A high-profile stem-cell researcher at the University of Minnesota was questioned last week after allegedly duplicating her work.

Catherine Verfaillie — who led stem-cell research for a group of University of Minnesota scientists — has been accused of copying data from her previous research, according to an article written by NewScientist.com.

Some of the questionable data showed up in the results of Verfaillie's experimentation on adult stem-cell research published in the summer of 2002. Then, Verfaillie and her team stated they had produced bodily tissues of a mouse by extracting bone marrow and growing it, the website said.

The group's research involved working with specialized adult stem cells and investigated whether or not the cells could be used to produce many types of tissue.

If successful, positive findings could promote the use of adult stem cells instead of human embryonic stem cells, for which embryos are destroyed in the process of experimentation.

Responding to the questions, the University of Minnesota had an inquiry panel of three scientists investigate the flaws and apparent duplications of the images used in the studies.

University of Minnesota Vice President for Research Tim Mulcahy also expressed concerns on how the scrutiny will affect the researchers and scientific study as a whole. "It's an unfortunate circumstance for everyone," Mulcahy said. "It's rough on science in general and on the scientist and her colleagues."

According to NewScientist.com, the panel concluded after a month of investigation the duplications were the result of honest error, yet two of the panelists still raised concerns about the quality of the results and said there were questions about the control experiments used to compare and validate results.

But while many are suspicious, R. Alta Charo, professor of law and biotechnology at the University of Wisconsin, refuses to draw any inferences without more information.

"No one is being accused at this point," Charo said. "There are observations of error, but it is premature to call this an accusation."

Although Alta was aware of the questions being raised, she was unsure of how the University of Minnesota will respond to this second string of issues surrounding the same topic.

"I don't know what the university will do; they have raised questions about it," Charo said.

Confirming previous reports, Mulcahy said an inquiry has been started to investigate the details, but remained confident that the University of Minnesota's reputation would not be harmed as a result of the questions.

"Everyone just wants to get to the bottom of this," Mulcahy said.