#25

Scattered through out the paper “Metformin decelerates aging clock in male monkeys” is “O-Met, n = 6”. The paper defines, “At the start of the study, monkeys were evenly divided by age and randomly assigned to either the metformin or vehicle treatment groups (hereafter referred to as O-Met and O-Ctrl).” So, yes, I’m sure the paper only treated 6 monkeys.

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#26

China is the world’s largest patent applicant, the world’s largest international patent applicant, the largest international journal publisher and citation country, and has surpassed the United States for ten consecutive years!

#27

But, according to investigations, 50% of it is fraudulent. That’s compared to 10% in most other Western countries.

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#28

Thanks. So weird that the Nature story about the Cell paper for it so wrong! How on earth could such a good journal write the following when the N is actually 6:

This led Guanghui Liu, a biologist who studies ageing at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and his colleagues to test the drug on 12 elderly male cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fasciucularis ); another 16 elderly monkeys and 18 young or middle-aged animals served as a control group

Do you mind sharing the Cell paper btw, I was not able to access it and would love to read the real thing.

#29

During the pandemic I believe nir barzilai discussed why he thought it would/was working - that might be one place to start (think is was more about other inflammatory and immune related pathways or something but was a few years ago so I’m not sure).

Haven’t read the more recent papers on Met and Covid but they may have different biomarker data and may also discuss their mechanistic understanding/conjectures.

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#30

They’re not wrong: they just wrote confusingly. Metformin was tested in 12 middle-aged monkeys (not elderly: here they’re echoing the paper’s incorrect description of the middle-aged monkeys as ‘old’). Six got Met; six were controls. The other animals of different ages were used for comparisons across age groups and for creating the biological age clocks.

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#31

I don’t have a well-informed opinion on this question beyond generally finding over several decades that I can trust reputable, refereed research conducted in China about as much as I can trust research conducted elsewhere. (An exception might be research with a political implication clear enough to come to the attention of the CCP.)

The US, of course, is no shining city on the hill in this regard. Research published with positive findings is material to promotion, reputation, compensation, and job security. Replication rates are appallingly low and outright fraud makes the news from time to time. More common is slanting study design or analyses, perhaps unconsciously at times, to obtain results favorable the the biases of the researcher. I see quite a bit of that in the US.

Are there objective studies showing the work of Chinese scientists to be less trustworthy than, for example, US -based research?

#32

Why fake research is rampant in China: “Papers from China have the fourth-highest retraction rate in the world, according to Nature, a journal (see chart).”

The Chinese gov is aware of the problem: China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct

Elite researchers in China say they had ‘no choice’ but to commit misconduct

There was another study where they looked at different papers and tried to replicate them or find issues and Chinese papers had a lower replication rate. I can’t find the article anymore. [EDIT: I think it was this one but I don’t have access anymore: Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed?]

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#33

Thanks, I’ll take a look at this. I assume you found it credible.

#34

Yes, I found it credible, and it’s aligned with my experience as a hobbyist reader of scientific papers: the average Chinese article I read is weaker than the average Western article. Most of the crap seems to come from Tier 2/3 Chinese university, though. When it’s Tsinghua, Beida, or Jiaotong, it tends to be better.

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#35

I think we better be careful in drawing comparisons. I have followed the US research over the past few decades because it aligns with work I do and it is not a pretty picture. We would need to index these data for research population statistics.

According to data from the Retraction Watch database, there have been over 39,000 retractions in US scientific research over the past decade, with the number of retractions increasing significantly each year; this data shows a rising trend in retractions within recent years.

Identifying Retracted Journal Articles | Duke University Medical Center Library Online.

The ‘publish or perish’ mentality is fuelling research paper retractions – and undermining science.

It looks to me like we are in the midst of a rising global phenomenon.

#36

China represents 56% of fake publications, the US 7%: "Fake" Research Papers out of China, in Aging Field

There’s a lot of terrible research coming out of US institutions, but China is at another level. I’m sure the gov will crack down on that, and the problem will soon be solved.

