Professor Thomas Sudhof, a Nobel laureate of Stanford University, told Science that if it was true that the findings were falsified: “The immediate, obvious damage, is wasted NIH funding and wasted thinking in the field because people are using these results as a starting point for their own experiments.”
So far, Lesné and Ashe have not responded to Science’s request for the original, uncropped, high-resolution images which formed the basis for the 2006 paper.
If the falsification is confirmed, there’s no doubt that the field of Alzeimher’s research will be in turmoil as the consequences unfold. It is to be hoped that scientists remain focused on following real possibilities for a breakthrough in clinical treatments for this pervasive and cruel disease.