NSW Health Pathology’s Director of Biobanking – NSW Health Professor Jennifer Byrne has been announced as the recipient of the Australian Academy of Science’s 2025 David Vaux Research Integrity Award.

Launched in 2023, the award recog­nis­es indi­vid­u­als who have led efforts to fos­ter and pro­mote integri­ty in sci­ence. The award hon­ours Pro­fes­sor David Vaux AO FAA FAHMS, who has cham­pi­oned sci­en­tif­ic research integri­ty in Australia.

Pro­fes­sor Byrne has an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion for find­ing prob­lem­at­ic research arti­cles. She began this work acci­den­tal­ly after notic­ing strange pat­terns in pub­lished can­cer papers.

Since then, she has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly addressed the prob­lem of fake research by:
• co-cre­at­ing soft­ware to detect poten­tial­ly faked papers
• writ­ing to jour­nals request­ing respons­es to papers with crit­i­cal errors
• men­tor­ing stu­dents to research the issue
• rais­ing aware­ness of prob­lem­at­ic research in the media; and
• reg­u­lar­ly bring­ing togeth­er pub­lish­ers and researchers to dis­cuss the prob­lems and poten­tial solutions.

Her career has divert­ed from lab­o­ra­to­ry can­cer research to research integri­ty. In addi­tion to her role as Direc­tor of Biobank­ing over­see­ing the NSW Health Statewide Biobank, Pro­fes­sor Byrne heads the Pub­li­ca­tion and Research Integri­ty in Med­ical Research (PRIMeR) group at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Sydney.

“I’m delight­ed to have been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2025 David Vaux Fel­low­ship. I thank my col­leagues Pro­fes­sor Adri­an Bar­nett and Pranu­jan Path­men­dra for their nom­i­na­tion,” she said.

“This award recog­nis­es my team mem­bers in the PRIMeR group and would not have been pos­si­ble with­out fund­ing from the Unit­ed States Office of Research Integri­ty, the NHMRC and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney. I look for­ward to vis­it­ing dif­fer­ent Aus­tralian research cen­tres dur­ing 2025–2026 and engag­ing with stu­dents and researchers at all career stages,” Pro­fes­sor Byrne said.

“I hope to raise aware­ness of con­tem­po­rary issues affect­ing sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing research paper mills and unde­clared use of gen­er­a­tive arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. I also look for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in key dis­cus­sions of pub­li­ca­tion integri­ty at inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences and bring­ing this knowl­edge back to Aus­tralian researchers and policymakers.”

Pro­fes­sor Byrne plans to use the award funds to give pre­sen­ta­tions on research integri­ty at dif­fer­ent cen­tres across Aus­tralia, where she will meet with ear­ly career researchers to dis­cuss their con­cerns about their careers and research integri­ty. She will also trav­el to inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences to share her work with a broad­er audience.

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