TL;DR: As of 3 June 2026, we have identified more than 450 images bearing signs of manipulation in verification data advertised by Thermo Fisher Scientific in its online primary antibodies catalog (+1 by Abcam).
For those of you who, like me, don't know what this is about, this is the context, conveniently at the end of the article: And then:
For those of you who, like me, don't know what this is about, this is the context, conveniently at the end of the article:
Antibody vendors like Thermo Fisher (probably the largest laboratory reagent supplier in the world) put verification data in their catalogs to demonstrate to scientists that the product works as intended. While signs of manipulation in this verification data don’t necessarily imply that the antibodies in question don’t work as advertised, without reliable verification data available, scientists will have no way of knowing until they have actually purchased the antibody. And antibodies are not cheap; at Thermo Fisher, a single vial containing a 0.1 mL aliquot of antibody solution typically costs 400 to 500 USD.
And then:
UPDATE 8 June 2026: Thermo Fisher has released a galling 15-point response to our observations. The most important part (in my assessment) is quoted below (emphasis mine)[too lazy to copy emphasis]:
Did Thermo Fisher manipulate or fabricate antibody data?
No. The Company fully stands by the data and underlying science. At Thermo Fisher Scientific, as the world leader in serving science, scientific integrity is a core value. The Company takes antibody validation, specificity and accurate product documentation seriously, and is committed to the transparent and ethical generation, analysis and presentation of scientific data. In the process of preparing antibody images for publication on its website, some images may have been adjusted to clarify for presentation purposes – not to alter or misrepresent the underlying experimental results. Thermo Fisher recognizes, however, that image adjustments of any kind can raise questions about data integrity, which is why moving forward, where an original image is not present or available, the Company will ensure that website users are informed that antibody images may have been optimized for presentation and clarity on the website.
The phrase “antibody images may have been optimized for presentation and clarity on the website” is repeated on this FAQ page six times. I encourage readers to peruse the images collected in our Zenodo repository and decide what could and could not charitably be described as “optimization for presentation and clarity”.
For those of you who, like me, don't know what this is about, this is the context, conveniently at the end of the article:
And then: