About

© Jana Christopher

Jana Christopher

Image Integrity Analyst

Who I am

I was the first image integrity analyst at EMBO Press, when the program started in 2011. 

At the end of 2015, I started my own business, and joined FEBS Press in 2017. 

My assignments come from various other journals and publishers including SpringerNature and The Royal Society,

I also run training courses, and regularly present to students and young scientists.


My background is in theatre arts and linguistics. In 2002 I obtained an MA in Bilingual Translation from Westminster University, London, before returning to Germany and starting a new career in publishing.

I live in Heidelberg with my husband, we have two daughters.

NEWS: Image Integrity Training Videos


                 Comissioned by the STM STEC Working Group on Image Alterations and Duplications,

                 I am currently producing a series of training videos that form part of the STM Integrity Hub Initiative.


 These instructional video modules are intended to serve as a tool for scholarly journal editors screening for manipulated images   in submitted manuscripts. This tutorial provides an overview of the most commonly found image aberrations in scientific   publications and illustrates how they may be detected and verified. Watch the videos here.


What I do ...


Image analysis of blots, microscopy images photographs, diagrams, graphs, plots


  • Processing of a variety of images using Photoshop to enhance hidden morphological details


  • detection of manipulations including splicing, cloning, erasing, stretching, and various types of duplications 


  • verification of potential duplications with overlay techniques

... and why I do it

Research misconduct can misdirect research effort, waste funds, and damage public trust in science


It is beneficial to both authors and journals to detect questionable images before they become part of the published literature


Paper mills are a threat to the scientific record  

Publications:




Press:



          Nature News 05 November 2024

AI-generated images threaten science — here’s how researchers hope to spot them

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03542-8


Undark 05 November 2024

The Rise of the Science Sleuths

https://undark.org/2024/09/11/the-rise-of-the-science-sleuths/


STAT January 10, 2023

Mistakes happen in research papers. But corrections often don’t

           https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/10/corrections-retractions-journals/


          SCIENCE 21 July 2022

Blots on a field? A neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles,    

           https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease


UKRIO Expert Interview with Jana Christopher 2021

https://ukrio.org/research-integrity-resources/expert-interviews/jana-christopher-image-integrity-analyst/


Chemical & Engineering News  2021

Paper mill hits RSC journals

           https://cen.acs.org/policy/publishing/Paper-mill-hits-RSC-journals/99/web/2021/01


Nature News   23 March 2021

The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5


Nature News   21 July 2020

Pioneering duplication detector trawls thousands of coronavirus preprints

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02161-3


Nature News   12 June 2015

The image detective who roots out manuscript flaws

http://www.nature.com/news/the-image-detective-who-roots-out-manuscript-flaws-1.17749



           https://www.chemistryworld.com/


https://www.laborjournal.de/editorials/1988.php


https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2020/02/21/the-tadpole-paper-mill/


https://www.statnews.com/2018/11/21/research-misconduct-journals-hiring-research-integrity-czars/


http://www.nature.com/news/research-integrity-cell-induced-stress-1.15507


http://www.laborjournal.de/editorials/960.lasso