The University of London's David Latchman is again being investigated for research misconduct, the Guardian reports. The inquiry, it adds, is examining research papers published by his human genetics research group at University College London.
The first investigation into Latchman followed an anonymous tip in 2013, but the ensuing inquiry found "no case to answer," the Guardian says.
This new investigation is thought to have been sparked from a tip from that same anonymous source, the Guardian says. It further reports that Latchman has retracted two papers and corrected others during the last year and that users at the site PubPeer have raised concerns about images in a number of papers from his group. One of papers was retracted because it included an image as new data that was from a previously published paper, while the other paper was retracted because six of its images had been flipped, duplicated, or mislabeled. For the second of those, corresponding author Anastasis Stephanou, who is now at the European University in Cyprus, has said the other authors did not know about the image manipulations, according to the paper.
Latchman and his lawyers rebuff the allegations, the Guardian adds. "These new anonymous allegations go over the same ground as the original one and in our view provide no basis for further investigation of Professor Latchman," his lawyers say.