A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China's academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media.

The most visible fallout came at Tongji University, a leading Shanghai university, which removed the dean of its School of Life Science and Technology after finding academic misconduct in a Nature paper the blogger had challenged. Nankai University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Shanghai University have also opened investigations into scholars he questioned.