And they call him, Quicklime Boy

This post was earlier cross-posted at Leonid Schneider's site, hence the unfrivolous tone. The version there is improved by Leonid's editing and frame story.

At their pinnacle, Hindu spirituality and philosophy are about weakening the habitual cognitive error known as "ego" by starving it of attention, so that we can experience things in the world as they are rather than treating them as a series of mirrors reflecting oneself. Some gurus take a roundabout path towards this goal of abnegation, by way of self-glorification, perhaps in the hope that if one inflates one's ego enough it will explode with a dull "pop" like the frog in the fable. I am thinking in particular of Indian yoga- and snake-oil-purveyors Swami Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna. Attend to the autohagiographies that adorn the Patanjali Research Institute!

For his divine and excellence services to the welfare of mankind, [H.H. SWAMI RAMDEV JI] was felicitated by the Prime Minister of Indian Mr. Narendra Modi Ji as a National Icon, Tarun Kranti. He received several prestigious awards namely Padma Vibhushan, Surya Ratna and Mahaveer Award. Swami Ji has been conferred with recognized honors. Among, the few are: Surya Ratna, Mahveer Award from United Kingdom, Chandrashearendra Saraswati National Eminence Award, Mahamahopadhyaya globoil India Award. Swami ji is honored from British House of Commons, Legislature of state of New Jersey, USA, ASSOCHEM’s 5th Global Knowledge Millennium Summit, Brand Ambassador of Yoga by Government of Haryana. Swami Ji is honored and celebrated 30 June 2007 as Swami Ramdev Day by Nassau County.
Swami Ji was as “Most Creative Business People of 2016”, and “5th India’s 50 Most Powerful People” by American Business Magazine and India Today Magazine respectively. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar has conferred him a “Honorary Doctorate”. Swami Ji was considered for Padma Vibushan, as second highest civilian award but, day before 66th Republic Day, humbly refrained from taking it by putting the fact he is an ascetic.
Swami ji aimed to propagate Yoga and Ayurveda, reform India on the social, political and economic level and henceforth took all onerous responsibility of demystifying and popularizing Patanjali Yoga on himself. Swami ji aimed to implement yoga as a daily practice and life style to every human being.
His teachings of yoga include eight Prāṇāyāmas, some Ukma (light) Vyāyāmas; and some specific Āsanas combined with Āyurvedic medicines for various ailments. The yogic teachings of Swami Ji are broadcast on various Indian TV channels, like AASTHA, ZEETV, STAR, SAHARA etc. ...

If you can read these without thinking "Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?" then you need to read more P.G. Wodehouse.

[H.H. ACHARYA BALKRISHNA JI] is one of the renowned & pioneer in the field of Ayurvedic Science and a source of inspiration for Traditional Medicinal Practitioners and working for the spectrum of indigenous medicine identification, authentication and establishment at national & international level.*
With the vison of universal health for over last two decades, he effectively cured more than 1.5 million patients with a number of stubborn, chronic and non-communicable diseases. Presently more than 1500 traditional doctors are providing free primary healthcare service to more than 7 million of patients per year and 1 million volunteer are providing free Yoga to 50 Million person daily.
To reveal new ways to solve key health problems, fill gaps in knowledge & strengthening of health system he is guiding research works to create and improve preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic interventions of diseases through Indigenous Medicine System i.e. Yoga & Ayurveda and digital health.
He authored more than 100 books, 100 Research Articles, 41 Patents Rights and edited more than 18 unpublished ancient Manuscripts. One of the scripture ‘Aushadh Darshan’ has been sold more than 10 million copies and in addition, ‘The Science of Ayurveda’ has been published in 71 languages across globe.
Strengthening traditional medicine system of the world with the multivolume ‘World Herbal Encyclopedia’ that contains description of 60,000 medicinal plant species with world largest collection of medical plants paintings.

The Patanjali Research Institute (PRI) seems to be a subsidiary of the Patanjali Research Foundation Trust, all part of a sprawling Patanjali-themed business empire, with the Patanjali Yogpeeth, Divya Yog Mandir, Patanjali Ayurved Limited manufactory, a University of Patanjali, and innumerable other commercial entities.** All founded by Ramdev and Balkrishna, and all selling two product ranges to the Indian diaspora through "Divya Pharmacy" Patanjali-themed pharmacy webstores: (1) ersatz Guru-blessings, and (2) mendacious Alt-Med concoctions -- both with an Indian Nationalist brand.

What brings this into the ambit of Riddled and ForBetterScience are the paper-shaped advertisements for Balkrishna medicinal merchandise, pukefunneled into mockademic journals.

The on-line pharmacies have any number of Ramdev / Balkrishna products, treating various ill-defined diagnostic categories, and generally consisting of calcium oxide i.e. quicklime (or sometimes mercury) with various blends of a limited palette of herbs. Like quantum-theoretical particle-waves, they all display a dual nature, being at the one time both time-honoured Ayurvedic traditions, and proprietary creations of Swami Ramdev, made only at Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. and sold only through Divya Pharmacy, accept no imitation.

In a belated quest for academic acceptance, they all need research-shaped performances to justify (retrospectively) Ramdev's insights, so there are many of these papers, taking full advantage of the new marketing channel created by advances in academic publishing.

This illustrates in passing an important point about pay-to-print 'predatory publishing' in the research world. Predatory or parasitical publishers are often presented as taking advantage of the naivete of innocent authors. In many cases, the authors know exactly what they're buying with their Page Charges: a veneer of academic approval for lies that further the authors' political or commercial agenda. In the case of Balkrishna, it is also an opportunity to take first authorship on each of the opuscules churned out by his minions at the PRI.

The Balkrishna oeuvre is notable for a non-standard interpretation of the concept of "conflict of interest", with Balkrishna claiming to gain no personal advantage from the positive results he fabricates for his merchandise. His employees / co-authors share this admirable disinterest.

Every crisis is an opportunity, the adage has it, and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is no exception, opening up whole new markets to medscammers and their overpriced placebos. The Ramdev / Balkrishna way of capitalising on it was to combine quicklime with Withania somnifera, Tinospora cordifolia and Ocimum sanctum, and call it Coronil... followed by the more arduous process of retconning a rationale and working out the chemical contents.***

One supporting paper purports to show improved swimbladder performance in Covid-infected zebrafish ("Application of Humanized Zebrafish Model in the Suppression of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Induced Pathology by Tri-Herbal Medicine Coronil via Cytokine Modulation"). OK, not really an infection, but a injection of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins; not affecting the fish directly, but rather, affecting the human-derived A549 cancer cells hosted in their swimbladders. The rationale was that the proteins would challenge the A549 cells in exactly the way that a COVID-19 infection challenges respiratory epithelial cells in an infected host, causing the fishes' immune systems to respond in the same way as a human immune system, with a cytokine storm; and absence of such a storm would prove the efficacy of the herbal concoction.

The approach is adopted, somewhat loosely, from lung-cancer research, where the search is for treatments that kill the A549 cells. Its validity could be questioned, but there is no doubting the value of the study for Patanjali Ayurved Ltd and Divya Pharmacy, who lost no time in applying it to its intended marketing purposes.

The company continues to insist its product works against Covid-19.
"It has treated and cured people," Acharya Balkrishna, managing director of Patanjali told the BBC.
It referred us to scientific trials, the results of which it says have been published in several peer-reviewed journals.
It pointed specifically to a study from November 2020 in a journal published by the Swiss-based MDPI, which was based on a laboratory trial.

Concurrently with the Coronil validation, the company was preparing a very similar paper, "Calcio-Herbal Medicine Divya-Swasari-Vati Ameliorates SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein-Induced Pathological Features and Inflammation in Humanized Zebrafish Model by Moderating IL-6 and TNF-α Cytokines". Here the cytokine storms in the zebrafish / A549-cell chimeras were forestalled by a different Patanjali Product, involving a different herbal mixture (plus quicklime). One could easily wonder if there are any ayurveda-inspired products which don't cure COVID-19. In fairness, I note that this second paper departed from the first in using "behavioural fever" as well as swimbladder function to quantify the piscine health (assessed by the fishes' preference for a warmer environment).

