The University of Tokyo is looking into an anonymous claim that six of its research groups have fabricated and falsified data that has been published in 22 different papers, ScienceInsider reports. The anonymous whistleblower, going by the name "Ordinary_researchers" has questioned the validity of data in more than 100 pages of material delivered to the university in August.
Ordinary_researchers also posted the affected publications online in Japanese, ScienceInsider says, and the identified papers are mostly biomedical studies from Nature, Cell, NEJM, and other journals. "The corresponding author on seven of the papers is physician and diabetes specialist Takashi Kadowaki, a former director of the university hospital who's still on the faculty at the school of medicine," ScienceInsider reports. Kadowaki tells the publication that the anonymous complaint "is a totally groundless and false accusation by a faceless complainant," adding, "We have absolute confidence in all of our data."
Ordinary_researchers says he (or she, or they) has also sent the publications and details about how they were paid for to the Japanese ministries of education and health, and various funding agencies, academic societies, and media outlets in the country, ScienceInsider reports.