january 2005

"University of Toronto fraud"

Michael Pyshnov

In 1981 I began Ph.D. research at the University of

Toronto. I walked into a trap: after five years, I was

removed from the University and the credit for my

work and my discoveries was stolen by the professor-

supervisor and three other people. I received no

degree.

To save the professor from jail and to save her

falsified academic credit for the discoveries Canada

closed all doors for me. In the next 18 years I had no

job, my family was destroyed by the disastrous

circumstances. Beginning from my first complaint to

the Department of Zoology in 1987, higher and higher

officials were corrupted: from the Department to the

Government and the law enforcement. The University

of Toronto had soon crossed the line separating a

university from an organized crime. All professors of

the Department were silenced. Campus press was

ordered to keep silence. The governmental officials

were lying to me openly, completely unconcerned

about consequences.

The details of the fraud and the links to scanned

documents are here:

Ruthless Science Fraud at the University of Toronto

Fraud is so obvious

My research is stolen

In 1986, after 5 years of very successful research (cell patterns and

morphogenesis in Drosophila fly), my Ph.D. program was terminated

despite the official assurance that I had at least one more year to finish

the thesis.

As soon as I left, my supervisor, Professor Ellen Larsen, began writing

papers attributing my research, discoveries and ideas to herself. She

secretly published two papers under her authorship. She, also secretly,

sent for publication the third one, with my and her names as authors

and, when the manuscript was accepted for publication, she asked for

my signature. Not even knowing about the first two papers, I complained

to the Department protesting her co-authorship.

Although Chair of the Department of Zoology wrote to me (Doc. 20),

that the manuscript has been withdrawn, Larsen subsequently published

it, slightly changed, under her name. Comparing her paper (Doc. 21)

with this manuscript (Doc. 11) gives the proof of plagiarism.

(Compare the titles, authors and abstracts.)

Read, also, the opinions of two professors (one, A. Hilliker, was the

President of The Canadian Genetics Society). (Doc. 30 and 33)

There is no doubt about who was the author of the research in the

withdrawn manuscript.

There is Larsen's letter to the Editor (Doc. 19), where she apologized for

withdrawing the manuscript and where she clearly attributed the research

and the two discoveries in this manuscript to me.

In this letter she also said: "I intend, however, to submit the results of a

similar study (performed by myself and an undergraduate) in the very

near future...".

When she published her "similar study", she claimed the two discoveries,

my ideas, experiments, etc., as her own. But, she changed the name of

the structures discovered and named by me, from "whorls" to "clusters".

She had bad luck with this substitution: a paper was later published by

her friends from an American laboratory saying that Larsen discovered

"whorls"...

As a sadistic burglar who leaves a "thank you" note in the house, Larsen

wrote in a footnote: "We thank Michael Pyshnov for sharing his silver

staining technique and his ideas with us."

She lied about the "sharing", she should have rather acknowledged my

protest.

"Ideas" were not specified; the readers could not imagine that there were

no her ideas in the article, they were all lifted from the withdrawn

manuscript.

Nowhere else in the article was my name mentioned and she claimed

"hundreds" of experiments done "in the last six years".

The withdrawn manuscript contained reference to my previous study on

which my Ph.D. research was based. Larsen removed this reference.

The first of the two papers, published after my departure and before the

above article, was entitled: "The Morphogenetic Alphabet: Lessons

for Simple-Minded Genes". The joy of having me out of the way was

so great that she and her co-author, stealing my discoveries, were using

words such as: "We are now in a position to make specific predictions..",

"We have presented a scenario..", "we marshal evidence..". What was

my Ph.D. research, the two thieves claimed as "our preliminary data".

They posed as the discoverers and also gave "..general conclusions about

research strategies".

In these two papers, to avoid accusations of stealing and of breaching

confidentiality, Larsen was pretending that this research had already

been published. She was giving a bogus reference to a non-existent

publication. This "publication", in fact, was my poster (with her name in

the second place as a supervisor) that was displayed at a conference for

two hours but never published anywhere.