A third bolus of bullshit was tendentious, disingenuous fiddle-faddle, harnessing lead-time bias to deliver the intended result -- packing the Treatment group with earlier-infected cases who were already progressing towards full recovery, while lying about "randomly assigning" and "RCT".

"Randomized placebo-controlled pilot clinical trial on the efficacy of ayurvedic treatment regime on COVID-19 positive patients" was published in Phytomedicine : International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology: a naturopath-friendly journal from Elsevier, often encountered in lists of papermill outputs. It stands out from the rest of the oeuvre because Edzard Ernst gave it stick for lack of scientific rigor. Of course Prof. Ernst criticises a lot of junk. In this case he was banned from FaceBorg for spreading COVID-19 disinformation (!), after (I surmise) Balkrishna sent flying monkeys to denounce him.

This post got me banned from Facebook; I don't see why. If you don't either, perhaps you might RT the hell out of it?

An RCT on the efficacy of ayurvedic treatment on asymptomatic COVID-19 patients https://t.co/R2RA7qgV6e via @edzardernst

— Edzard Ernst (@EdzardErnst) February 25, 2021

No-one expected FaceBorg to take the side of the scammer! Meanwhile the paper served its purpose:

A human trial was conducted between May and June last year, on 95 patients who had tested positive for coronavirus.
Of these, 45 received the treatment and 50 were part of a placebo group (who didn't receive anything).
The Patanjali company pointed out the results have appeared in a peer-reviewed journal called Science Direct in its April 2021 edition.

Public health: Never a priority in a theocracy

There is a political side to all this. Balkrishna and Ramdev made themselves flag-bearers in a broader campaign to monetarise Ayurvedic quackery by tying it to the Hindutva movement of religious / cultural chauvinism, or Brahminic supremacy if you like. They backed the winning side in the Indian race to dictatorship. So the Minister of Health has joined Team Coronil (not just the Minister for Medfraud), keen to install Coronil as the standard treatment for COVID-19 and volunteering the public as guineapigs for large-scale trials. To be fair, I note that State governments are generally less theocratic and therefore more concerned for the health of their constituents, and are not so enthusiastic.

Lying that Coronil received WHO approval

I don't know if there is anything comparable elsewhere. The US has a noble tradition of religious frauding, piggybacking on a movement of Bible-weaponising white supremacy. It has an equally long tradition of snake-oil and Alt-Med chicanery. Mountebanks and supplement pimps like Mercola would like to combine the two, running 'christian-spirituality / prosperity-gospel' grifts in conjunction with 'christian-herbalist alt-med cures' as the two sides of a single immersive money-extracting environment. But the fact remains that traditional European medicine was all mistletoe, leeches, cobweb pills, poultices and swallowing live mice, if you go back to the Dark Ages, or trichobezoars and antimony and ground-up emeralds if you prefer the Renaissance quacksalver version. So it's not easy to present multilevel-marketed pill-popping as an intrinsic part of White Identity, in the way that Ayurveda is part of Hindutva, despite the medscammers' best efforts to align themselves with the American Taliban.

That aside, nine Balkrishna brainfarts have been flagged so far in PubPeer threads. Dozens more could be arraigned, of course, just for his specious denial of any Conflicts-of-Interest. Four featured in Special Issues of Biomolecules, a MDPI journal, which appears to be especially welcoming. The MDPI policy of encouraging video abstracts as well as the old-media written ones probably helps (the publisher is targeting a readership who need moving pictures to capture their attention). So please enjoy the spectacle of a recitation about Withania somnifera... in Sanskrit.

Now Sanskrit is a lovely language, but considering the percentage of the population who understand it (even in India), its use in this context is more a statement of fealty to the Modi gubblement and its Brahmin-supremacist philosophy than an attempt to communicate to a wider audience -- like delivering an Abstract in Latin to affiliate one's research with the Vatican. Indian media saw the triumphant gesture, even if the MDPI publishing director preferred to think that it was "diversity".

“Diversity and sustainability are very important to us, so we are very pleased to have published a video abstract in Sanskrit,” he added.

In a covert correction, the original Video Abstract seems to have vanished from another Biomolecules paper ("Validation of a Novel Zebrafish Model of Dengue Virus (DENV-3) Pathology Using the Pentaherbal Medicine Denguenil Vati"). The loss is regrettable, as by all accounts it was a choral performance. Complete with conspicuous product placement for the Pentalherbal Medicine Denguenil Vati, available only through the first author's Divya Pharmacy.

https://t.co/kaIEmBjInb
@PypAyurved's paper abstract is followed by a video of @Ach_Balkrishna singing a song for dengue (?) @MDPIOpenAccess you okay?
What is this?@MicrobiomDigest @schneiderleonid @Thatsregrettab1 @SmutClyde

— ronak (@rotluronak) February 23, 2021

"Denguenil Vati is a pentaherbal Indian traditional formulation recent product of Swami Ramdev's well-remunerated intuition that has been prescribed by ayurvedic practitioners charlatans for the treatment of dengue infection in India."

The scientific breakthrough here is not so that Balkrishna and his acolytes had cured zebrafish of a Dengue Fever infection, but their success in infecting them with the virus in the first place, contrary to a century of failures by other virologists to find a non-primate host. They buried the lede there.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* It comes as no surprise that Balkrishna has fluffers on staff to curate the contents of his Whackyweedia entry and ensure that the tongue-bath is the right temperature. The entry does not mention the tax-evasion concerns or the questions of bogus citizenship and bogus degrees, so one must search elsewhere for that background information.

** "It is very difficult to be sure about the number of associated companies - Ramdev’s key aides, Balkrishna and Mukta Nand are shown as Directors/Managing Directors/Additional Directors for at least 45 separate companies, however there are likely to be many more companies affiliated to the Ramdev organization. Some of the most significant affiliates are Aashta TV, Divya Pharmacy, Patanjali Ayurved Limited and the Brahmakalpa Chikitsalaya (hospital).27"

*** The methodology makes as much sense as a previous application of the same versatile and potent three-herb combination, to cancer patients, as a chemoprotective adjunct to chemotherapy. (though no sign of the calcium oxide). But wait, here's another group of researchers, jumping on the juggernaut bandwagon to promote the three-herb combination for COVID-19, with a molecular-docking unstudy.

Songs for the 10 Voices of the Two Prophets

Here at the Riddled Institute of Empirical Aesthetics and High-Gravity Poultry-Keeping, we keep track of well-intended acts of vandalism wrought by plonkers and loombuckets with delusions of artistic competence, so you don't have to. So it was gratifying to see 'The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius' included in the Waterhouse retrospective at the Royal Academy, back in 2009. Nice catalogue, BTW.

After the over-enthusiastic cleansing at the hands of a misguided amateur in 1973, its restoration had been masterful though lengthy, and one would scarcely notice the damage. I admit to some surprise that the South Australians were willing to forget the 1973 episode and lend the painting again (I don't remember it as part of the 'Love & Death' touring exhibition of Victorian art in 2001/2002).

There is some speculation that the Waterhouse episode was model for the restoration of Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1" by Brooke-Taylor, Garden & Oddie (1975) ... or was modelled after it (for the workings of the morphogenic field are not constrained by conventional temporal causation).

The Spanish have a long tradition of aesthetic destruction going back to the Vandal occupation from 409 to 429, and currently they are leading the World League table. Inspired by the 'Ecco Mono' Redeemer-of-the-Apes fresco restoration and the ensuing tourism boom, other Spanish restoration enthusiasts gave us the Playmobil Holy Family, the Tintin St. George, the Potato-Head of Palencia and the Murillo Monster. But the Australians are catching up!

Now the Sydney rock-carvings were not in the same league as a copy of a Murillo mantlepiece. They were outsider-art images in a style reminiscent of Penck, incised into slabs of sandstone in Callan Park, part of the grounds of the old Rozelle Asylum. The person most interested in them was John Clegg, archeologist and petroglyph expert.* The detailed observations of ship rigging and steam-boat design in the carvings convinced Clegg that the artist had some nautical experience, though not so much literacy - explaining his choice of this pictorial format to record his autobiography, whereby dates in the inscriptions (ranging from 1855 to 1922) relate to years he thought were significant. This fits local traditions about the artist.



