Colin Blakemore, head of the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC), is to be investigated after a senior scientist at the prestigious National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) claimed that Blakemore threatened him with dismissal if he continued to oppose relocation plans for the institute.

After many contentious discussions, an MRC task force said in July that the NIMR should be moved to London and partner with either King's College London or University College London to boost translational research (Nat. Med. 10, 762; 2004).

But NIMR scientists reacted angrily when they learned that there was no option to keep the institute at its current site in Mill Hill. “We are dismayed by this rejection,” the institute's leaders said in a statement in August.

After receiving multiple complaints, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee launched an inquiry. At a hearing on 1 December, the NIMR's Robin Lovell-Badge said that Blakemore, who led the task force, had tried to change Lovell-Badge's mind. “I was in receipt of various forms of attempts at coercion, such as phone calls late at night threatening me with my job,” Lovell-Badge said.

Because of the serious nature of the allegations, Britain's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has been urged to investigate. “I totally refute the accusations that I threatened Robin Lovell-Badge with dismissal, and that excessive pressure was put on any task force member to agree to statements contrary to their opinion,” Blakemore told Nature Medicine.

I totally refute the accusations that I threatened Robin Lovell-Badge with dismissal. , Colin Blakemore, A Medical Research Council

Blakemore says Lovell-Badge telephoned him on 28 June, and not the other way around, and “criticized me aggressively.” He adds that the alleged phrase—“Robin, I don't know how you can disagree with me. I am your employer”—is not a threat of dismissal. “But, in any case, I did not say it,” Blakemore says.

Blakemore has sent a letter to the committee refuting the allegations. He says that during the task force's deliberations, he was at several times pressured by NIMR Director Sir John Skehel, and “was shouted at, laughed at and derided by Sir John on almost every occasion.”

Stephen Tomlinson, deputy vice-chancellor of Cardiff University and a member of the task force, says he supports the view that the future of NIMR is not at Mill Hill. But if the task force recommendations are not acceptable to the MRC, he says, the council should explore other alternatives, “including the option of simply closing it and redeploying the £30 million annual funding across the UK.”