How I blew the whistle on a fellow chemist and colleague
Raphaël Lévy talks to Chemistry World about reporting Jolanda Spadavecchia, the backlash he faced and how misconduct should be investigated
At the end of May, Jolanda Spadavecchia, a nanomedicine and biosensor researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), was banned from conducting research for two years by her institution after multiple research integrity breaches.
As Chemistry World reported at the time, the ban was a result of the second investigation into Spadavecchia’s work by the CNRS after scientific integrity experts penned a letter to the institution asking it to ‘adequately investigate’ allegations of malpractice in Spadavecchia’s lab.
What wasn’t covered extensively in the media, however, was how Raphaël Lévy, a physicist at Sorbonne Paris North University in France – who also received legal threats from a high-profile scientist recently in another unrelated case – blew the whistle. Chemistry World spoke to Lévy to find out more.