Clegg suggested that the frequently-appearing "compass-rose-inna-banana" motif was a graphical / narrative depiction of how to take bearings with a gimballed ship's compass. Got all that? Don't worry, it will not be in the exam.

Further research: No longer an option

This explanation was rejected in 2014 by Lady Crown (a.k.a. Jennifer Holt, a.k.a. Mauri Queen Turikatuku III) on account of being boring and plausible and insufficiently about her. In fact the 8-pointed compass roses turn out to be the five-pointed stars of Ratana Church iconography, for in the Intuitive History that concerns us now, the images and enigmatic texts were really engraved in the stones by a pair of New Zealand exiles, twin prophets of the Ratana Church, as a record of their ecstatic revelations. Oppressive carcerial authorities treated their visions as delusions (as they always do), accounting for the presence of the twins in the nearby asylum.

Also foretold: the adoption of a Rising-Sun flag by the Japanese Navy

All this occurred before the foundation of the Ratana Church, but it is unclear whether the twins merely foretold that development, or went on to be involved somehow in that curious syncretic religion as pioneers in its tradition of prophecy... perhaps they were even its true founders and T. W. Ratana was a usurper.

This must remain in obscurity, and there is nothing to attest to the twins as existing outside of Ms Holt's Dioscuri-themed fantasy, as she explains that concerns for their privacy prevent her from providing names or other identifying details. It is enough to know that she numbers them among her pullulating horde of ancestors.

PRIVACY DISCLAIMER
Due to the nature of their incarceration, for reasons of privacy at the request of the families, their purported illnesses, names and their tribal affiliations will not be released to the general public.

For Ms Holt, 2014 was a hiatus between her 2012 and 2019 attempts to convince the Council and court system of Parramatta that various plots of riverside park-land were Sacred Land on account of undiscovered gravesites (and should come under the guardianship of herself and family and friends). She was midway through the process of anamnesis as she recalled her true heritage and true destiny, adopting various titles to reflect her highborn family tree (which includes every paramount chief of New Zealand oral and early-written history), and her claim to the Mauri Crown. Enlightened as to the true origins of the Sydney carvings, she realised that her self-assigned role of Guardian of Sacred Sites, and the career of her artistically-inclined husband, would be best-served if they revived Tribal Carving Traditions and re-chiselled all the grooves of those carvings, rendering them in more of a bas-relief style, along with such improvements as seemed desirable. Much as one might recarve the groove in a vinyl LP to restore its audio quality. Top that, Spanish restorers!

Surrounding Lady Crown is a sprawling archipelago of vauntingly deranged, mutually affirming blogs and websites, in which her unique worldview is explored in more elaborate rococo detail than you could ask for. Within it, all this Visionary Archeology and destructively creative reclamation of history is merely a secondary epicyclic fantasy. Heaven knows what other bobbins is in there. Meanwhile, as noted in a previous post, Lady Crown has outgrown the narrow confines of Australia and looks to bring her Sovereign-Citizen word-salad cuisine to the Aotearoan side of the Tasman. Crivens! And crivens again!

Her claim to hereditary leadership of the Maori-sovereignty movement has encountered some push-back from longer-established grifters who had already battened onto that movement and its collective response to colonialism. I expect to hear a rising crescendo of 5G! and 1080! and Microchipped vaccines! and all the other Worship Words of conspiracism, as they compete for legitimacy. If she is eventually ousted, she still has the fallback option of re-re-inventing hereself and asserting a claim to be Hereditary Leader of the Ratana movement.

* Clegg's obituary notes that Sir Terry Pratchett sought his advice for "The Last Continent".

THE PROTECTORATE

The Holy Spirit

Lady Crown is in fact an heir and successor to King Hongi Hika and Queen Turikatuku II, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840 [Treaty] which was initiated by her ancestor King Hongi Hika in 1820 England via He Whakaputanga 1835 (Declaration of Independence) Aotearoa.

Therefore the mantle was passed to her from IO Matua to honour the Te Tiriti that had been dishonoured by the settlers in Aotearoa. Given the blessing, Our Lady honoured the Te Tiriti on 1st August 2018, where the seas meet at Rangihou and Rangihoua. Through her baptism and the hand of IO Matua, she was released from all man made schemes, authorities, free from false beliefs, ideologies and sins. Released from the System in Perpetuity.

Our Lady was given right of passage to carry the ‘Kai whatu’ through [seed of the stone, bearers of sacred knowledge from the realms of the spiritual dimensions], brought forward in this time, the Seal of Covenant from ‘IO Matua’ anointed and validated. What she shares, is direct from IO Matua ‘God’ Almighty.

Our Lady was reborn and anointed an Ambassador of the Lord.

Our Lady returned to her first name given at her first breath of birth 'Crown'.

She now stands as 'Our Lady Crown', a child of God, child of Mother Earth, reborn on Mount Taratara, An Ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ with Divine Right and Authority.

Her divine right & authority is granted through the Power of IO Matua, the Holy Spirit, walking with God's Laws.

Lady Crown is our Holy Spirit and Protector in the physical realms holding both covenants in both of her hands, ​protecting all that are in her care and residing in the Kingdom of God

Even when constructing the famous water-box, probably the most delicate and fragile instrument ever made by human hands, de Selby is known to have smashed three heavy coal-hammers and was involved in undignified legal proceedings with his landlord arising from an allegation of strained floor-joists and damage to a ceiling

Despite De Selby's promising results with the Water-box, later researchers could not replicate his use of heavy coal-hammers to separate D₂O (heavy water) from ordinary plain-pack own-brand H₂O. Thus we are left with repeated cycles of low-temperature vacuum rectification as the most practical approach to deuterium enrichment.

Alternative title: Lite Water, We're sailing at the edges of time
Lite Water, We're drifting at the waterline

Cast your minds back four years to the "Deuterium-enriched foodstuffs for health" story (with its footnotes to Everett Lafayette Storey's invention CellFood or Open-All, variously produced by NuScience / Deutrel / DeutroCell, the Deuterated Sulphuric Acid that conditions soil and unblocks drains and invigorates the system when drunk as a tonic). Here at the Riddled Research Laboratory and Ammo-Phos Archive we are embarrassed that it took us until now to see the secondary opportunities inherent in consuming heavy-water-harvested foods to reduce free radicals... That is, can you also advertise health benefits from the deuterium-depleted light water that is an inevitable by-product of operating a heavy-water distillery at non-trivial expense? (assuming that your moral framework has been qualm-depleted by multiple cycles of fractional rectification).

This is of course a rhetorical question. For the rhetorical answer, consider the Litewater Company and its convincing diagrams of how D₂O molecules cause old age by buggering up the exquisite mechanisms of mitochondrial ATP-Synthase.

Not some new design of espresso machine

Litewater is not cheap, and it must dominate your diet for months, cooking with it and brewing with it and growing your own food with Litewater irrigation (it's got no electrolytes! Plants love it!). Once every D₂O molecule in your body has made way for a H₂O replacement, the ATP synthase molecular mills in your mitochondria will finally function properly as Evolution intended, for the first time in 4 billion years. Huzzah!

This entertaining and enterprising grift features in a recent unpublished paper from Marco Ruggiero - an old friend of Riddled and an embodiment of the "10/90" rule ("10% of mad scientists end up demanding 90% of attention from the Mad Scientist Anti-Defamation League").

Ruggiero's current academic affiliation is with the National Coalition of Independent Scholars, for he has retired or resigned from CEO of Silver Spring Sagl, Swiss-based dealers in medicinal yoghurt and magical chondroitin emulsions. Thus the preprint does not advertise those products in any direct way. However, paper-shaped advertisements swarm and pullulate in the References section, where 31 of 78 references are self-citations.* They range from 1989 to 2020 in a career-spanning greatest-hits compilation, a self-curated retrospective exhibition.

