You could translate it as &quot;how dare you trying to sabotage my career by attacking my research&quot;, something like this. It is fairly common that researchers build their careers on single results&#x2F;breakthroughs and those have to be fiercely defended against everyone. For example, by rejecting&#x2F;delaying research grants&#x2F;papers that are competing with your own opinion&#x2F;results, thanks to anonymous peer review. Sounds crazy, but I have seen this more than once.