A nanotube researcher in Japan has earned 13 retractions, with more to come, after an extensive investigation by the country’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) revealed widespread misconduct in his work. AIST’s investigation found Naohiro Kameta, senior principal researcher at the Nanomaterials Research Institute located in AIST’s Ibaraki campus, fabricated and falsified dozens of studies.
The investigation, which wrapped up in December 2023, found Kameta had “independently committed research misconduct” by fabricating and falsifying data in 42 papers published between 2005 and 2022. Kameta received about $230,000 (more than ¥33 million) in grant funding for research topics broadly related to the misconduct, of which approximately $35,000 was directly spent on the work described in the papers AIST found to have fake data, according to the investigation report.
Investigators at AIST collected responses to a questionnaire sent to more than 20 other individuals who had co-authored papers with Kameta. According to their responses, many of them had trusted Kameta’s expertise and didn’t critically review the data or images presented in the final publications. In some cases, co-authors admitted they didn’t check the papers before submission.
