In May, the University of Glasgow, Scotland, notified scientific journals of evidence of fraud found in articles written by Alirio Melendez, a former professor of immunopharmacology at the institution. In a statement, the university confirmed that the researcher had falsified data in five biochemistry papers over a period from 2007 to 2010. In the document, the university states that it is working to ensure that any necessary corrections are made. The charges against Melendez were initially made by the National University of Singapore (NUS), where the professor began his career. After an investigation examining 70 articles published by Melendez, the NUS identified fraud, including plagiarism, in 21 papers, some of which were published during the period in which he taught at the University of Liverpool, to which he moved in 2010. The investigation ended in August 2012, but until May 2013 the University of Glasgow had denied that any wrongdoing had been committed by one of its professors.
In an interview with the magazine Times Higher Education in 2011, Melendez admitted that some data in his papers could have been duplicated through plagiarism, but he denied any personal involvement. According to a statement from the University of Glasgow, there is no evidence to show that the co-authors of the articles were involved in acts of misconduct.
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