Elisabeth Bik is the founder of the Microbiome Digest blog.
Biosketch
After receiving her PhD at Utrecht University in The Netherlands where she worked on epidemic Vibrio cholerae strains, Elisabeth Bik worked at the Dutch National Institute for Health and the St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein. She worked 15 years at the School of Medicine at Stanford University, on the microbiomes of humans and marine mammals. In May 2014, she founded Microbiome Digest, an almost daily compilation of scientific papers in the rapidly growing microbiome field. From 2016-2018, she worked at uBiome as a Science Editor, and later as the Scientific and Editorial Director. In 2018, she joined Astarte Medical as their Director of Science. In March 2019, she became a Microbiome and Science Integrity consultant. She can often be found discussing science papers on Twitter at @MicrobiomDigest, writing for her blog ScienceIntegrityDigest or searching the biomedical literature for inappropriately duplicated or manipulated photographic images, plagiarized text, or poor study design and data analysis. Bik’s work has been featured in Nature, Science, the New York Times, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal, STAT News, and The Scientist.
Papers and other writing
Elisabeth Bik’s scientific papers: PubMed search on Bik EM
She has published three peer-reviewed papers on research misconduct:
- mBio, 2016: The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications
- MCB, 2018: Analysis and Correction of Inappropriate Image Duplication: the Molecular and Cellular Biology Experience
- SEE, 2018: Testing Hypotheses on Risk Factors for Scientific Misconduct via Matched-Control Analysis of Papers Containing Problematic Image Duplications
Science and news articles (selection)
- Nature, 2021: The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science – Holly Else & Richard Van Noorden
- Nature, 2020: Meet this super-spotter of duplicated images in science papers – Helen Shen
- Wall Street Journal, 2020: Scientific Journal Pulls Over a Dozen Papers by Chinese Researchers – Eva Xiao
- The Scientist, 2019: Eye for Manipulation: A Profile of Elisabeth Bik
- The Times (UK), 2019: Fighting to slow the rise of medical fraud – Gemma Milne
- Washington Post, 2018: More science than you think is retracted, even more should be
- Science, 2018: The data thugs
- New York Times, 2017: Years of Ethics Charges, but Star Cancer Researcher Gets a Pass
- Le Monde, 2017: Dans les labos, des petits arrangements avec la science
- Nature, 2016: Problematic images found in 4% of biomedical papers
- Retraction Watch, 2016: One in 25 papers contains inappropriately duplicated images, screen finds
Podcasts
- #25 Now you see it now you don’t – Dr. Elisabeth Bik is spotting scientific image manipulations – mAcademia Podcast – Elena Itskovich and Ofer Yizhar Barnea – February 2021
- Image Duplication, Scientific Integrity, and the Microbiome with Dr. Elisabeth Bik – Science & Chill – January 2021
- #07 – Summer of Open Science – Scientific Misconduct feat. Dr. Elisabeth Bik – Part 1 – Max Planck PhDnet – August 2020
- #08 – Summer of Open Science – Scientific Misconduct feat. Dr. Elisabeth Bik – Part 2 – Max Planck PhDnet – August 2020
- Science Fraud & Bias, Immunity to COVID-19 – Adam Rutherford – BBC Inside Science – July 2020
- Interview – Elisabeth Bik, Science Detective – The Body of Evidence – Jonathan and Chris – June 2020
- Podcast: The super-sleuth who spots trouble in science papers – Nature Podcast – May 2020
- Talking Biotech Podcast 204 – Plagiarism and Image Manipulation in Scientific Publication – Kevin Volta – Talking Biotech – September 2019
- Episode 51 – Double Trouble – Elisabeth Bik – Parsing Science – Ryan Watkins & Doug Leigh – June 2019
- Seeing Double (with Elisabeth Bik) – Everything Hertz Podcast on Soundcloud, with Dan Quintana and James Heathers – December 2018
- Nature Podcast, April 28, 2016 – segment starts at 21.44
Videos
- The Misuse of Science & Statistics – Scientistt – February 2021
- The Biggest Scandal in Science – Medlife Crisis – Rohin Francis – MedPageToday – October 2020
- Episode 35 BEaTS Research Radio – Interview with Dr Elisabeth Bik – Dr Mo Al-Khalaf from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute – YouTube – August 2020
- Dr Elisabeth Bik | Bad Science & image manipulation | The Cost of Correcting Bad Science – RIOT Science Club – July 2020
- Elisabeth Bik, PhD – The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Research Publications – DFCI Datascience – YouTube – June 2020
- Elisabeth Bik – Misconduct in Scientific Papers: Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification – Bay Area Skeptics – YouTube – April 2020