The publisher has withdrawn the special edition honoring Professor Kishor Wasan, who committed plagiarism, in response to requests from Retraction Watch. Now let’s explore and learn more about him:
Scholar Kishor Wasan: Inform us about him
Professor Kishor Wasan, a Canadian pharmacologist, had a tumultuous term as dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition from 2014 to 2019. His involvement in a retracted book review that exposed problems with academic integrity was only one of several questionable choices that defined his leadership.
Before taking on the role of dean, Wasan held positions in the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. While he was assistant dean of research and graduate programs from 2011 to 2014, he faced criticism from a variety of sources for his leadership style and practices.
During his tenure at UBC, Wasan served as head of pharmaceutics and national director of the Canadian Summer Student Research Program. However, his handling of these assignments was not without controversy; his decisions were often met with criticism from students and colleagues alike.
The number rather than the quality of Wasan’s research, which focused on the interaction between lipoproteins and medications and the distribution of medications based on lipids, drew more attention.
He claimed to have produced more than 550 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts, but the depth and novelty of his research have come under scrutiny.
Additionally, Professor Kishor Wasan, who also acts as its co-director, launched the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at UBC. However, the importance and effectiveness of this initiative have been eclipsed by the challenges and concerns about his behavior in both his academic and professional life.
Generally speaking, Professor Kishor Wasan’s career has been characterized by controversy, questionable decisions, and doubts about the reliability and importance of his accomplishments in academia and the field of pharmacy.
Indeed, what was the situation involving Professor Kishor Wasan?
There appear to have been a lot of significant changes and problems with the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy throughout the past year.
In July 2018, the university announced that Professor Kishor Wasan has been selected to serve as the new dean and professor of the faculty. Less than a year later, in June 2019, Professor Kishor Wasan tendered his resignation from his position.
Professor Kishor Wasan’s departure was sparked by a book review he co-wrote and published in The Lancet. It was found that a significant portion of the review, which focused on Canada’s healthcare system, had been taken verbatim from another review of the same book by prominent writer and Globe and Mail columnist André Picard.
Because Professor Kishor Wasan’s co-authored review was too similar to Picard’s writing, The Lancet withdrew it.
It’s important to remember that the retraction notice made no accusations of plagiarism against Professor Kishor Wasan. Instead, he stated that he and the other authors had originally included a citation to Picard’s work in their article, but have since changed it to accommodate their own opinions.
Their inability to appropriately modify the text to include their thoughts was the reason for the surprising resemblance to Picard’s criticism.
While claiming that he had no intention of misleading, Professor Kishor Wasan admitted his responsibility for the circumstances. However, the controversy surrounding the retraction and the similarities in the assessments affected his upcoming appointment as Dean of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
Due to his resignation, Professor Lisa Dolovich of the same faculty was appointed temporary dean for a year. As for Professor Wasan, he will no longer be serving in that capacity as his official tenure as dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition ended in June 2019.
A book review that was later withdrawn for drawing similarities to the writing of another author led to the resignation of a selected dean from the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. This incident altered the course of Professor Wasan’s career and led to the faculty being placed under an interim dean.
The Impacts
It turns out that the academic journal publisher MDPI intended to release a special issue of the journal “Pharmaceutics” in recognition of retired dean Professor Kishor M. Wasan’s contributions to the field of pharmaceutics.
Retraction Watch is a platform that monitors and reports on cancellations and ethical issues in scientific research. Retraction Watch informed the co-editors of the special issue that Professor Wasan had resigned because of plagiarism.
In particular, it was shown that there was proof that Professor Kishor Wasan had plagiarized a book review from 2019 that appeared in The Lancet. Plagiarism, which is defined as using someone else’s words, ideas, or works without giving due credit or permission, is a serious transgression of both academic and ethical standards.
Professor Kishor Wasan did not respond to a request for comment. Before retiring, he was the dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, the chief medical and scientific officer at Skymount Medical, and the director of research at iCo Therapeutics Inc.
MDPI has previously pulled a special issue. They took this action in 2018 due to the editor’s falsified credentials. With a twinge of déjà vu, this is what we told The Scientist back then:
About MDPI
MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) publishes scholarly journals that are available for free online. Created by Shu-Kun Lin as a repository for chemical samples, it currently publishes more than 390 open-access, peer-reviewed articles. MDPI is one of the world’s largest publishers in terms of journal paper output. The majority of open-access articles are also published by it.
With an annual increase of more than 50% in 2017, 2018, and 2019, MDPI published a significant number of peer-reviewed articles between 2016 and 2020. These articles were noted for processing articles incredibly quickly. The evaluation found that 11 or 42% of the 3,500+ publications published in 2022 by 26 open-access “mega-journals” came from MDPI.
The Bottom Line
This episode raises concerns about academic integrity and the importance of giving people with the accomplishment and wealth of knowledge required to hold positions of power their due credit. Including Professor Kishor Wasan in it.
