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Recent independent investigations conducted have identified thousands of apparently manipulated validation images across the online catalogues of more than a dozen commercial antibody suppliers. This points to a problem embedded in the antibody supply chain rather than at any single company. This represents a previously unaddressed entry point for unreliable data into biomedical research, upstream of the peer-review and image-integrity safeguards journals have put in place for manuscripts. This revelation has a profound impact on research data integrity and implications for data reproducibility across fields dependent on antibody specificity. This incident has put the spotlight on antibody suppliers to improve their processes to ensure properly validated products are being supplied to research labs.
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Theam Soon Lim (2026) studied this question.
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