A more calculated fraud is difficult to imagine.

When I found that all my research was stolen and complained to the

University, Larsen wrote an explanation (Doc. 25).

She said: "In the retracted work, wild-type discs were compared to

mutant discs, in the second paper, discs from two mutant strains were

compared..." She was blatantly lying: the titles, abstracts and texts of

both, the withdrawn manuscript and her paper, compare wild-type and

mutant strains.

The withdrawn manuscript: "Cell Patterns Associated with Normal and Mutant

Morphogenesis in Silver Stained Drosophila Imaginal Discs", Michael

Pyshnov and Ellen Larsen.

Larsen's paper: "Cell Patterns Associated with Normal and Mutant

Morphogenesis in Silver-impregnated Imaginal Discs of Drosophila", Ellen

Larsen and Aaron Zorn.

So, how she "compared" two mutant strains? Her paper says that she used also a

second mutant. But, she did not analyze its mutation! She says that she looked at its

normal tissue which was exactly the same as in any normal fly. Therefore, there was no

comparing of the two mutants. The second mutant was not even mentioned in the

abstract. The paper is a deception, plagiarism and fraud. It does not show any tissue

pattern other than those shown by me, and I can even doubt that she performed any

experiments.

She, then, offered "justifications" that practically admit the fact of

plagiarism.

One "justification" was the same one that communists used while taking

away private property: she said that my discoveries belong not to me,

but to "community" and that therefore she was entitled to publish my

research under her own name. She said that I can not "suppress the use

of ideas".

Another was this: "The results of the second paper corroborate the

first...". But, the "first" is not published; for the readers her paper is the

original research, not a corroborating data. She sadistically added:

"Perhaps Michael feels betrayed because he forfeited a publication for

naught."

The University fraud

There were two University of Toronto own investigations (Doc. 24 and

27) from which it is obvious that in her "similar study" Larsen stole my

research. For example, first investigator stated that she "repeated" my

experiments; second - that her paper had "replications or extensions"

of my results and that she did not acknowledge this fact.

Therefore, she reported as her original results something that was

discovered by another person, isn't it so?

But, the investigators were not bothered with the criterion of originality,

they falsified rules and definitions that are universally recognized for

centuries, and denied any plagiarism.

I doubt that Larsen even repeated my experiments. But, whatever she

repeated or replicated, she knew the results and she published a forgery

to fit these results and stole the authorship of my research. This point I

could not prove to the officials in the University or elsewhere: this

country is waging a war against me.

Moreover, the University administration continued the fraud in still

another direction: a theory was invented that Larsen "salvaged" my

research when I refused to publish the manuscript!

The fact that Larsen started stealing my research before I refused to

publish this manuscript was ignored; her two earlier, above mentioned

articles were not investigated.

The fact that Larsen's "salvaging" included falsification of authorship,

removing any reference to my research, making bogus reference to a

non-existent "publication", writing a fake acknowledgment, etc., was not

appreciated. (Several more counts of unconscionable fraud in research

committed by Larsen are noted here.)

Two types of "justifications" are seen in the documents.

One - that Larsen indeed published my work but she "salvaged" it.

Second - that it was her own, not my work.

My academic record falsified

Falsification of the authorship of my research is of course a falsification

of my academic record. But, the University of Toronto falsified my

academic record even further.

To start "salvaging" a research would at least need admission that this

research has a scientific value. But, if the University of Toronto had

confirmed this scientific value, firing me would look like a fraud. So, the

University referred to the "paucity" of my research and denied any value

to it as a research for my Ph.D. thesis. They accused me of "laziness",

which would hardly be possible to say if the hundreds of experiments

done "in the last six years" that Larsen attributed to herself were returned

under my name.

How barbarous was the University fraud can be seen from the following.

