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Is there an independent verification of the claims made by University of Buckingham researchers?

From http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/554074/Alien-seed-sent-Earth-aliens-Scientists-baffled:

Professor Wainwright said the structure is made from the metals titanium and vanadium with a “gooey” biological liquid oozing from its centre.

He said there are several theories as to where it came from, the first being it is a complete microorganism programmed to propagate alien life on Earth.

“It is a ball about the width of a human hair, which has filamentous life on the outside and a gooey biological material oozing from its centre,” he said.

“We were stunned when X-ray analysis showed that the sphere is made up mainly of titanium, with a trace of vanadium.

“One theory is it was sent to Earth by some unknown civilisation in order to continue seeding the planet with life.

...

Professor Wainwright and his team found the object in dust and particulate matter collected from the stratosphere.

He sent balloons 27km into the sky to collect debris from space and isolated several particles he claims are proof of life in space.

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  • Curiously, the University of Buckingham site links to the same yellowish page you did
    – Dr. belisarius
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 17:39
  • Although their motivation is irrelevant to the evaluation of their results, it may be notable that apparently the scientists are proponents of panspermia and so may be more prone to suggesting an extraterrestrial origin.
    – Larry OBrien
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 19:15
  • 2
    The research paper about this experiment is found here. The journal doesn't appear to be very reputable.
    – KSmarts
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 19:30
  • @KSmarts That link gives me Error 403 Forbidden. And I'm accessing it from a university network.
    – gerrit
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 22:16
  • Wikipedia article about Prof. Wainwright.
    – gerrit
    Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 22:17

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Is there an independent verification of the claims made by University of Buckingham researchers?

No. Currently. Google Scholar only finds two citations of this 2013 article. Both are by co-authors of the original article. In fact both citations seem (at least superficially) to be the same article repeated twice with minor variations in title.

The Journal of Cosmology appears in a list of Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals

The journal does not seem to command universal respect for its standards of peer review:

University of Minnesota biology professor PZ Myers [wrote]

"It isn't a real science journal at all, but is the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics obsessed with the idea ... that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth," Myers writes on his science blog. "It doesn't exist in print, consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s, and publishes lots of empty noise with no substantial editorial restraint."

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