I choose to believe that the NCIS has regular get-togethers where Independent Scholars practice their maniacal laughter and You-Fools-I'll-Show-You-All diatribes, and hold workshops on dealing with angry mobs of flaming-torch- and pitchfork-wielding villagers, and upgrade their Igors for newer models.

The pre-print belongs to the Hormesis tradition of radioactivity-is-good-for-you apologetics, and I can only surmise that Prof. Ruggiero has bought large tracts of Arizona desert which he hopes to lease out as a nuclear waste dump. It is also mandible-serpentine-hautboy word salad. Cyanobacteria were grown in uranium- and radium-rich mineral water with two levels of natural radioactivity, and in Litewater as a negative control... perhaps Marco was under the impression that Deuterium is radioactive, thereby ruling out plain old distilled water or tapwater as controls due to their non-zero content of that isotope.

Radiation, yes indeed! You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-boxed do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have 'em too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally a-burst. The next day nothing. Swept away... But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.

The vanishingly-small photon flux in that slightly glowy water [because Cherenkov radiation] contained enough visible-band energy to induce photosynthesis in the cyanobacteria... photosynthesis that facilitated the horizontal transfer of DNA information from them to the magic-yoghurt-related microbes being co-cultured with the cyanobacteria, because quantum entanglement. The radioprotection from these genes then becomes available to consumers of the yoghurt.



The recipe for culturing this ecosystem involved hemp, and equal amounts of sugar and Equisetum arvense horsetail, because that plant's evolutionary antiquity and the fractal distribution of silica within its stem will further facilitate the quantum entanglement and the genetic radioprotective transfer. There were angry scenes at the Old Entomologist when I read out this section of the pre-print, and baseless accusations of "spying" and "industrial espionage", as it turns out that Greenish Hugh had intended to use very similar ingredients for brewing this year's Xmas Ale.

As is canonical in this literature, the preprint refers as well to Mothersill et al (2018), who invoked quantum entanglement in the important research area of radiation-induced telepathy in trout, to explain how the effects of radiation propagate the wrong way along the time axis and turn trout telepathic even before it is administered. Things reached Peak Condamine Fishsticks in this next passage, where Ref [67] is a gauntlet thrown down before Betteridge's Law. It is finest military-grade wibble and connoisseurs of bafflegab will be pleased to see the whole paragraph repeated in Paccini & Ruggiero (2019), albeit with a different protein quantally entangling with DNA (because toroidal helices).

Toroidal structures of DNA and proteins such as ORF252 become entangled because of their spatial geometry; this phenomenon is not dissimilar from the quantum entanglement at the level of the protein tubulin in neuron microtubules, a phenomenon that is thought to be at the basis of human consciousness (66). It is also consistent with a recent paper entitled “Is the Fabric of Reality Guided by a Semi-Harmonic, Toroidal Background Field?” (67). It is interesting to note that DNA itself is endowed with an intrinsic degree of consciousness (68) that obviously does not rely upon quantum entanglement at the level of tubulin. It is also interesting to note that ancient viruses may have been responsible for the onset of consciousness in humans (69) and, therefore, it is plausible that the intrinsic consciousness of the DNA of viruses and humans may have become entangled at different levels.

Symbiosis Online

I could stop now, but this post has turned into a Ruggiero Update, and readers always want more of that. When last we looked in on Marco, on 19 February he was convincing a suitably reverential Alt-Medder that his profitable placebo 'Imuno' would surely cure COVID-19 if only because it cures everything else.

Dr. Ruggiero says, “I take the liberty to write that I am 99% (100% would be unrealistic) confident that imuno will help with the coronavirus for two reasons. The first and most obvious is its general effect on the immune system as described in all the papers where it has been mentioned.”

Quite how the Alt-Medder came to be Marco's mouthpiece was not immediately obvious. All becomes clearer when we find that Mimi Castellanos' qualifications not only include "Minister of Light"; "Medical Intuitive"; "Health Coach"; "Hand Writing Analyst"; "Mother, wife"; "Bravo Co-op Founder" and "Your friend", but as "Healthy Energetics" she is also franchised to distribute Imuno and Bravo. We can skip the Florida-Woman middleman, anyway, and go directly to the organ-grinder.

While the Alt-Med world makes COVID-ade in this time of plague, they have collectively observed social-distance best practice, with virtual meetings and Webinars rather than face-to-face encounters, not allowing their possession of sovereign cures and preventatives for COVID-19 to weaken their vigilance, so well done them. I think in particular of a Ruggiero webinar with the triumphant title "We Found the Coronavirus Vulnerability: Learn to Exploit it". Hosted by the Sophia Health Institute, which is to say by broad-spectrum Nu-age grifters Dietrich Klinghardt and Christine Schaffner - I am not sure which of them is Hocus and which is Pocus. A transcript of the Ruggieration is here, and the PPT slides are here.

The presentation is padded out to twice its length by Ruggiero's ironic ambivalence as he regurges conspiracy theories, then denies personal investment in each theory because 'belief' and 'commitment' are for callow unsophisticates, not for a Deconstructionist disciple of Deleuze; then reminds the audience that the theory has so many followers that it can't be just dismissed or ignored as absurd. Ruggiero is an old hand at this plausibly-deniable Tergiversation Tango, having perfected it with his just-asking-questions Antivax AIDS denial-cake, both eating and fucking it. The presentation is further padded with boilerplate slides about the author's scientific eminence and his close encounters with Nobelity. Take all that away and you are left with

1. HIV-1 and COVID-19 are almost the same virus.
2. Any antiviral that blocks HIV-1 will also block COVID.
3. Preparations of chondroitin (especially those concocted and marketed by M. Ruggiero) are theoretically certain to block HIV-1.

Ruggiero's subsequent failure to publish this geometrical, irrefutable chain of reasoning in the Am.J.Immunol. or the Madridge J. Immunol or some other Journal of Ruggiero Studies is a source of perplexity and befuddlement. Perhaps he harbours higher ambitions for a target journal with wider acceptance. At any rate, in the hope of smuggling the central conceit into publication, it has been concealed within the Trojan Horse of a preprint (not yet accepted for publication) nominally on the anodyne topic of "Significance of hydrophobic and charged sequence similarities in sodium-bile acid cotransporter and vitamin D-binding protein macrophage activating factor". Quite possibly no reviewer will wonder why SARS-CoV-19 spike proteins and their potential interactions with "low-molecular-weight chondroitin sulfate" were included in a gene comparison ostensibly devoted to sodium-bile acid cotransporter.

Alternative title #2: And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hilarity ensued with him

In other Ruggiero- and GcMAF-related news, the extradition of his erstwhile colleague David Noakes to France (to face medfraud chargers there) seems to have gone ahead without mishap or further absconding, or further mention in official UK dispatches. Noakes' friends in the 'Natural Health Federation' are not well-pleased with this wholly-expected turn of events. If they want to show their support in the most Noakesian way, that would be to plead for donations from readers for Noakes' French legal expenses and then keep them.





* I include "A novel approach to Klotho aimed at delaying and reversing aging" (2017) in the count, even though the journal-shaped garbage scow Bio Accent Open Journal HIV has recently evaporated from the Interlattice, depriving us of the only parasitical Hyderabad publisher named after a laundry-powder additive. I can only speculate that the pair of skeezy wee scunners running BioAccent begrudged the fees they should have paid for domain and website registration, so their entire publishing scampire is now "Account Suspended".

Halo Payload

This post was earlier cross-posted at Leonid Schneider's site, hence the nonfrivolity and Explaining Voice. The version there is improved by Leonid's editing and explanation of the back-story.

a

Just when you were getting used to 'liposomes' and 'exosomes' entering the advertising lexicon of cosmetics and health quackery as signifiers of Sciencyness, along came niosomes and transfersomes and vesosomes and emulsomes. Anyone who identified these as "The cows from Cold Comfort Farm" has failed the test (the judges' decision is final).

