Research misconduct and breach of ethics

How Luis Serrano, CRG's (Barcelona) Director, lied to the Catalan/Spanish Court

Below is how His Excellency Luis Serrano, CRG Director (Spanish/Catalan research institute of Excellence™), did his best to protect reputat...

Showing posts with label juan-valcarcel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label juan-valcarcel. Show all posts

Friday, January 13, 2017

Luis Serrano, CRG director, led by Maria Lluch-Senar: negotiating

The most ridicule thing in the doc below is their «in turn» after the claim for recognition which they were utterly unable to get the decent way. You recognize someone's so shamefully unsatisfied scientific authority and direct supervision (instead of your former boss) and… ta-dam! — «in turn» they allow you to do your job and don't fire you.
NB: scientific authority here is an exclusive right for Maria Lluch to fuck your brain being alone with you and then to lie about you whatever shit she invents — her patron Luis Serrano would support it by any means.
You have to talk alone with her: this is what CRG Director and his favorite repeatedly claimed, whereas having Maria's ambitions together with incompetence in the subject and aggression, there is no other word than «brainfucking» for what she was doing with you tête-à-tête.
Interestingly, «Relocation of Catherine's workplace outside of Serrano's group should be considered» was firstly suggested by the Committee, but then stroke out by those claiming for recognition of the «scientific authority»… Introduced again, but no: «recognize or perish!» — see p. 6 in first version of the Committee below, p. 5 was also rejected: no collaboration, shut up! No witnesses for what we'd force you to do!
And they dragged K. from another lab to their lab what for? To make sure they could do with her whatever they'd like. No way way for relocation, claro.

Luis Serrano, CRG director, led by Maria Lluch-Senar: negotiating, Juan Valcarcel helps to perform misconduct
Juan Valcarcel was contacted by K. in private: she asked him to save her from bullying and she called for Conflict Resolution Committee to protect her from M Lluch Senar's bullying as it was fully supported by CRG Director and looked as a mobbing. Instead J. Valcarcel actually had joined the party: K. was fired for refusal to accept «non-negotiable requirement from Luis, i.e. that Catherine must recognize the scientific authority of Maria» — Catherine had no options than to refuse it since the behaviour of the latter looked as a sheer research misconduct.
James Sharpe (recently appointed Director of the EMBL's outstation in Barcelona) also joined to this mobbing, K. asked him for assistance as well, but on behalf of Luis Serrano he claimed the same from her: K. asked for protection, instead she's been forced to recognise scientific authority of the person she asked to protect her from! — nice, isn't it?
Still… it feels better to believe that at least James sincerely wanted to help. Yet I regret that I trusted him.
The claim of this «scientific recognition» was at very least unnecessary (though ridiculous!) unless yet another sign of the Spanish(?) corruption which at no point K. could accept as appropriate to follow. It's worth to mention that to the meeting on this so called Conflict Resolution Committee, M Lluch Senar came along accompanied by her patron — «because she's his co-leader of the project» (Juan Valcarcel) — so much ridiculous again: rather her professional qualities and culture just could not guarantee the adequate reporting.
Yet K. has been persistently forced to talk only alone with Maria.
This is first (rejected) version of the here-above mentioned document:
Maria Lluch-Senar and Luis Serrano, CRG director: negotiating, Juan Valcarcel helps to research misconduct
— «absence of threats from all parts» is put quite sneaky, as K. never menaced anyone, that was other way round and she just asked for stopping to threaten her (though she had to recognize fascist-style authority of whoever had threatened her).
But we can forgive this Juan Valcarcel as he's been benefiting from ERC grants perhaps á merci of Director's wife
Luis Serrano, Coordinator of the Systems Biology Programme at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, and recipient of a €2 million ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for five years, said the requirement of keeping time sheets is at best a waste of time and worst an insult to the high-level researchers. “Time sheets do not make much sense, to be honest. If you want to cheat, you can always cheat,” he said. He said other grants he receives from the Spanish government and the Human Frontier Science Programme do not require time sheets [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933871/]
— looks like here, Luis, there was that sure case when you were not cheating. You were right about yourself: secured by your position, if you want to cheat, you can always cheat. But what a shame. Your lecherous eyes work not always the way you aim them to.

