---
title: "List of scientific misconduct incidents"
chunk: 6/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_incidents"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:29:35.678731+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Chemistry ==
Leo Paquette (US), an Ohio State University professor, plagiarized sections from an unfunded NIH grant application for use in his own NIH grant application. He also plagiarized a NSF proposal for use in one of his scientific publications.
Kenichiro Itami (Japan), Nagoya University professor, and other members of his laboratory committed scientific misconduct in the graphene nanoribbon fraud. As a result of that misconduct, in 2022 Itami and the other implicated lab members were banned from receiving research support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for at least three years. As of 2023, Itami has had three of his research publications retracted, one other paper has received an expression of concern, and one other paper has been corrected. Itami was held responsible, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), which determine the allocation of government research funds, have stopped granting research funds as a penalty until the end of March 2025 from the university. Despite this, RIKEN, which is funded mainly by research fees from the government, hired Itami and obtained about 50 million yen in research funding. He pioneered a loophole that allowed him to obtain research funding by belonging to a national research corporation even if his research funding from the government was suspended due to research misconduct.
The independent misconduct of two chemists at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Massachusetts caused the drug lab to be shut down and tens of thousands of criminal convictions for drug possession to be overturned. Annie Dookhan admitted to faking test results and adulterating samples to make them consistent with her desired results. Sonja Farak admitted to stealing samples and using them to get high herself. The affairs were documented in the 2020 film How to Fix a Drug Scandal.
Masaya Sawamura (Japan), science misconduct made a significant impact in the field of chemistry. Several of his academic papers were retracted due to concerns about manipulated or fabricated data. In 2022, the Chemistry group at Hokkaido University, where Sawamura is affiliated, retracted multiple papers, including one published in the journal Science in 2020. The retraction was attributed to the non-reproducibility of reported results and manipulation of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra. Additionally, two papers by Sawamura's team, originally published in 2019 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, were retracted due to the manipulation or fabrication of NMR spectra and HPLC charts.
Bengü Sezen (US), a graduate student at Columbia University, was found to have falsified data in her research for over a decade by editing NMR data to fit her desired results. At least six of her research papers have been withdrawn and Columbia University has moved to revoke her Ph.D.
Guido Zadel (Germany), a doctoral student at the University of Bonn, claimed to have observed enantioselectivity by conducting reactions immersed in a static magnetic field.  After other researchers were unable to replicate his results, he confessed (and later retracted) to have spiked the reaction mixtures with pure enantiomers. His degree was stripped.

== Computer science and mathematics ==
Ioan Mang (Romania), a computer scientist at the University of Oradea, plagiarized a paper by cryptographer Eli Biham, Dean of the Computer Science Department of Technion, Haifa, Israel. He was accused of extensive plagiarism in at least eight of his academic papers.
Dănuț Marcu (Romania), a mathematician and computer scientist, was banned from publishing in several journals due to plagiarism. He had submitted a manuscript for publication that was a word-for-word copy of a published paper written by another author.
In 2012, IEEE posted "Notice of Violation of IEEE Publication Principles" regarding a paper by Maruf Monwar, Waqar Haque and Padma Polash Paul presented at the 2007 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering. The paper "contains significant portions of original text" from three papers by others and was "copied with insufficient attribution (including appropriate references to the original author(s) and/or paper title) and without permission. Due to the nature of this violation, reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper, and future references should be made to the following article[sic]...."
Tao Li, a computer science professor at the University of Florida, was accused of fabricating results and pushing his PhD student Huixiang Chen to keep pursuing a paper with false results at ISCA 2019. Mr. Chen committed suicide, and ACM and IEEE found Prof. Li guilty of pressuring him after a two-year investigation. University of Florida forced Prof. Li to retire from the university after the investigation by IEEE and ACM.

== Geology ==
Vishwa Jit Gupta (India), a palaeontologist at the Panjab University, manipulated, faked and plagiarised data on the fossil records of the Himalayan region in publications between 1960s and 1980s. In a case known as the Himalayan fossil hoax, he was exposed by Australian geologist John Talent. Gupta had used fossil images from earlier records and fossil specimens from other parts of the world claiming that he found them at the Himalayas. Examination of his publications between 1969 and 1988 confirmed the misconduct. It was recorded as the "greatest scientific fraud of the century".