In fact these are all additions to the menagerie of Drug Delivery research: different ways of sequestering a drug within a microscopic or nanoscopic vesicle with the idea of delivering the molecules to a specific tissue instead of wasting them all over the body. The drug might be encapsulated within cubosomes, for instance, in a form that can be snorted, then transported to the brain along olfactory neurons, thus dodging the blood-brain barrier. Because Drug Delivery straddles the boundary between nanotechnology and molecular biology, papers can feature faked diagrams from both fields - photoshopped electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry. So far "noisome", "handsome", "toothsome", "quarrelsome" and "meddlesome" are not recognised as Drug Delivery terms, and now my ambition is to publish a paper introducing them all.

With that as context, here to pique the readers' interest are Figures 7 and 6 respectively from Jain et al (2012) [A2] and Choudhary et al (2016) [B12].



They are filigree pastel crystals, yet somehow woven or crocheted as well. One can only be sure that there is nothing biological about them, even though the figure captions identify them as the stomach mucosa of rats, bearing alcohol-induced peptic ulcers: treated in [A2] with ranitidine bismuth citrate and amoxicillin trihydrate (delivered by concentric nested liposomes) and in [B12] with rabeprazole and amoxicillin (delivered by "polymeric low-density microballoons"). The two papers have Govind P. Agrawal as a shared author.



What is one to make of Figures 1 of Rai et al (2016) [B11] and 1 of Sudheesh et al (2011) [C17]? The former depicts "Eudragit-coated dextran microspheres of 5-fluorouracil" (targeting the colon) while the latter are "tetanus toxoid-loaded aminated gelatin nanoparticles" (for vaccines). Close inspection reveals the 2011 version to be a swarm of replicated pairs and triplets of spheres. Yet these Bubbles Congeries [Lovecraft 1931] have enough in common besides the background that their single origin is undeniable.

The authors of both versions are affiliated to the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Dr. Hari Singh Gour University (Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, India) but in different laboratories.

As the head of the latter laboratory, a Dr S. P. Vyas responded on the PubPeer thread for [C17]. Alas, his answers revealed little, except that he is not accustomed to questions... not even to questions of a rhetorical nature, that are asked into the void and not directly at him. Also, it is below his dignity to haggle with anonymous critics, although onymous critics are equally beneath his contempt.

#3 S. P. Vyas

Why should we explain this to you？

#6 S. P. Vyas

We wrote the paper. If there is a mistake, we can choose to correct it or not. We don't think pubpeer is the right place to respond to anoymous people.

All the above is what is called "foreshadowing" in literary circles, and we will return to it. I feel drawn to examine Dr Vyas' research oeuvre at Dr. H.S.G. University where advanced drug-delivery -somes promise cancer cures and next-generation oral or nasal vaccines. But a too-rapid ascent to his lofty eminence carries the risk of altitude sickness, and I prefer a more gradual approach. We begin with the ADINA Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (also of Sagar), headed by Dr Ashish Kumar Jain and source of the first of those crystallised / crocheted stomach linings [A2].

No-one can accuse the ADINA Institute of wasting research funds. Once they have created an image it receives maximum mileage. In a trilogy of papers, a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) Phop variously depicts microballoons with payloads of Famotidine for the upper small intestine (Fig 3B, Choudan et al 2013 [A3]), or of Mesalamine chloride (1B, Jain & Jain 2013a [A4]); or perhaps they are phenylalanine-anchored liquid nanocarriers to treat AIDS-related encephalopathy (3B, Vyas et al 2015 [A9]). SEMs like this will be a recurring theme through the rest of this post. TEMs will be another.



These multiwalled carbon nanotubes conjugated with hyaluronic acid (to target colon cancer) were only used once, in Prajapati et al (2019) [A10]. But one cannot question the team's Photoshop skills. I recognise 3(a) as a homage to the back-cover album art for "Dance of the Lemmings".

Figures 7 from Bilthariya et al (2015) [A8] and 8 from Jain et al (2014) [A6] show tissue fluorescing after permeation with FITC. The only uncertainty is whether the tissue came from "inflamed joint sac" or "liver sac", and whether its entry into the cells was facilitated by particles of folate-conjugated albumin or lactosaminated-N-succinyl chitosan, laden with etoricoxib or acyclovir.

At left, in Fig 6 of Mishra et al (2014) [A7] the tissue was liver again, and the facilitating nanoparticles were comprised of chitosan and "glycyrrhizin conjugated low molecular weight chitosan". That is not definitive, though, as the images had lost focus so that (a) and (b) were barely recognisable.

[A6] and [A7] are also a convenient gateway to Figs 5(b) and 4(b), where the reason for manipulating one or other image (or both!) is unclear; perhaps it was for practice, or to create a Spot-the-Difference puzzle

The corresponding Figs 5(a) and 4(a) are identical, but they contain their own Spot-the-Embedded-Figures puzzle.

Fluorescent tissue samples is becoming another recurring theme in this post. Below, Figs 4 from Jain, Agrawal & Agrawal (2011) [A1], and 3B from Jain & Jain (2013b) [A5]. Both are a "fluorescence photomicrograph of rhodamine-123 labeled nanolipobeads formulation", designed to cure stomach ulcers by eliminating H. Pylori. The 2013 version was photoshopped with the triplicated nanolipobeads at the right either to defuse accusations of self-plagiarism, or because the authors really like the design aesthetic of 1970s Krautrock album art.



It is almost time to move on. To include everything covered in the relevant PubPeer threads would be exhaustive even by my standards, so out of great-souled mettā I have organised the haul from trawling those threads into a spreadsheet for interested readers to consult. The spreadsheet (like the Sources section at the bottom of this post) is divided for convenience into three sections, but boundaries are permeable:A.K. Jain was still affiliated to Dr H.S.Gour University for the first five of the 13 papers grouped together under his name, not yet having assumed leadership of the ADINA institute, and G.P. Agrawal (Jain's colleague or mentor, I assume) was co-author on those five. The two institutions enjoy a close, image-sharing association. There is no better way to illustrate this collegiality than Fig 5C of [A5], which had earlier appeared as Fig 4 of Jain et al (2009a) [C7] - filed below in the "Suresh P. Vyas" section.

[H/t Sebastes Hopkinsi!]

The pedants and blackboard monitors and incorrigible scolds who hang out at PubPeer have devoted 15 threads to Dr Agrawal's papers, excluding the five co-authored with Jain, but including five co-authored with S. P. Vyas. My generosity is boundless and I created a diagram to help keep track of the co-authorship situation.

We have already seen one repurposed / modified image, the "Bubbles Congeries" shared between [B11] and [C17]. To continue in this vein, here's a SDS-PAGE blot (a form of protein-separating electrophoresis) showing how a nasal vaccine against Hep-B works by wrapping up HBsAg surface antigens within liposomes. More specifically, within "Immunoglobulin immobilized liposomal constructs" in one incarnation (Fig 4 from B. Tiwari et al 2011 [B7]) and within "Viral protein complexed liposomes" in the other (Fig 3 from S. Tiwari et al 2011 [B8]).

These fluorescing cell clusters demonstrate how HNGC1 tumor-cell clusters absorb Methotrexate better (or perhaps doxorubicin) when the drug is concealed inside Cationized Albumin Conjugated Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (or perhaps in Cationic ligand appended nanoconstructs), thus curing brain cancer. In Fig 13 of Agrawal et al (2011a) [B4], the cells are multiplied by zooming in on them at three different sizes.

In Fig 11 of Agrawal et al (2011b) [B3], the same cells pair up with 180°-flipped copies of themselves.

In general the Pharmaceuticals Research Laboratory staff are profligate with digital resources and their photoshops are not recycled so thoroughly. The next examples are one-offs. Boxes mark the cloned sections in Fig 7(a) of [B3], a TEM photomicrograph of SLN-DOX.

Much could be said about the thumb-print Solid-Lipid Nanoparticles (plain and CBSA conjugated) in Fig 5 of [B4]. It is easier, though, to bring up the wallpapered backgrounds with contrast enhancement:

In Fig 1(b) of [B7], the cluster at lower right reminds me of a stylised figure fleeing the scene after duplicating the liposomal constructs at centre. Enhanced contrast calls attention to glitched repeating margins around the lower-left corner.

