[1][4] In July 2022, concerns were raised that certain images in a 2006 Nature paper[5] co-authored by Ashe and her postdoctoral student Sylvain Lesné were manipulated.
[1] Between 1986 and 1989, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco where she researched prion diseases and published with Stanley Prusiner.
[2][1][12] In 1989, she was the first author on a paper published in Nature, entitled "Linkage of a prion protein missense variant to Gerstmann‑Sträussler syndrome", describing the discovery of a mutation linked to a neurodegenerative disease.
[14] According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she helped prove Prusiner's theory that prions cause neurodegenerative diseases.
[17] The Minneapolis Star Tribune described Ashe as a "distinguished professor considered by many to be on the short list for a Nobel Prize for her work".
[18] In 1996—early in her career at UMN—Ashe was the first author on a paper published in Science, entitled "Correlative memory deficits, Aβ elevation, and amyloid plaques in transgenic mice",[19] describing a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, which furthered her rising star as a scientist; the mice are used in research around the world, and students and scientists "come from all over the world to work with her", according to the Star Tribune.
[20] Ashe is a co-author on a 2006 paper published in Nature (retracted in 2024[10]), entitled "A specific amyloid-β protein assembly in the brain impairs memory".
[24][25] In 2020, she published a review summarizing this work, entitled "The biogenesis and biology of amyloid β oligomers in the brain".
[6][26] These concerns were published in an article in Science authored by Charles Piller which questioned the association between the Aβ*56 protein and dementia symptoms.
[29] The editors of Nature responded with a July 14, 2022 note stating they were aware of and investigating the concerns raised, that a "further editorial response [would] follow as soon as possible", and that "readers are advised to use caution when using results reported therein".
[10] All of the original authors except Lesné agreed to the June 2024 retraction;[9] other researchers dispute the strength of conclusions in the new, re-worked study.