National Institutes of Health Allege Research Misconduct by Prominent Neuroscientist and Investigator of α-Synuclein in PD and AD

Eliezer Masliah, MD, director of the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) neuroscience division, has been accused of research misconduct via the falsification, duplication, and manipulation of images, particularly western blot images. Much of Dr. Masliah’s work focuses on the role of α-synuclein (αSyn) in neurodegeneration, raising questions about the experimental drugs that have referenced his research in their development pipelines.

On September 26, 2024, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in a statement that it has identified the presence of reused and relabeled figures in 2 of Dr. Masliah’s published articles after they initially received allegations from the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Additionally, a 300-page dossier produced by a neuroscientist and forensic analyst alleges the presence of research misconduct in 132 articles published between 1997 and 2023, for which Dr. Masliah is the sole common author.