Figs 2 of Yadav et al (2010) [B2] and 2 of Jain et al (2014) [B10] fell victim to extreme image compression at some stage, turning them into seas of JPG artefacts. The lack of resolution makes it difficult to comment on any similarities among the nanoparticles ("hyaluronic acid decorated PLGA nanoparticles for delivery of 5-fluorouracil" and "Adapalene loaded solid lipid nanoparticles gel" for acne treatment respectively), but areas of background have been copy-pasted.

Please be patient for one more example. In Jain et al (2010) [B1] the Solid Lipid Nanoparticles were mannosylated for better delivery of doxorubicin to brain tumours. The backgrounds of Figs 1(a) and (b) are surprisingly similar, while a 'T' motif -- a kind of watermark, perhaps -- repeats across 1(b).

The outlines of the NPs themselves only repeat in a few pairs and triplets. Still, it is clear from similarities among their internal structures that they were cut out from a handful of templates, as exercises in decoupage worthy of Matisse.

The PubPeer thread for [B1] came to the attention of the authors, with the lead / corresponding author replying first, before responsibility shifted to a minor co-author.

#2 Himanshu Agrawal

Yes there is a mistake! Thank you for pointing out.

#5 Saikat Majumder

We thank Dr Hoya and Dr Actinopolyspora for pointing out these serious errors in our published articles. we will carefully examine the whole data. If we find the data are incorrect，we will redo the experiment and then publish the correct data. If we are unable to repeat the experiments，we will contact the journal immediately and ask for retraction. Thank you again for reminding us these concerns!

We are now sufficiently acclimatised, I think, for the final ascent from the "Agrawal Plateau" to "Peak Vyas". A ladder will help, by which I mean a molecular ladder bridging the gap between Mishra et al (2011) [B5] and Mishra et al (2014) [C23]. Both papers addressed the need for an mucosa-absorbed oral vaccine against Hep.B, but the trojan-horse nanoparticles concealing HBsAg proteins were constructed from Lectin-anchored PGLA in [B5] and from LTA-appended Chitosan in [C23]. Anyway, the two papers' SDS-PAGE blots have much in common - not just the molecular-weight lane.

Fig 5 of [B5] featured these views of the NPs adhering to Peyer's Patches in mouse intestine, though a comparison of the green nebulae of fluorescing NPs reveals A and B to be tailored versions of a single original. They are not false-color x-rays of ichthyosaur flipper bones.

Thus the reappearance of these frames in Fig 7 of [C23], now as chitosan NPs, are four uses of a single image. The Indian Council of Medical Research must be pleased by such thrift in the use of their research grants.

... Fig 1A of Tiwari & Vyas (2011) [C18] leaves us no wiser as to the nature of the NPs, which is not specified, though it does count as a fifth use (flipped through 180°).

At this point the comparison between Figures 1 of Paliwal et al (2011) [B6] and 1D of Paliwal et al (2013) [C8] is invidious, but I cannot resist the temptation to flog a dead horse with another dead horse. In [B6] the Solid-Lipid NPs are biomimetic and laden with a payload of lipid-conjugate low-molecular-weight heparin; in [C8] they are glyceryl behenate-cored and laden with methotrexate; perhaps that is why there are fewer of them.



"Dual targeted polymeric nanoparticles based on tumor endothelium and tumor cells for enhanced antitumor drug delivery" (Gupta et al 2014 [B9])? Or "lipidic nanoparticles for dermal delivery of fluconazole against cutaneous candidiasis" (Gutpa & Vyas 2012 [C19])?



Anyway, on to Dr Sureth P. Vyas. As one mark of his productivity, his H-Index is 64, and those 50 papers addressed in PubPeer threads span only some 10 years of his career.

Three of those papers were from a veritable scientific supergroup: the coauthors included Kailish C. Gupta, erstwhile Director of the CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research and no stranger to PubPeer in his own right. The last I checked, an inquiry into the research methods of Dr Gupta and others at CSIR-IITR had finished and a report was awaiting action... that was in January but people can be forgiven if events have distracted them. My point is that we have reached the highest levels in the Indian research establishment.

Pathak et al (2007) [C4]:

Pathak et al (2009a) [C10]:

Now [C10] and Pathak et al (2009b) [C9] addressed, respectively, the tumor targeting of "polysaccharide decked polyethylenimine based nanocomposites" and tumor gene therapy mediated by "Chondroitin Sulfate−PEI Nanoconstructs", with surprisingly similar results.

Anyway, Dr Vyas has progressed to the career stage where his energies and attention are divided among the usual senior academic roes of journal editing, and preparing Review Papers and Editorials and book chapters... not to forget his religious duties, shared with the ADINA Institute (as part of the collegial relationship foreshadowed above). This would leave little time for monitoring and mentoring, and it could easily be that the systematic image fabrication collected in the third section of the spreadsheet is all the work of the colleagues and students and outside contractors who contributed to the papers that Dr Vyas signed. This is consistent with the variations in the quality of forgery. It is also possible that the papers are sound other than their digitally constructed illustrations, and that the parade of cutting-edge game-changing vaccines, antivirals and cancer treatments promised therein are about to cut the game and change the edge any time now.

https://www.dovepress.com/journal-editor-integrated-pharmacy-research-and-practice-eic135
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-pharmaceutics/editorial-board
https://www.future-science.com/journals/tde/editors
https://scienceforecastoa.com/Journals/Pages/JournalEditorialBoard.aspx/SJNN

I'll pick a handful of examples at random. These look like more microballoons but according to Fig 15(b) from Asthana et al (2014) [C22], they are "Mannosylated chitosan nanoparticles for delivery of antisense oligonucleotides for macrophage targeting". Circles and boxes are not in the original.

Mangal et al (2011) [C16] and (2014) [C21] were yet another breakthrough in vaccine development, this time constructing mucoadhesive nanoparticles from (respectively) tri-methylated chitosan OR alginate-coated chitosan to conceal the proteins of Hep-B OR anthrax for administration by nose OR mouth. But like the scenery in a cheap video game, if you scan across the SEM images of Fig 1 from [C16], you find yourself back where you started. Much like reading this post. Moreover, the scenery from 1B also appears - with a longer cycle - as 1A in [C21].

In Fig 4 of Gupta et al (2012) [C20], "tristearin-based solid lipid nanoparticles stabilized by soya phosphatidylcholine" were coated with O-palmitoyl mannan, so they can arm macrophages with their payload of Amphotericin B and help them defeat leishmaniasis. The five examples of OPM-SLNs are identical, though rotated and resized.

"Transferrin modified pegylated albumin nanoparticles", for tumor targeting (Mishra et al 2006 [C2])? Or "YIGSR modified albumin nanoparticles", for targeted brain delivery of AZT (Mishra et al 2010 [C13])?

After all this you may be wondering what Niosomes look like. Fig 2B of Jain et al (2006) [C1] contains a few, encapsulating chitosan nanoparticles, and repeating themselves. Disappointingly, they are hard to distinguish from the bog-standard liposomes in 2A.

A general suspicion emerges from all this that when anyone in the Drug Delivery Laboratory needs a Western Blot or a microphotograph to illustrate some narrative, the standard practice is to fake it in Photoshop rather than conduct an experiment. Or you remix an existing image (real or forged) and relabel it... rotating it through 180° if you're dedicated to research integrity.

"DNA loaded cationic transfersomes" for a topical genetic Hep-B vaccine (Mahor et al 2007 [C3])? Or just plain liposomes (Tiwari et al 2009a [C12])?

This post is already too long but I want to finish on a high-note, having saved the best until last. A thread from [C12] leads to this Identity Line-up of SDS-PAGE blots, with enhanced-contrast versions below:

From L to R: "Protein antigen HBsAg in various liposomal formulations" for a nasal vaccine (Tiwari et al 2009b [C11]); "protein antigen Pfs25 ... extracted from gel core liposomes at 10, 30 and 90 Day" [C12]); and HBsAg released from"novel triblock copolymer-based NPs" (Jain et al 2009b [C6]) for nasal / plain / nasal vaccines against Hep-B / malaria / Hep B again.

