China: Young man leaves PhD to find research paper errors: 40 scientists caught cheating, Xi Jinping government snatches funding and awards

In China, action has been taken against more than 40 researchers after a former PhD student gang Hongwei's research paper was found to be tampered with. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China's main research funding organization, has taken action in 31 cases. This is considered to be the biggest action of the organization so far. Senior professors from many reputed universities are also under the purview of the proceedings. Among them are 4 scientists, whose paper was questioned on social media by former PhD student Gang Hongwei. The gang is known as the 'Student Gang'. He left his PhD in Bioscience in 2025. After this, they found the discrepancies in the data, pictures and graphs in the research paper and started exposing them on social media. After their queries, the concerned agencies started an investigation and now the matter has reached the NSFC proceedings. What did the PhD dropout catch? 1. Strange pattern in data In one paper, the last digit of almost all the figures in one column was 5. In the other column too, the figures were in a fixed pattern. The figures in one column were 0.3 at a distance of almost everywhere from the other. The gang called it a question mark on the credibility of the data. 2. Accuracy in weight of 196 rats In one study, the weight of 196 lab mice was recorded up to two-tenths. The gang questioned how the weight of the walking mice was recorded so accurately. This raised the possibility of tampering with the data. 3. Same image, different experiments Some of the papers questioned the use of identical images as the result of different experiments. Some data sets were also abnormally similar to each other. Nature also said that the gang had caught discrepancies in the figures of many papers. Four senior scientists also questioned the research of scientists associated with four prestigious universities in China in April. They include Wang Ping of Tongji University, Chen Chuan of Nankai University, Su Jiachen of Shanghai University and Quang Dongming of Sun Yat-sen University. All four of them had received the prestigious National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in China. This is the main honor given to young scientists in China. Three of them have held administrative positions such as dean or associate dean in their institutions. Their universities also took action against these scientists. Some were removed from administrative positions. Subsequently, the NSFC also took action in these cases. The institute withdrew the relevant research funding and honors. They were ordered to return the research grant they had previously received, i.e., about $1.5 million. At the same time, NSFC was banned from applying for funding again for three to seven years. Papers from international journals also came under scrutiny and included research papers published in reputed journals such as Nature, Nature Cancer and Cell Biology. In May, the South China Morning Post reported that questions were being raised on Chinese social media about some research papers published in these journals. After this, Springer Nature said it had received concerns about the five papers and was being investigated. In July, Nature and Nature Cancer withdrew two research papers by Chinese scientists.