Osaka University's faculty of medicine has told one of its professors to withdraw an article on obesity that was published in the U.S. magazine Science in 2004, citing flaws in the paper.
Professor Iichiro Shimomura, who specializes in metabolic medicine, said Thursday he will not withdraw it and might take legal action.
The faculty council said it would not officially reprimand Shimomura as they did not discover any malicious intent.
In the article in Science, Shimomura and his coresearchers said they found a new hormone, visfatin, from visceral fat that mimics the effects of insulin and stores fat in the body by taking in blood glucose. They said further studies of visfatin were expected to help give insight into the prevention and treatment of some metabolic diseases.
Their data also show that visfatin is similar to insulin in that it binds to, and activates an insulin receptor, a protein substance in cells.
But the faculty council disagreed with their findings.