Hold that in your mind while we examine these three enlargements of rat nasal mucosa samples, fluorescing because the rats were snorting FITC-labeled "glycol chitosan coated liposomes" for a DNA vaccine, which the cells absorbed. Fig 4C, Khatri et al (2008) [C5].

The two strands quickly meet in [C11], where Panel (C) reappeared twice in Fig 5(C/D) -- with one version rotated through 90 -- to illustrate the absorption of Gel-Core and LIGS (liposomes in situ gelling system).



From [C11], things get complicated... Fig 5(B) is variously rotated, chopped up and rearranged to create three of the four panels in Fig 5 of Jain et al (2010) [C14]. The team had moved on by then and were promising an oral vaccine so the tissues have become rat gastric mucosa, while the NPs are now composed of "PEG–PLA–PEG block copolymers".

Pressure of space means that one diagram must suffice to show some further metamorphoses of Fig 5, but the papers themselves are old friends by now. At left, a 2011 appearance in Fig 5 of [C16], home of that "cyclic scenery" SEM. Middle, a 2009 appearance in Fig 4 of [C6]. At right, Fig 3 from Pawar et al (2010) [C15], where poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) microparticles have been coated in chitosan for extra mucoadhesion and vaccinivity.

And as coda: don't forget [C21], the 2014 oral anthrax vaccine with the other cyclic-scenery images! By then the fluorescing tissues had morphed into Peyer's Patches from murine intestine, tagged with alginate-coated chitosan microparticles.

I have no idea how much funding has poured into ADINA and the Drug Delivery Lab to sustain their digital activities but the funders shouldn't hold their breaths waiting for cancer treatments or oral vaccines in return. Nor would I advise all those people who read and cite Jain's, Agrawal's and Vyas' papers to try replicating or extending their results.

SOURCES

[A1]. “NANOLIPOBEADS BASED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF PEPTIC ULCER”, ASHISH K. JAIN*, ABHINAV AGRAWAL AND GOVIND P. AGRAWAL. International Journal of Current Pharmaceutical Research (2011)

[A2]. “Double-Liposome – Based Dual-Drug Delivery System as Vectors for Effective Management of Peptic Ulcer“, Ashish K. Jain, Abhinav Agarwal, Himanshu Agrawal, Govind P. Agrawal. Journal of Liposome Research (2012) doi: 10.3109/08982104.2012.655284

[A3]. “Design of Buoyant Famotidine Loaded Microballoons Directed for Upper Small Intestinal Absorption Window”, Mahendra Chouhan, GP Agrawal, Ashish Jain , Sandeep Patidar. International Journal of Research in Pharmacy and Science (2013)

[A4]. “DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MICROBALLONS BASED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM OF MESALAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE“, ASHISH KUMAR JAIN, Sunil Kumar Jain. Journal of Drug Delivery and Therapeutics (2013) doi: 10.22270/jddt.v3i3.503

[A5]. “Development and characterization of nanolipobeads-based dual drug delivery system for H. pylori targeting“, Ashish Kumar Jain, Sunil Kumar Jain. Journal of Drug Targeting (2013) doi: 10.3109/1061186x.2013.784978

[A6]. “Lactosaminated-N-succinyl chitosan nanoparticles for hepatocyte-targeted delivery of acyclovir“, Nivrati Jain, Vaibhav Rajoriya, Prateek Kumar Jain, Ashish Kumar Jain. Journal of Nanoparticle Research (2014) doi: 10.1007/s11051-013-2136-x

[A7]. “Glycyrrhizin conjugated chitosan nanoparticles for hepatocyte-targeted delivery of lamivudine“, Deepak Mishra, Nivrati Jain, Vaibhav Rajoriya, Ashish K. Jain. The Journal of pharmacy and pharmacology (2014) doi: 10.1111/jphp.12235 issn: 0022-3573

[A8]. “Folate-conjugated albumin nanoparticles for rheumatoid arthritis-targeted delivery of etoricoxib“, Upasana Bilthariya, Nivrati Jain, Vaibhav Rajoriya, Ashish Kumar Jain. Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy (2015) doi: 10.3109/03639045.2013.850705

[A9]. “Targeting of AIDS related encephalopathy using phenylalanine anchored lipidic nanocarrier“, Anil Vyas, Ankit Jain, Pooja Hurkat, Ashish Jain, Sanjay K. Jain. Colloids and Surfaces B Biointerfaces (2015) doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2015.04.049

[A10]. “Hyaluronic acid conjugated multi-walled carbon nanotubes for colon cancer targeting“, Shiv Kumar Prajapati, Ankit Jain, Chirag Shrivastava, Ashish Kumar Jain. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2019) doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2018.11.116

[B1]. “Mannosylated solid lipid nanoparticles as vectors for site-specific delivery of an anti-cancer drug“, Ashay Jain, Abhinav Agarwal, Saikat Majumder, Narendra Lariya, Anil Khaya, Himanshu Agrawal, Subrata Majumdar, Govind P. Agrawal. Journal of Controlled Release (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2010.09.003

[B2]. “Development and characterization of hyaluronic acid decorated PLGA nanoparticles for delivery of 5-fluorouracil“, Awesh K. Yadav, Abhinav Agarwal, Gopal Rai, Pradeep Mishra, Sanyog Jain, Anil K. Mishra, Himanshu Agrawal, Govind P. Agrawal. Drug Delivery (2010) doi: 10.3109/10717544.2010.500635

[B3]. “Cationic ligand appended nanoconstructs: a prospective strategy for brain targeting“, Abhinav Agarwal, Himanshu Agrawal, Shailja Tiwari, Sanyog Jain, Govind P. Agrawal. International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2011) doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2011.09.039

[B4]. “Cationized Albumin Conjugated Solid Lipid Nanoparticles as Vectors for Brain Delivery of an Anti-Cancer Drug“, Abhinav Agarwal, Saikat Majumder, Himanshu Agrawal, Subrata Majumdar, Govind P. Agrawal. Current Nanoscience (2011) doi: 10.2174/157341311794480291

[B5]. “Lectin anchored PLGA nanoparticles for oral mucosal immunization against hepatitis B“, Neeraj Mishra, Shailja Tiwari, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Govind P. Agrawal, Suresh P. Vyas. Journal of Drug Targeting (2011) doi: 10.3109/10611861003733946

[B6]. “Biomimetic solid lipid nanoparticles for oral bioavailability enhancement of low molecular weight heparin and its lipid conjugates: in vitro and in vivo evaluation“, Rishi Paliwal, Shivani R. Paliwal, Govind P. Agrawal, Suresh P. Vyas. Molecular Pharmaceutics (2011) doi: 10.1021/mp200109m

[B7]. “Immunoglobulin immobilized liposomal constructs for transmucosal vaccination through nasal route“, Brajesh Tiwari, Abhinav Agarwal, Anil K. Kharya, Narendra Lariya, Gauravkant Saraogi, Himanshu Agrawal, Govind P. Agrawal. Journal of Liposome Research (2011) doi: 10.3109/08982104.2010.498003

[B8]. “Viral protein complexed liposomes for intranasal delivery of hepatitis B surface antigen“, Shailja Tiwari, Sunil Kumar Verma, Govind P. Agrawal, Suresh P. Vyas. International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2011) doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2011.04.029

[B9]. “Dual targeted polymeric nanoparticles based on tumor endothelium and tumor cells for enhanced antitumor drug delivery“, Madhu Gupta, Gousia Chashoo, Parduman Raj Sharma, Ajit Kumar Saxena, Prem Narayan Gupta, Govind Prasad Agrawal, Suresh Prasad Vyas. Molecular Pharmaceutics (2014) doi: 10.1021/mp400404p

[B10]. “Adapalene loaded solid lipid nanoparticles gel: an effective approach for acne treatment“, Amit K. Jain, Ashay Jain, Neeraj K. Garg, Abhinav Agarwal, Atul Jain, Som Akshay Jain, Rajeev K. Tyagi, Rakesh K. Jain, Himanshu Agrawal, Govind P. Agrawal. Colloids and Surfaces B Biointerfaces (2014) doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2014.05.041

