University College London Geneticist Cleared of Wrongdoing

A second investigation by the school concludes that David Latchman, also the head of Birkbeck, University of London, was not involved in the image manipulation found in papers he coauthored.

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Geneticist David Latchman, the chief academic and administrative officer of Birkbeck, University of London, had no knowledge of the image manipulation that went into several papers he coauthored, according to a second investigation by University College London, where he runs a lab.

In 2015, the first UCL inquiry found that some of the images in a now-retracted International Journal of Cardiology paper had been “deliberately manipulated.” Blame was placed on two collaborators, Anastasis Stephanou and Tiziano Scarabelli; Latchman was found not guilty. However, the university did find concerning “procedural matters” in Latchman’s lab, according to Times Higher Education.

Indeed, the initial investigation identified evidence of image manipulation in at least seven papers that Latchman had coauthored with Stephanou and Scarabelli. And a preliminary report obtained in May by The Telegraph found that Latchman, simply by being an author on so many falsified publications, was guilty of “recklessness” that had essentially ...

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  • Jef Akst

    Jef Akst was managing editor of The Scientist, where she started as an intern in 2009 after receiving a master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses.
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