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Chinese PhD dropout turned whistle-blower exposes data fabrication by renowned scholars

A Chinese PhD dropout who has become a viral influencer exposing academic misconduct is building a growing army of followers eager to reveal ethical malpractice…

By Samantha Johnson / June 1, 2026

A Chinese PhD dropout who has become a viral influencer exposing academic misconduct is building a growing army of followers eager to reveal ethical malpractice among scientific researchers.

The former PhD candidate in bioscience at the prestigious Beihang University, Geng Hongwei, dropped out in 2025, and became a full-time whistle-blower with over two million followers on an online platform.

Geng attracted public attention for a video in April, in which he questioned a paper from the team of the dean of the School of Life Sciences and Technology at Tongji University, Wang Ping, published in the British science journal Nature.

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Geng noted the abnormal data in the paper.

He listed them one by one in his video, for instance the last digit of almost the whole column of figures was 5, and the figures in one column exactly differ by 0.3 from another column.

PhD dropout Geng Hongwei, above, talks about the methods he uses to check academic research work. Photo: QQ.com
PhD dropout Geng Hongwei, above, talks about the methods he uses to check academic research work. Photo: QQ.com

He also noted that the 196 laboratory mice’s weight data in the paper were rounded to two decimal places, which was abnormally precise as mice move a lot and cannot be weighed accurately.

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