[B11]. “Eudragit-coated dextran microspheres of 5-fluorouracil for site-specific delivery to colon“, Gopal Rai, Awesh K. Yadav, Narendra K. Jain, Govind P. Agrawal. Drug Delivery (2016) doi: 10.3109/10717544.2014.913733

[B12]. “Stomach specific polymeric low density microballoons as a vector for extended delivery of rabeprazole and amoxicillin for treatment of peptic ulcer“, Sandeep Choudhary, Ashay Jain, Mohd Cairul Iqbal Mohd Amin, Vijay Mishra, Govind P. Agrawal, Prashant Kesharwani. Colloids and Surfaces B Biointerfaces (2016) doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2016.01.048

[C1]. “Chitosan nanoparticles encapsulated vesicular systems for oral immunization: preparation, in-vitro and in-vivo characterization“, Sanyog Jain, Rakesh Kumar Sharma, S. P. Vyas. The Journal of pharmacy and pharmacology (2006) doi: 10.1211/jpp.58.3.0003

[C2]. “Targeted brain delivery of AZT via transferrin anchored pegylated albumin nanoparticles“, Vivek Mishra, Sunil Mahor, Amit Rawat, Prem N. Gupta, Praveen Dubey, Kapil Khatri, Suresh P. Vyas. Journal of Drug Targeting (2006) doi: 10.1080/10611860600612953

[C3]. “Cationic transfersomes based topical genetic vaccine against hepatitis B“, Sunil MAHOR, Amit RAWAT, Praveen K DUBEY, Prem N GUPTA, Kapil KHATRI, Amit K GOYAL, S P VYAS. International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2007) doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2007.03.006

[C4]. “Engineered polyallylamine nanoparticles for efficient in vitro transfection“, Atul Pathak, Anita Aggarwal, Raj K. Kurupati, Soma Patnaik, Archana Swami, Yogendra Singh, Pradeep Kumar, Suresh P. Vyas, Kailash C. Gupta. Pharmaceutical Research (2007) doi: 10.1007/s11095-007-9259-7

[C5]. “Surface modified liposomes for nasal delivery of DNA vaccine“, Kapil Khatri, Amit K. Goyal, Prem N. Gupta, Neeraj Mishra, Abhinav Mehta, Suresh P. Vyas. Vaccine (2008) doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2008.02.058

[C6]. “Synthesis, characterization and evaluation of novel triblock copolymer based nanoparticles for vaccine delivery against hepatitis B“, Arvind K. Jain, Amit K. Goyal, Prem N. Gupta, Kapil Khatri, Neeraj Mishra, Abhinav Mehta, Sharad Mangal, Suresh P. Vyas. Journal of Controlled Release (2009) doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2009.02.010

[C7]. “Polyelectrolyte coated multilayered liposomes (nanocapsules for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection“, Parul Jain, Sanyog Jain, K. N. Prasad, S. K. Jain, Suresh P. Vyas. Molecular Pharmaceutics (2009) doi: 10.1021/mp8002539

[C8]. “Effect of lipid core material on characteristics of solid lipid nanoparticles designed for oral lymphatic delivery“, Rishi Paliwal, Shivani Rai, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Kapil Khatri, Amit K. Goyal, Neeraj Mishra, Abhinav Mehta, Suresh P. Vyas. Nanomedicine Nanotechnology Biology and Medicine (2009) doi: 10.1016/j.nano.2008.08.003

[C9]. “Gene Expression, Biodistribution, and Pharmacoscintigraphic Evaluation of Chondroitin Sulfate−PEI Nanoconstructs Mediated Tumor Gene Therapy“, Atul Pathak, Pradeep Kumar, Krishna Chuttani, Sanyog Jain, Anil K. Mishra, Suresh P. Vyas, Kailash C. Gupta. ACS Nano (2009) doi: 10.1021/nn900044f

[C10]. “Efficient tumor targeting by polysaccharide decked polyethylenimine based nanocomposites“, Atul Pathak, Archana Swami, Soma Patnaik, Sanyog Jain, Krishna Chuttani, Anil K. Mishra, Suresh P. Vyas, Pradeep Kumar, Kailash C. Gupta. Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology (2009) doi: 10.1166/jbn.2009.1031

[C11]. “Liposome in situ gelling system: Novel carrier based vaccine adjuvant for intranasal delivery of recombinant protein vaccine“, Shailja Tiwari, Amit K. Goyal, Neeraj Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Abhinav Mehta, Devyani Dube, Suresh P. Vyas. Procedia in Vaccinology (2009) doi: 10.1016/j.provac.2009.07.027

[C12C. “Development and characterization of novel carrier gel core liposomes based transmission blocking malaria vaccine“, Shailja Tiwari, Amit K. Goyal, Neeraj Mishra, Kapil Khatri, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Abhinav Mehta, Yimin Wu, Suresh P. Vyas. Journal of Controlled Release (2009) doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2009.08.004

[C13]. “Polymeric nanospheres modified with YIGSR peptide for tumor targeting“, Praveen K. Dubey, Deepak Singodia, S. P. Vyas. Drug Delivery (2010) doi: 10.3109/10717544.2010.490249

[C14]. “PEG–PLA–PEG block copolymeric nanoparticles for oral immunization against hepatitis B“, Arvind K. Jain, Amit K. Goyal, Neeraj Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Sharad Mangal, Suresh P. Vyas. International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2009.12.013

[C15]. “Evaluation of mucoadhesive PLGA microparticles for nasal immunization“, Dilip Pawar, Amit K. Goyal, Sharad Mangal, Neeraj Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar Vaidya, Shailja Tiwari, Arvind K. Jain, Suresh P. Vyas. The AAPS Journal (2010) doi: 10.1208/s12248-009-9169-1

[C16]. “Pharmaceutical and immunological evaluation of mucoadhesive nanoparticles based delivery system(s) administered intranasally“, Sharad Mangal, Dilip Pawar, Neeraj K. Garg, Arvind K. Jain, S.P. Vyas, D.S.V. Raman Rao, K.S. Jaganathan. Vaccine (2011) doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.04.112

[C17]. “Nanoparticle-based immunopotentiation via tetanus toxoid-loaded gelatin and aminated gelatin nanoparticles“, M. S. Sudheesh, S. P. Vyas, D. V. Kohli. Drug Delivery (2011) doi: 10.3109/10717544.2010.549525

[C18]. “Novel approaches to oral immunization for hepatitis B“, Shailja Tiwari, Suresh P. Vyas. Current Infectious Disease Reports (2011) doi: 10.1007/s11908-010-0152-x

[C19]. “Development, characterization and in vivo assessment of effective lipidic nanoparticles for dermal delivery of fluconazole against cutaneous candidiasis“, Madhu Gupta, Suresh P. Vyas. Chemistry and Physics of Lipids (2012) doi: 10.1016/j.chemphyslip.2012.01.006

[C20]. “Development and Characterization of Amphotericin B Loaded Solid Lipid Nanoparticles Against Experimental Visceral Leishmaniasis“, Swati Gupta, Anuradha Dube, Suresh P. Vyas. Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology (2012) doi: 10.2174/2211738511301010054

[C21]. “Evaluation of mucoadhesive carrier adjuvant: toward an oral anthrax vaccine“, Sharad Mangal, Dilip Pawar, Udita Agrawal, Arvind K. Jain, Suresh P. Vyas. Artificial Cells Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (2014) doi: 10.3109/21691401.2013.769447

[C22]. “Mannosylated Chitosan Nanoparticles for Delivery of Antisense Oligonucleotides for Macrophage Targeting“, Gyati Shilakari Asthana, Abhay Asthana, Dharm Veer Kohli, Suresh Prasad Vyas. BioMed Research International (2014) doi: 10.1155/2014/526391

[C23]. “Development and characterization of LTA-appended chitosan nanoparticles for mucosal immunization against hepatitis B“, Neeraj Mishra, Kapil Khatri, Madhu Gupta, Suresh P. Vyas. Artificial Cells Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (2014) doi: 10.3109/21691401.2013.809726