Systematic fabrication of scientific images revealed

FEBS Press recently received several manuscripts which appear to contain fabricated images. Although the manuscripts were editorially rejected, they caught our attention as all of the Western blots looked unusually uniform, clean and regular. Careful screening revealed that identical sections of empty background were used as a base for multiple Western blots across 12 unrelated submissions, representing irrelative experiments. The individual bands appear to have been inserted as required, to exhibit the alleged experimental results.