India, Jan. 30 -- Mariano Barbacid, head of the Experimental Oncology Group at Spain's National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), has designed a therapy with his team that successfully and completely eliminated pancreatic tumours in mice, with no significant side effects. While the scientific community and the general public hailed the news as a potential turning point in the fight against the disease, a segment of social media users chose to ignore the monumental moment. They turned their attention to Barbacid's facial mark, launching a series of distasteful and shallow remarks.

Instead of discussing the content of Barbacid's study, published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), some people shared comments...