The Imanishi-Kari Affair

Dr Margot O'Toole replies to Dr Herman Eisen, who investigated the challenge that she made in 1986 to the disputed Cell paper.

Dr Margot O'Toole's comment (Nature 351, 180; 1991) raised issues about extracts from laboratory notebooks. Dr Imanishi-Kari now replies.

The following article, published for completeness, was completed on 30 September 1987, was submitted to Nature soon afterwards, but never published. Those consulted about the manuscript held that there might be data, other than that in the seventeen pages of laboratory notebooks analysed by the authors, that would undermine their conclusions. Such supplementary data have indeed been submitted, but have been judged by the draft report of the Office of Scientific Integrity to have been fabricated.

The members of the panel at Tufts University that investigated the Cell article of which Dr Thereza Imanishi-Kari was the chief author respond to Dr Margot O'Toole's statement.

What follows is a much-abridged version of Dr Thereza Imanishi-Kari's formal response to the OS! draft report published at the end of March.

Dr Herman N Eisen, who conducted the inquiry at MIT in 1986, denies Dr O'Toole's account of its proceedings, and other charges.

Dr Margot O'Toole's comment on the OSI draft report reproduced in Nature two weeks ago, has drawn the following reply from Dr David Baltimore, one of the authors of an article alleged to include fraudulent data.