This is from my Open Letter to The President of The Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Rabinovitch:

U of T says now that I did almost nothing in five years. If so, why would

anybody desire to "salvage" my research? Below are the abbreviated

quotations from previous recommendations (all available in full text, as well as

other documents): "The theoretical published work shows extreme originality..",

"..he has been invited to international conferences to discuss this work..",

"..outlined an entirely novel approach..", "This combination of technical and

theoretical skill is rare.", "..a tireless worker..", "..capacity to read and think and

synthesize information for weeks at a time.", "His selection of problems and

approach to them show a clarity of thinking and an appreciation for elegant work

which make his contributions original.", "..inquisitive mind..", ".. great technical

skill and perseverance..", "..his contributions.. will continue to be above

ordinary.", "His devotion to ideas and the sacrifices he has made.. make it clear

that he is a scholar by nature..", "We estimate he is of first-class calibre.. our

Departmental Graduate Committee ranked him 1st of 7 applicants for [the

highest scholarship in Canada] awards. He has already proven himself as an

independent researcher..", "Mr. Pyshnov's demonstrated creativity in conceiving

of this novel approach plus his superb technical skills uniquely qualify him to

carry out these studies of far reaching significance.", "..a man of proven scholarly

attainments..", "..a very creative scientist.."

(Quotations are from the Documents 2, 3, 4 and 19)

In 1980, a year before I came to the University of Toronto, I published a

study of the patterns of cell division in an organism (J. Theor. Biol.,

v.87, p.189-200; scanned here).

I postulated and described a "division wave" in a tissue and showed

that the division wave is the only way how the cells can divide and

multiply without destroying the structure of the tissue.

This article has given a new foundation for the research in stem cells,

cancer, in development and evolution of organs and other areas.

It allows to estimate the lifetimes and numbers of stem cells and, most

importantly, it gives, for the first time, the clue to the understanding what

the cellular structure of tissues really means, what are the laws that

produce it. This article was the last of several articles published by me

on the subject of cell proliferation.

My Ph.D. research which started with certain predictions from my

theory that were all proved later experimentally, the discovery of the

"whorls" and, also predicted by me, discovery of embryonic cell patterns

responsible for the structure of adult organs, all this (admitted as my

work, my ideas and my discoveries by Larsen in her letters and other

documents written by her) was judged by the University of Toronto

absolutely insufficient for the degree.

This University did a horrific fraud in science as well. The University

terminated the research in the important area of science, to which my

work made great contributions. It has not "salvaged" anything.

The Larsen's and the University of Toronto joint Statement of Defense

in court (Doc. 36, paragraph 22) contains this admission: "the theoretical

foundation of Pyshnov's studies was published in 1980".

University investigations were a criminal sham from the start: the

University did not let anyone from the Department of Zoology, nor any

biologist, talk to me.

It needs to be noted that contrary to what many would suspect, there

was no personal conflict between me and anyone in the University at all.

Larsen, giving explanations in that Doc. 25, even said that I left

"amicably".

An example of fraudulent justification for "salvaging", from the Statement of Defense, paragraph 21:

"Indeed, due to the fact that Pyshnov spent five years in Dr. Larsen's laboratory, received considerable academic and financial support, Dr. Larsen had a responsibility to the sources of the research funding to salvage as much as possible from the paucity of work that Pyshnov had completed before his departure." (The "research funding" was the top in Canada scholarship (post-graduate NSERC scholarship) that I earned. During 2 years Larsen had approved 6 installments of this scholarship, each time confirming by a letter the success of my work.)

Please, note that Doc. 19 and 25 are Larsen's side of the story.

Doc. 24 and 27 are the U of T side of the story.

Larsen's and the U of T joint Statement of Defense in court is Doc. 36.

Doc. 2, 4 and 8 were written by Larsen, earlier.

Doc. 3 and 20 are from the Department.

Among the documents there is an Appeal from the Graduate Students'

Union to the members of the faculty with the request to speak out (Doc.

34) and another protest from a professor sent to the Chair of the

Department and the U of T President.

For more details see my comments in the List of documents.