University of Connecticut researcher Dipak Das has been accused of falsifying data 145 times during the course of seven years, reports the Associated Press' Stephanie Reitz. Das' work centered on the benefits of resveratrol for cardiovascular health. UConn says it has notified 11 scientific journals of the alleged fraud, and the US Office of Research Integrity has now launched its own investigation. The problems were discovered after UConn initiated a three-year review of Das' work, started when the school received an anonymous complaint about him in 2008, Reitz says. "It wasn't immediately known whether the irregularities in Das' research were significant enough to alter the conclusions," she adds. The school also recently refused to accept $890,000 in federal funds awarded to Das because of the review, and all other external funding to his lab was frozen. "Some examples [of the fraud] included several cases in which data was digitally altered; data from one experiment was used to justify findings in another; and controls from one experiment were used to denote another experiment's controls," Reitz says. UConn has also started dismissal proceedings against Das, who has had tenure at the university since 1993, she adds.
Retraction Watch's Adam Marcus reports that Das has also been dismissed from his post as co-editor in chief of Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. The journal also noted that two of Das' studied would be retracted. For his part, Das has released a statement saying the allegations against him are false and can be easily disproven. He has also accused UConn of being prejudiced against researchers from India, Marcus adds.