Year after year, a husband-and-wife team at a university in Iran has been publishing studies involving research on cell lines ostensibly purchased from the Pasteur Institute of Iran, in Tehran. But the couple may never have been in possession of the cells. In correspondence obtained by Retraction Watch, the Pasteur Institute told their employer, Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, only three of the many cell lines described in their publications had been available at the national cell bank over the past decade. 

A university official confirmed the two researchers – Fraidoon Kavoosi, an associate professor in the department of anatomical science, and his wife Masumeh Sanaei, an assistant professor in the same department – were under investigation.

In a study published earlier this year, Byrne and her colleagues found hundreds of papers consistently misspelled the names of cell lines the authors said they used in their work – possibly a sign of paper mill involvement. The Iranian case is different, as the cell lines described in the couple’s articles seem to be real.