Imperial College London has found that a former graduate student there — who had been found guilty of misconduct in two other institutions — did not commit fraud while at Imperial.
As first reported in the Times Higher Education today: Continue reading Imperial clears Jatinder Ahluwalia of misconduct, blames “protracted negotiation” with Novartis for delay
Earlier this week, we reported on the retraction of another paper by Jatinder Ahluwalia, whose record of misconduct has left marks at Cambridge and University College London. Today, a spokesperson for Imperial College London, where the soon-to-be-retracted work formed the basis of Ahluwalia’s PhD, tells Retraction Watch that a committee will review Ahluwalia’s doctorate: Continue reading Imperial committee to weigh “validity” of Ahluwalia’s PhD following second retraction
The Journal of Neurochemistry will retract a paper by Jatinder Ahluwalia, the scientist who recently left his post at the University of East London following an investigation into his work.
Ahluwalia was lead author of the 2003 paper, “Activation of capsaicin-sensitive primary sensory neurones induces anandamide production and release,” while earning his PhD at Imperial College London. It had already been the subject of a June 2010 correction. That correction blamed the paper’s problems on a typo: Continue reading Another retraction for Jatinder Ahluwalia, in Journal of Neurochemistry
Jatinder Ahluwalia, whose story Retraction Watch has been following since last fall, is no longer working at the University of East London, according to a report in today’s Times Higher Education.
Ahluwalia, Retraction Watch readers may recall, came to our attention in the fall after he and his colleagues were forced to retract a paper in Nature. A University College London (UCL) investigation revealed that Ahluwalia had faked results, and probably sabotaged his colleagues’ work. We then learned, from a source, that Ahluwalia had been dismissed from Cambridge University’s graduate program — his first attempt to get a PhD — in 1998.
Given all of these revelations, the University of East London — where Ahluwalia had been a faculty member since leaving UCL — and Imperial College London, where he earned his PhD, both began investigations into his work. Last week, we reported that Imperial had finishing re-running all of his experiments, and was reviewing the results.
Today, as the Times Higher Education reported, his faculty page has been removed: Continue reading Jatinder Ahluwalia out at University of East London: report
If you’ve been wondering what’s happening in the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia, the University of East London researcher who has been found guilty of faking data as a graduate student at Cambridge and of misconduct at University College London, so have we.
We last reported, in February, that Imperial College London, where Ahluwalia earned his PhD, was repeating his key experiments “in light of new information received.” Today, an Imperial spokesperson tells Retraction Watch that those repeat experiments are complete, and “the results are currently being reviewed by the College.” We look forward to hearing the results of that review, of course.
A reminder that Ahluwalia’s current institution, the University of East London, is also reviewing his work. We’ve heard nothing from UEL, despite several requests. That’s consistent with the idea that the university has placed a gag order on its faculty and administration, although we haven’t confirmed that either.
In fact, we’re hearing a lot of rumors about this case, many of them left as anonymous comments, and while we appreciate any tips, we do our best to confirm verifiable facts before posting, even in comments. So if anyone has documentation of what’s going on, we’d welcome it.
We’ve also seen Ahluwalia apparently take a page out of the Anil Potti playbook, using social media and setting up a blog to extol his own virtues. Various sites discuss his papers and charitable donations, and he also has a Twitter feed that has a lot to say about the weather. Oddly, none of them mention the misconduct findings.
One of the comments left on his blog was from “MikeUSA”:
Continue reading Imperial, where Jatinder Ahluwalia earned his PhD, has re-run experiments, and is now reviewing results
We have more news about Jatinder Ahluwalia, whose career has so far been punctuated by dismissal from the University of Cambridge for faking data, and by having been found guilty of scientific misconduct at University College London. Yesterday, we reported that Ahluwalia hadn’t told Imperial College London UCL — where he earned his PhD — about being dismissed from Cambridge.
Today, we learned that Imperial College London, where he he earned his PhD, has also had concerns over Ahluwalia’s work, and is repeating some of his experiments. In a statement, a College spokesperson told Retraction Watch: Continue reading Imperial College London, where Jatinder Ahluwalia did his PhD, now repeating his key experiments
About two weeks ago, we reported that Jatinder Ahluwalia — a scientist at the University of East London (UEL) who had been found guilty of scientific misconduct at University College London (UCL) — had been dismissed from the University of Cambridge’s graduate studies program for data fabrication. A dean at UEL told us later that week that the university was looking into the situation, and the lack of progress and communication from senior officials apparently has the faculty in an uproar. Continue reading Ahluwalia did not tell UCL he had been dismissed from Cambridge
On Friday, we reported that the University of East London (UEL) was looking into the career of Jatinder Ahluwalia, the UEL researcher who has left a trail of alleged scientific misconduct at Cambridge University and University College London.
Today, in another Retraction Watch exclusive, we have obtained a letter sent by a faculty member at UEL to department colleagues. It suggests that faculty there are very concerned about the toll these allegations may take on the university’s students and reputation, and are furious that senior officials have failed to keep them in the loop about any potential investigation.
Here’s the text of the letter: Continue reading Exclusive: UEL staff “in uproar about lack of progress” investigating Jatinder Ahluwalia
We’re continuing to follow the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia. As we reported on Tuesday, Ahluwalia was dismissed from graduate school at the University of Cambridge years before a University College London (UCL) investigation found had renumbered files to deceive a co-author, and had likely sabotaged his colleagues’ work while manipulating his solutions to improve how his results looked. The results of that investigation came to light as part of a Nature retraction.
Ahluwalia now works — and studies plagiarism, in fact — at the school of health and bioscience at the University of East London. We asked Neville Punchard, the school’s dean, whether the university was aware of Ahluwalia’s past. Punchard replied by email: Continue reading University of East London “looking into” Jatinder Ahluwalia’s career
Here at Retraction Watch, we’ve been following the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia with interest. You may recall that an investigation by University College London (UCL) found “beyond reasonable doubt” that Ahluwalia had renumbered files to deceive a co-author. UCL was also “highly confident” that Ahluwalia had messed with his solutions to make his results look better, and sabotaged his colleagues’ work. The report of that investigation was part of a Nature retraction notice.
We’ve now learned that UCL was not the first scene of misconduct by Ahluwalia. Yesterday, we obtained letters by University of Cambridge faculty and administrators describing repeated — and in the words of of one professor, amateurish — data fabrication by Ahluwalia that led to his dismissal from the university’s graduate program.
In a letter dated November 10, 1997, Martin Brand, then Ahluwalia’s PhD advisor, wrote: Continue reading Exclusive: Researcher found guilty of misconduct at UCL had been dismissed from Cambridge for data fabrication