Corruption prospects this way: Conflict Resolution Committee turned out to be a farce...

performed for Maria Lluch-Senar & Luis Serrano at CRG.
See here who has actually called for the Committee. This yet another example of how academia is corrupt and CRG (Center for Gemonic Regulation) in Barcelona is corrupt in particular.
Then see how they put it in their dismissal notice below, even how they put it in the second edition of the same document. So mean. And such a shame for the prominent lecturer on ethic subjects in science.

First his «co-leader» of the project excludes you from any work collaboration, then slanders that you «can work with no one» and then he completely supports that slander — so nice, isn't it? 

Luis Serrano CRG with Maria Lluch Senar and Juan Valcarcel at CRG, Barcelona: meanness and research misconduct
Luis Serrano, CRG along with Juan Valcarcel at CRG, Barcelona, manipulating facts


But indeed it was just a part of their freak show:
«A non-negotiable requirement from Luis, i.e. that Catherine must recognize the scientific authority of Maria as co-leader of the project and work under her direct supervision, remains unacceptable for Catherine. Therefore the Conflict Resolution Committee has been unable to find a common ground for understanding between the parts on this key issue and regretfully concludes that a conciliation process is not possible under the current conditions»
(email from the Committee of 13/12/16 10:40, see it in DropBox… keep in mind that initially K. was working in another lab and by the time of this clown commissioners were playing their part she still was under another subordination).
At no point this coercion was really necessary for their MycoSynVac project. Quite on the contrary, looking at its history: it was harmful for it. Indeed it was just a real plot for research misconduct


And of course this, along with the fact who actually called for the Committee was not quoted in their dismissal notice.
They dishonorably used this Committee just to make it part of the concocted evidence of insubordination.
Ignored email: really, it was just hopeless

Subject: Re: NCBI's starts/ends...
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 17:39:09 +0100

Dear all,
Please discuss the format in open and constructive manner.
As there is a strict standardization and DB processing rule «Excel is forbidden» (see: here was a pic forwarded later, see below)
the format should be a reasonable amounts of tab-separated text files uploaded one-by-one.
Each of this text files should not exceed 10Mb to be uploaded and processed in a reasonable time.
Each column of each file should be described in detail.
File names should have meaning and described in details otherwise text field in the upload interface should be filled in.
Current processing and analysis is done for 2-spreadsheet Excel files (no more than 10Mb of size) as a trade-off for accurate format description (done by Luis) of a standard files of results coming from a proteomics experiment and my good will to make all my best for the lab.
Processing of Excel files into the DB with analysis on the fly is not a common practice and generally is not accepted due to obstruct capacity to support the standards and analysis as consistent and reasonable prompt.
So CSV only (XML/JSON for those biologists who want die hard is an option too).
However, once the standard is created and described the way it was done by Luis and with the participation/by a professional IT specialist it is still possible to make sure that service is scalable and reliable.
Thanks, —
Catherine

— this is the referenced pic of the outstanding cruelty (actually called the extreme despair), and K. was summoned to the Administrative Director office then, and then of course K. apologized to the only one affected poor kid…
Mean-spirited souls know no humor. They are capable only in mobbing and concocting.

A year later Luis Serrano, CRG director lied even to the Court about who has called for the Conflict Resolution Committee and what for.









Research miscoduct and the dismissal notice, how CRG quotes the sources

Full text of the email they quote in their dismissal notice:

Subject: Re: MS data
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2016 15:20:49 +0100
Dear Maria,
I am sorry, I cannot comment on this.
I expect you respect your colleagues and able to communicate in a calm and professional manner by email and in person.
I see you do not understand the standardization subject and I am very able to prove it to a professional commission if its needed.
I also clearly see that you are getting passively aggressive and disrespectful, you are trying to undermine me on my professional field which is ridiculous and unacceptable. I think you have to apologize.
So I am sorry, I have nothing to ask you in person.
Regards, —
Catherine

[DropBox archive to the story with the emails exported to PDFs]

— this was reply to Maria's email quoted here-above (where our rock star Women-in-Science© got red font yelling (or blushing)).


(signatures, my & by Bruna Vives Prat, CRG managing director, are dimmed)

Eso es me suena a franquismo!

The actual reason for the dismissal: you «must recognize the scientific authority of Maria as co-leader of the project and work under her direct supervision alone» otherwise you are fired. No one else should witness their research misconduct and data manipulation.

Let alone senseless orders to reformat data export files just to keep you busy («new formatting did not matter, your 1st version was absolutely fine» — a colleague commented while working with that file).

