Chapter 282 - 187: Reviewer Plagiarism

Chapter 282: Chapter 187: Reviewer Plagiarism

There were four people in the office.

Dean Chen clutched a string of Buddhist Beads, rapidly running them through his fingers.

’I’ve rarely seen the dean look like this... In my past life, he wasn’t even this upset when some fisherman caught the fish he had just released for good karma.’

Yang Xu was also frowning, discussing something with Zhang Sui.

Gu Qingyan was there too, arms crossed, her eyes cold.

’Looks like something big has happened...’

"Professor, Dean Chen, Vice Dean Zhang, Teacher Gu."

Jiang He greeted each of them in turn. "What’s wrong?"

Yang Xu picked up a printed-out email and handed it to Jiang He.

"It’s the response from the *New England Journal of Medicine*. Our early prediction model for SAP was rejected."

"Hm?"

Jiang He took it but didn’t immediately read it.

’To be honest... if it were just a simple rejection, these titans of the medical field wouldn’t be this furious.’

’Rejections from top journals are common. You just revise and resubmit elsewhere.’

"Was the given reason for rejection flimsy?" Jiang He asked.

Yang Xu couldn’t contain his anger. "Flimsy? It’s downright shameless."

Only then did Jiang He look at the email.

The reviewer’s comments were lengthy, but they boiled down to two main points:

First, a data ethics issue.

The reviewer pointed out that the study used cryopreserved serum from China collected between 2003 and 2008. They claimed the ethics approval process was not described with sufficient transparency in the paper, posing a potential compliance risk.

Second, the issue of racial bias.

The reviewer argued that the model was based entirely on data from a single Asian population and therefore could not be representative of the global patient population, casting doubt on its general applicability.

Conclusion: Reject.

’After reading it, Jiang He thought it wasn’t a huge deal. They could just submit it to another top journal.’

’So, there had to be another reason his professors were so angry.’

And sure enough, Yang Xu explained:

"When I first got the email, even though I felt the reasons were harsh, I still wondered if maybe we hadn’t been detailed enough in our ethics statement, or if we should collect more data from other regions. I was even thinking that if it came down to it, we could just try submitting to *The Lancet* or *JAMA*."

Jiang He nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

Yang Xu explained, "But today, I was having lunch with Dean Zhang and mentioned it to him. I was originally going to ask if he had any international resources we could use to supplement our database. I never expected..."

Zhang Sui picked up the story:

"The moment I heard their reasons for rejection, I immediately called a senior colleague from my PhD days at Johns Hopkins University. He’s a PI in gastrointestinal surgery there now. I asked him to see if he’d heard any news in the field of pancreatitis."

"And guess what? There was."

"A top lab in the United States has just started putting out rumors that they are about to release a breakthrough model for the early prediction of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). Supposedly, the model can stratify patient risk with extreme precision."

Now Jiang He understood.

’So that’s what this is all about.’

"A coincidence?" Yang Xu sneered. "How could it possibly be such a coincidence? Our paper gets rejected under a flimsy pretext, and immediately, they start spreading rumors about releasing a similar model?"

"This is blatant robbery."

Gu Qingyan, as a regional director for Charite Medical School, was also furious. She said:

"Jiang He, you’re still young, so you might not be familiar with this kind of thing. What they’re doing is called peer-review plagiarism."

"Basically, they steal the core idea from your paper, reject it, and then immediately have their own lab create a new model."

"Even if their model’s AUC is only 0.85, not as good as your original 0.915, it doesn’t matter. They’ll leverage their network as an authority in the field, use their inside track, and get it published in that same top journal as quickly as possible."

"Then, they seize control of the international standard."

"In this world, whoever publishes first gets the naming rights for the prediction model. The power to set the corresponding international guidelines also falls into their hands. If we’re a step behind, Jiang He, all the blood, sweat, and tears you poured into this original discovery will be relegated to a mere ’Asian validation study’ of some foreign big shot’s model. The academic value of your work will be drastically diminished."

Dean Chen stopped fiddling with his Buddhist Beads and sighed. "A thug in a white coat is still a thug."

Faced with everyone’s fury, Jiang He remained calm.

His mind drifted back to a scandal from his previous life that had shaken the global medical community.

In the real world, it wasn’t uncommon for academic titans to abuse their peer-review privileges to plagiarize.

The most infamous example was the 2016 case involving Michael Dansinger, who was plagiarized by a peer reviewer.

At the time, Dansinger, an endocrinology specialist at Tufts Medical Center in the United States, and his team had spent five full years and over 4,000 hours completing a landmark medical study on low-carbohydrate diets and weight loss.

Full of hope, Dansinger submitted the paper, which represented countless hours of his team’s hard work, to the *Annals of Internal Medicine*.

But the paper was mercilessly rejected during peer review.

Several months later, while searching for literature online, Dansinger happened upon a paper in the German medical journal *EXCLI Journal*.

He took one look and nearly fainted from rage.

The paper’s text, chart structure, and data trends were identical to his own rejected labor of love.

The only difference was that the first author was now Carmine Finelli—the very same medical authority who had been assigned to review it.

Worse, to cover his tracks, the plagiarist had brazenly fabricated an entire European patient cohort to replace the Boston one Dansinger had so painstakingly collected...

The memory ended.

Jiang He looked up.

He saw Yang Xu looking at him, his face a mask of fury.

"Jiang He, don’t you worry about this. Don’t let it get to you. I’ll take care of this. No one gets to walk all over my student like this. They won’t steal a single shred of our work."

"Director Yang is right," Gu Qingyan added. "I’ll call my contacts in Europe right away. I still have some influence in the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. I’ll contact the editors-in-chief of those top journals directly and demand a review of this paper’s blind peer-review process. At the same time, I’ll have someone reach out to the people behind that lab. If they want to play nice, we’ll lay our cards on the table and see who ends up looking worse."

Zhang Sui nodded as well. "I’ll mobilize my contacts in the United States to put pressure on them, too. Jiang He, you just focus on your clinical work. We’ll handle this."

Listening to their resolute promises, Jiang He felt a warmth spread through his chest.

’So this is what it feels like to have people in your corner.’

’It’s a great feeling.’

He was suddenly reminded of a classic meme about the character Han Li: "Han Li frowned and retreated behind the crowd."

’I guess I can do that too, now,’ he thought. So, without even a frown, he let his mentors move to the front line for him and said gratefully, "Thank you, Professor. Thank you, Dean Chen and Teacher Gu. I’ll have to trouble you all with this."

"Go on, get back to your work," Yang Xu said with a wave of his hand. "Wait for news from us. I will pull every string I can. I will absolutely not let this go. There’s no way I’m letting you get the short end of the stick!"

Jiang He turned and left.

As he walked out of the office, his mind was still on the matter.

’As someone who had been reborn, he knew he was standing on the shoulders of countless future medical pioneers. That was why he had always maintained the utmost respect for the various research teams.’

’But this time was different.’

’The Western authority figure hiding behind the *New England Journal of Medicine* was being utterly shameless.’

’Pulling a low-blow like peer-review plagiarism... they were banking on the fact that China’s medical community lacks influence on the global stage.’

’It was pure bullying.’

’You think an SAP prediction model with an AUC of 0.915 is such a medical miracle that it’s worth stealing with such dirty tricks?’

’I wonder if you’ll still be so arrogant when you see my miRNA early screening technology?’

’How will you react when CAR-T cell immunotherapy bursts onto the scene?’

’Report: The enemy fired first. Requesting permission to return fire!’

’I have to handle this perfectly. And not just for my own sake.’

’It’s for the future, to ensure no one from our country ever has to face this again when submitting to a journal.’