towards a human like u? u should speak if u know the truth other wise fill ur badass wid pigshit... sorry for that... i was emotional just beacuse u dont hav a right to say that he is a fraud by not knowing any thing abt him.
ReplyDelete"how could u people be that much cruel towards a human like u?"
ReplyDeleteI don't know, does Chiranjeevi also write his articles to Talanta, etc... in cell phone speak? If so, then public stoning would be too good for him. A regressed form of humanity is no longer human.
.... ;)
the bloody son of bitch Guna shekar who is the head of chemistry dept made this hightech drama... that motherucker is jealous of Mr.p.chiranjeevi who is gettitng fame in his period.the son of bith students(2 members)with him trapped Mr chiranjeevi in a perfect planning. do u think publishing in journals
ReplyDeleteis a exact like copy and paste?? many ppl will read before publishing it in their journals...
Chiranjeevi deserves a Darwin award. The submitted paper for which he got caught and which was a complete Copy and a Find and replace job of Cr for As had some gems.
ReplyDeleteSuch as ...Our previous work (10) ....
and Ref 10 was some Japanese guys!
Anon: I give my opinions based only on what I read. I think it to be a little unlikely to have so many journal editors to be involved in some grand conspiracy to discount Chiranjeevi.
ReplyDeleteu know wat u read in newspapers.. but u never know what happnd in reality.. so shut all ur bloddy asses. stop judging others.. first see ur crossed behaviour guys....
ReplyDeleteOk, so I am assuming you believe nothing you read in the papers? I hope then that you also don't believe in the 2004 tsunami in Asia. After all you weren't there when it happened, were you?
ReplyDeleteIn this case, it's your word (an anonymous person's) against that of several respected journal editors, so why don't I go with the journal editors this time.
My late father-in-law was Jewish and was a criminal investigator for the SEC. He was an extremely honest man and all fraud and crime bothered him, but he was particularly depressed when the crook was Jewish (which seemed to happen a lot). I imagine you feel the same way about the fraudulent chemist in India.
ReplyDeleteThere are many people who does this things for their promotion, awards etc. Interestingly, many journals are asking the question to people who submit the article by online. the question was, are you want to be a refree?. when you say yes. the journal send a paper within next few weeks without knowing the expreience . I know a person who has published on paper in that journal was told to refree a paper. Another person who has submitted a paper for another journal was given having just three papers in his carier has been included as a members of the advicery committee. So it is a mistake of the journal which is not checking the background of the person and also how many papers(??) he has published etc.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that such fraudulent manipulation could be detected by doing literature searches which now have become pretty easy with Scifinder etc. Referees either don't have time to do them or they trust the author. But given the number of cases appearing these days which could have been detected as manipulated/flawed using literature searches, referees need to start doing them.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. A conscientious reviewer makes all the difference in the world.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't it surprise me that these are Elsevier journals? Some of their journals that in my area apparently will accept anything, are ridiculously overpriced, and don't even have decent proofreaders.
ReplyDelete"this is bullshit... " How ironic that the anonymous commmenter has also cut 'n' pasted a comment from the other blog linked to in In The Pipeline!
ReplyDeleteChiranjevi is a fraud, no doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteHave a look at the papers published by other so called Chemistry professors like Seshaiah and other in chemistry dept.
They are more intelligent cut and paste masters.
Prof chiranjeevi, Seshaiah venkateswara university, prof prasadara rao of andhra university completed their M.SC in environmental chemistry in.1977. They actaully pased the exams because of the help of Prof PR Naidu, the then HOD and allowed them to copy in the examinations.