This is how these cool scientists spend public money and do science nowdays.
They send murky messages with messy content, several files of >10Mb sent by email, «new format» © Maria Lluch Senar represented by two >100Mb Excel files with 15 spreadsheets each with hand-made copy-paste — to process all this shit into the DB.
Then they harass a professional who tries to explain how the data should have been processed. And these are just ordinary examples from a routine intellectual work process (paid by public money) of a rock star scientist with «I have many publications» — yet another shining clause of M Lluch-Senar intellectual argumentation.

This rock star scientist which is unable to create on her own a single document (without her patron) or a literate email. The same so gifted person is unable to make a tiny bit effort to grasp one simple thing: what the standards for datafile procession are. Whatever you're trying to explain her, however you try to reach for her mind — «in turn» © this person just harasses you and keeps claiming for recognition of her poor scientific authority.

Remarkably all the harassment supplemented by these wretched claims were fully supported by the top manager of the scientific institution.
Intellectual reasoning? Logical reasoning? Whatever fair damn reasoning?
Come on, bow and scrape and thank Universe, that these so great scientists could not call for the authorized science gestapo to help them out: they have only fired you because you had dared to question the authority of a really cool scientist whose favorite trip up in reply on any reasoning on the subject was just: «If you cannot do this work let us know and we will look for another way to do that».
Which was exceptionally ridiculous for this really cool scientist because «them» had no clue whatsoever about any way how their data could be processed in particular and how the scientific data are usually processed into the DB as that was not their expertise whatsoever. But surely «they» had authority to impose on you any by-products from «their» so beautiful minds.
Because. You. Cannot. Period.
— intellect, culture, work ethic here are so blatantly demonstrated that you just lose the gift of speech…

Why the data analyst has been coerced to work with concocted data and had been denied the direct contact with the data producers?
Why that so damn bright scientist who, as we're sure, is Maria Lluch, — why she was so eager to interfere between the data and a data analyst, why the hell she had to concoct that shameful hand made copy-paste Excel spreadsheets (tens megabytes), which she was unable/unwilling to put in a group repository and thus sent it by email, instead of allowing the professional to work with the data sources directly?
MS data were already processed into the DB according to the format, suggested by the project leader, Luis Serrano, Director of CRG — why this very format was refuted by his favourite and why Luis Serrano, Director of CRG had to obey M Lluch-Senar and why did he let her make dirty manipulations with data?
Why on the Earth she's been so craving for that bow and scrape?
How the hell do they spend public money then? — they hire a professional, then perform their mobbing actions against her attacking her purely on personal ground, gaslighting and slandering about her relations with other colleagues with nonsense allegations (because there is no other way to attack her) for several months and at the end just fire her after more than 9 months without giving her any credit for the job she's been doing for them.
Is it a Franquist style of modernized Spanish science or what??
And at the and — why the Staff Scientist Maria Lluch Senar and the CRG Director Luis Serrano Pubul had to lie so shamelessly?
These are fairly good questions.
And finally, how come the path of the apparent scientific misconduct was the easiest choice for them?…
CRG, Barcelona: research misconduct by points performed
picture is taken from this article on scientific misconduct: Scientific misconduct & its effect on the medical literature
(as much as it affects biomed sciences)

Here is my twitter account: @JWapatoo where I post current updates on this case and my relaxed attitude, i.e. after me being put under pressure and stress, it is naturally personalized unlike expressed as such while I am on duty where I'm restrained by professional standing rules and contract clauses.

«You should be stressed as you are still in initial closely watched period»
© Julia Ponomarenko
(4 months after start of the contract… + «you have to satisfy Luis» — publicly, several times, in the same context: «do you care too much what people say about you?» — nice vibrant and so motivating working atmosphere, isn't it?)

So these people don't even give a damn about the fact that a professional engineer, doing brainwork, can be only either productive or stressed.
Never both. Obviously, if quality results are to be provided.
Or, there is no need for data integrity in all this so playful scientific ambiance?
Or, these scientists — do they use their own brain for professional purposes? 


P.S. CRG, represented by its Director Luis Serrano and PI Juan Valcarcel, do support scientific fraud of their PI MP Cosma — please see by these links an article of Leonid Schneider and PubPeer comments.
 
They do their best to follow the fashion:
 
 
— see the press release on CRG web-site about yet another biotech company Pulmobiotics to hack your health under the selling moto «we're saving lives» or/and yet another money laundry by Barcelona based InVivo Capital's operations.