French, Swiss bodies to probe possible research fraud

France's CNRS national research centre and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) said Thursday they would probe certain data that recently appeared in scientific publications.

"Over the past few weeks, serious doubt has emerged" around figures in several publications on the topic of molecular biology, the institutions said, announcing a "scientific commission of inquiry".

French biologist Olivier Voinnet, censured by the CNRS last year for manipulating data, co-authored some of the publications, said the ETH.

The CNRS had found Voinnet guilty of "deliberate chart/diagram manipulations in breach of ethical standards applicable to the presentation of scientific results" and suspended him for two years.

He was a CNRS senior researcher at the time, on secondment to the ETH.