Marc Halushka MD, PhD

Finding competent and willing reviewers is a silent crisis in academic publishing. It is unclear how this resolves.

Some journals think retracting papers makes them look bad. For me, the opposite is worse. Perpetuating bad/dishonest science, and forcing a field to work around papers that should be retracted, is a bad look. I start with a high degree of skepticism of splashy new papers in certain top journals.

Marc Halushka, Bastian Fromm, and Arun Patil Read all of the posts by Marc Halushka, Bastian Fromm, and Arun Patil on Retraction Watch

We are coming up on the 5 year anniversary of the discovery of a human "microRNA" biomarker for myocarditis. Despite how important and exciting this could be, it was never replicated because it is not a real "microRNA." The NEJM refused to retract this work. retractionwatch.com/author/halus...

#2. This highlights the continuing shame of major journals doing a poor job of finding quality reviewers and not being responsible for the dubious work in their journals. They seem to want the flash, but are unwilling to clean up the messes they create.

#1. A huge number of "microRNAs" are not microRNAs. They will not act like microRNAs and should not be studied as microRNAs. Any studies of these "microRNAs" are dubious and likely erroneous and/or misinterpreted studies. MicroRNA studies should start with confirming it is in MirGeneDB.

This is a must read about the challenges of microRNA research.
academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Brilliant work by @frommlab.bsky.social and other great collaborators.

Here are some key points...

#medsky #pathsky #cardiosky

What’s the cardiac disease depicted in this EM image? Give it a shot in the comments!
Answer here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#cardiacsky #pathsky #medsky

Has anyone in the #miRNA community tried to interact with the #GTEx small RNA datasets they made available? I have questions….

Journal collected $400,000 from papers it later retracted A Sage journal that holds the distinction of highest number of retracted articles in the Retraction Watch Database likely made in excess of $400,000 in revenue from those papers, by our calculation…

A Sage journal that holds the distinction of highest number of retracted articles in the Retraction Watch Database likely made in excess of $400,000 in revenue from those papers, by our calculations.

Attention autopsy, forensic, and cardiovascular pathologists! Did you miss this 2023 Consensus Statement with recommended examination procedures for sudden cardiac death? It’s still available at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#medsky #pathsky #cardiosky

#pathsky

The Satija Lab single cell genomics day is starting now. Always interesting and free to watch at YouTube or satijalab.org/sgcd25.

Open Access Alert! What are the causes of biomaterial degeneration in patients with congenital heart disease? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Life After Paper Mills You won't like this.

open.substack.com/pub/jamescla...

Interesting idea on paper mills. If we allow a second publishing ecosystem where everyone in mainstream science knows to avoid it and not cite it, it might be better than the current grey area where we live.

This was a great collaboration to determine just how many T lymphocytes are in a non-myocarditis biopsy. Not many! (But sometimes it's not as few as you would think). This is informing us for thresholds on new myocarditis criteria coming your way shortly.

Patterns of Unwanted Biological and Technical Expression Variation Among 49 Human Tissues Tissue gene expression studies are impacted by biological and technical sources of variation, which can be broadly classified into wanted and unwanted…

Here is a link to the article if anyone is interested (and if you do any gene expression in bulk or single cell, you should be): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Excited to be part of ‘The best of the USCAP journals’ session. Our manuscript ‘Patterns of Unwanted Biological and Technical Expression Variation Among 49 Human Tissues’ was discussed. #USCAP2025 @labinvest.bsky.social

#USCAP2025 is still going strong, with a host of courses and activities on this Annual Meeting Wednesday! So much knowledge, so little time... mailchi.mp/uscap/wednes...

Good morning and happy Annual Meeting Monday! Today is one of the busiest days of the meeting - with lots to do and learn. mailchi.mp/uscap/monday... #USCAP2025

Congratulations to Cristina Basso for winning the SCVP distinguished achievement award. We had a wonderful banquet to celebrate her career with a heartfelt roast by Giulia d’Amati and Monica De Gaspari. #USCAP2025

Packed crowd and great presentations at the SCVP companion society meeting on sudden cardiac death at #USCAP2025. A good day for cardiovascular pathology.

I love Cleveland, but it's not a Super Bowl town. They will fight it out with Detroit (and possibly Chicago/Minneapolis) for the one Midwest Super Bowl they will let happen every 20 years. Super Bowls will be in warm weather cities.

Congratulations to all of the medical students who matched in pathology today. Welcome to the best field in all of medicine. Very excited about the new trainees coming to the Cleveland Clinic.
#pathsky

Looking forward to #USCAP2025! Always a good time to catch up with friends.

Measles is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus. It causes a widespread rash and flu-like symptoms. But measles isn’t just a rash. It can make you severely ill and lead to life-threatening complications like brain inflammation and pneumonia.

Read more: cle.clinic/3DPymCG

Scientists’ suit against top academic publishers lays bare deep frustration over unpaid peer review Researchers have sued six big academic publishers, arguing their practices are illegal and anticompetitive.

Article link here: www.statnews.com/2025/03/10/p...

Big changes coming?

Researchers have sued six big academic publishers, arguing their practices are illegal and anticompetitive.

The Cavs play a beautiful style of basketball. #Letemknow #Cavs