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#37

Yes. Even though I might not prefer their tactics, my guess is that the rate of cheating of various kinds in mainland Chinese research will drop precipitously once the government makes it a priority whereas the US cheating is likely to continue to rise.

Still, with all of this acknowledged, many teams are international and very little research takes place devoid of a rich context well known to allied scientists across the world. It is likely that I and I assume others unconsciously pass over research that fails to meet some criterion (sometimes just a feel for the context) with the result being that we end up paying attention to decently conducted research. Of the thousands of papers I have read, even in the past decade, I can’t think of a study conducted solely in China that ended up as a distinctive empirical outlier to the crusted of associated and subsequent studies conducted in other nations. Disruptive scientific findings are rare (and are examined closely and critically because they are). Most studies are mind numbingly incremental and heavily bound to the context of the research of others around the globe. We will see soon enough whether this research on rhesus monkeys aligns with other research underway. If I had to guess, I think it will. Its weakness IMO, is the aging clock construct but that is a different discussion.

#38

Senior Author is Concepcion Rodriquez Esteban affiliated with Altos Labs San Diego Institute of Science, San Diego, CA, USA

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#39

I don’t know this for certain but, from appearances, mainland China’s medical publications are worse than the US for status logrolling. I didn’t think that possible. In the short time I was teaching medical school, I saw the names of more first, second, and third authors go on research publications the nature of which they were scarcely aware. It was not uncommon for the lower ranked authors to be in faculty positions administratively subservient to the leading authors who expected their names not only to be on the publications but with top billing. Department heads who had rusty or little or no practical skills in research listed hundreds of publications on their CVs.

#40

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-XyPrHcAAAAJ&hl=es

Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban

Senior Staff Researcher, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Dirección de correo verificada de salk.edu - Página principal

EmbriogenesisAging and Regeneration

Below is another Chinese publication including Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban and Steve Horvath, Pedro Guillen Garcia from Madrid and Pradeep Reddy from Salk Institute as co-authors.

https://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(23)00328-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1934590923003284%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Yaobin Jing1,4,5,6,7,17 ∙ Xiaoyu Jiang1,4,5,6,17 ∙ Qianzhao Ji1,4,5,6 ∙ Zeming Wu1,4,5,6 ∙ Wei Wang1,4,5,6 ∙ Zunpeng Liu2,4,5,6 ∙ Pedro Guillen-Garcia11 ∙ Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban12,16 ∙ Pradeep Reddy12,16 ∙ Steve Horvath12,15 ∙ Jingyi Li1,4,5,6 ∙ Lingling Geng8,9 ∙ Qinchao Hu13,14 ∙ Si Wang8,9,10,18 ∙ Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte12,16,18 ∙ Jie Ren3,4,5,7 renjie@big.ac.cn ∙ Weiqi Zhang3,4,5,7 zhangwq@big.ac.cn ∙ Jing Qu2,4,5,6 qujing@ioz.ac.cn ∙ Guang-Hui Liu1,4,5,6,7,8,9,19

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#41

https://www.cell.com/content/lfmadmin#:~:text=In%201986%2C%20Cell%20Press%20became,our%20parent%20company%2C%20in%201998.

Cell Press is a leading publisher of cutting-edge biomedical research and reviews. We drive science forward and promote cross-pollination of ideas with our passion for excellence and commitment to innovation. Our aim is to engage the scientific community by communicating important, exciting discoveries made today that will impact the future of research.

Our flagship journal, Cell, was launched by Benjamin Lewin in 1974 under the aegis of MIT Press. In 1986, Cell Press became established as an independent publisher and subsequently launched hallmark journals including Neuron, Immunity, and Molecular Cell. We joined the Elsevier family, our parent company, in 1998.

Elsevier is Dutch-owned.

#42

You must be thinking of a different paper. The senior author is Guang-Hui Liu.

#43

Was referring to the original post’s referenced paper - Metformin decelerates aging clock in male monkeys

https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)00914-0

Below are the affiliations and notes.

