---
title: "List of scientific misconduct incidents"
chunk: 3/9
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"
---

Many major trials of the drug ivermectin that claimed it could prevent COVID-19 were found to show signs of fraud and had "either obvious signs of fabrication or errors so critical they invalidate the study," according to one of the groups investigating the studies. For example, some studies were found to list patients who had never actually participated in the research, and others placed patients who were already statistically more likely to die in the placebo group while putting the healthier patients in the experimental group that received ivermectin. Studies that were found to contain legitimate research were generally inconclusive about the effects of ivermectin on COVID-19. He Jiankui (China), former associate professor with the Southern University of Science and Technology, was in 2019 sentenced to three years in prison and fined three million yuan (about US$430,000) for illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing intended for reproduction. The case is called the He Jiankui affair. Woo-suk Hwang (Hwang Woo-suk) (South Korea), former Professor of Biotechnology at Seoul National University, was found by a University committee to have committed "deliberate fabrication" in his research on stem cells, and to have coerced female members of his research team to donate their eggs. The incidence is known as the Hwang affair. In 2009 Hwang was found guilty by the Seoul Central District Court of embezzlement and bioethical violations in connection to his research program. Sophie Jamal (Canada), former Professor of Medicine at University of Toronto and former staff endocrinologist at Women's College Hospital, Toronto, falsified data from studies of nitroglycerin compounds in osteoporosis. Results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2011 were retracted by the Journal in 2016. In 2016 Jamal received a lifetime funding ban from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and in 2018 her license to practice medicine was revoked by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Jamal has had four of her research publications retracted. Abderrahmane Kaidi, Senior Lecturer in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bristol, was accused of misconduct towards his research team. In 2018, the university investigated the case and with it found out that he had also made fake research data, which he admitted were to impress other scientists for collaboration and were not for publication. He resigned from the university. The University of Cambridge also investigated his research as a postdoctoral scholar at the Gurdon Institute from where he published several research papers on DNA damage. Two journals, Science and Nature retracted one article each, written with his mentor Stephen Jackson, published in 2010 and 2013 respectively, simultaneously on 11 April 2019 following evidence of data fabrications. Shigeaki Kato (Japan), a former professor at the University of Tokyo, has been confirmed responsible for misconduct in 33 papers on nuclear receptors. Most of the fabrications were discovered on an anonymous bulletin board 2channel, and the information was spread by anonymous individual(s). As of 2024, Kato has had 40 research publications retracted, and three others have received an expression of concern. (See Japanese scientific misconduct allegations.)
Kim Tae-kook (South Korea), formerly of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, falsified research on modulating cellular proteins with the synthetic compound CGK733. Gideon Koren (Canada), former Director of the Motherisk Program at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, published an article without the informed consent of co-author Nancy Olivieri, and sent her anonymous harassing letters. A December 2018 article in The Toronto Star reported apparent problems in more than 400 papers coauthored by Koren, including "inadequately peer-reviewed, failed to declare, and perhaps even obscure, conflicts of interest, and, in a handful of cases, contain lies about the methodology". Koren has threatened a defamation lawsuit against the editor of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring for retracting one of Koren's papers. As of 2022 Koren has had six of his research publications retracted, three others have received an expression of concern, and four others have been corrected. Steven A. Leadon (US), former professor of radiation oncology and head of the molecular radiobiology program at the University of North Carolina, falsified and fabricated data in his research on DNA repair. Leadon has had seven of his research papers retracted. Annarosa Leri (US, Italy) and Piero Anversa (US, Italy), collaborators and former researchers at Harvard University, were found in a 2014 investigation to have "manipulated and falsified" data in their research on endogenous cardiac stem cells, and to have included "false scientific information" in grant applications; these events resulted in Partners HealthCare and Brigham and Women's Hospital paying a $10 million settlement to the US government, and pausing a clinical trial based on Anversa and Leri's work. In October 2018, following many failed replications of their work, Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital called for the retraction of 31 publications from the Anversa/Leri research group. Anversa and Leri lost a lawsuit they brought against Harvard that claimed the 2014 investigation had damaged their reputations. As of 2024, Anversa and Leri have had 19 research publications retracted, 17 others have received an expression of concern, and 12 others have been corrected. Sylvain Lesné (France, US), a neuroscientist, co-authored a study in Nature proposing that a specific amyloid-beta protein assembly, Aβ*56, impairs memory and contributes to Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. In 2024, Nature retracted this paper after investigations revealed manipulated images, with co-authors Michela Gallagher and Karen H. Ashe agreeing to the retraction, while Lesné disagreed. The story was revealed in 2022 by Charles Piller in Science, based upon investigations by Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist and physician at Vanderbilt University. This narrative is a key component of Piller's 2025 book Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's. Paolo Macchiarini (Sweden, Italy), a thoracic surgeon and researcher formerly at the Karolinska Institutet, was in 2017 found by an ethics review board to have committed research misconduct, including false claims of clinical success and falsely claiming ethical approval for his surgical interventions, in his work on the surgical implantation of artificial trachea seeded with patients' own stem cells. The review board recommended that six of Macchiarini's publications be retracted. As of 2024, Macchiarini has had 12 of his research papers retracted, four others have received an expression of concern, and three others have been corrected. Johnny Matson (US), former professor of psychology at Louisiana State University, who was criticized starting in 2015 for his peer review practices as a journal editor, in 2023 had 24 of his research papers retracted because of undisclosed conflicts of interest, duplicated methodology, and a compromised peer-review process. William McBride (Australia), a physician who discovered the teratogenicity of thalidomide, was found by an Australian medical tribunal to have "deliberately published false and misleading scientific reports and altered the results of experiments" on the effects of Debendox/Bendectin on pregnancy. Moon Hyung-in (South Korea), former Professor in the Department of Medicinal Biotechnology at Dong-A University (South Korea), used false names and email addresses to "peer review" his own research publications. Moon has had 35 of his research publications retracted. H.M.