1 Key Laboratory of Organ Regeneration and Reconstruction, State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

2 China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing, China

3 Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

4 Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, CAS, Beijing 100101, China

5 Beijing Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Beijing 100101, China

6 National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Aging Translational Medicine Center, International Center for Aging and Cancer, Xuanwu Hospital Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China

7 State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

8 College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

9 Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

10 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

11 Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510060, China

12 Chongqing Fifth People’s Hospital, Chongqing 400060, China

13 Beijing Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood Vessel Diseases, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100029, China

14 International Center for Aging and Cancer, Hainan Medical University, Haikou 571199, China

15 Altos Labs San Diego Institute of Science, San Diego, CA, USA

16 Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China

17 National Medical Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100053, China

18 Beijing Municipal Geriatric Medical Research Center, Beijing 100053, China

19 Oujiang Laboratory, Center for Geriatric Medicine and Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer’s Disease of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Provincial Clinical Research for Mental Disorders, The First-Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, China

20 Department of Rheumatology, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology, Institute of Geriatric Medicine, Clinical Immunology Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730, China

21 Institute of Gerontology, Guangzhou Geriatric Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China

22 Aging Biomarker Consortium (ABC), Beijing 100101, China

23 These authors contributed equally

24 Senior author

25 Lead contact

The names with number 24 (Senior Author) include Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban, Steve Horvath, and Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, among others. Their names also show the number 15 - Altos Labs.

Yuanhan Yang1,10,23 ∙ Xiaoyong Lu2,3,10,23 ∙ Ning Liu7,8,23 ∙ Shuai Ma1,4,5,10,23 ∙ Hui Zhang1,10,13,23 ∙ Zhiyi Zhang7,23 ∙ Kuan Yang2,3,10 ∙ Mengmeng Jiang1,4,5 ∙ Zikai Zheng2,3,10 ∙ Yicheng Qiao7,8 ∙ Qinchao Hu1,11 ∙ Ying Huang12 ∙ Yiyuan Zhang1,4,5 ∙ Muzhao Xiong2,3,10 ∙ Lixiao Liu2,3,10 ∙ Xiaoyu Jiang1,10 ∙ Pradeep Reddy15 ∙ Xueda Dong7,9 ∙ Fanshu Xu7,8 ∙ Qiaoran Wang2,3,10 ∙ Qian Zhao6 ∙ Jinghui Lei6 ∙ Shuhui Sun13 ∙ Ying Jing6 ∙ Jingyi Li1,4,5,22 ∙ Yusheng Cai1,4,5 ∙ Yanling Fan2,3 ∙ Kaowen Yan1,4,5 ∙ Yaobin Jing1,4,5,14 ∙ Amin Haghani15 ∙ Mengen Xing19 ∙ Xuan Zhang20,24 ∙ Guodong Zhu21,24 ∙ Weihong Song19,24 ∙ Steve Horvath15,24 ∙ Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban15,24 ∙ Moshi Song1,5,10,24 ∙ Si Wang6,22,24 ∙ Guoguang Zhao16,17,18,24 ∙ Wei Li1,4,5,10,24 ∙ Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte15,24 ∙ Jing Qu1,4,5,10,13,22 qujing@ioz.ac.cn ∙ Weiqi Zhang2,3,4,5,10,22 zhangwq@big.ac.cn ∙ Guang-Hui Liu1,4,5,6,10,22,25

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#44

Acknowledging that you’re just pointing out what the paper says, that just makes a nonsense out of “senior author:” there’s one senior author, or at most two co-seniors. It’s like saying all the kids in the class are the best student.

Rodriguez Esteban and the other people from Altos clearly weren’t doing the actual study, which was carried out in China; with their Altos affiliation, and Horvath and Belmonte being among them, they may have helped with the clock. The paper’s AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS section says “G. Zhao, W.S., S.H., C.R.E., M.S., S.W., X.Z., G. Zhu, W.L., and J.C.I.B. helped with supervision of the project,” which is an awful lot of “supervisors” and again difficult to do from San Diego.

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