Findings of Research Misconduct
09.1.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Okay, peoples … I’m going away for a week … try to behave already!
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the report of an investigation conducted by the Washington State University and additional analysis by ORI in its oversight review, the US PHS found that Hung-Shu Chang, PhD, former postdoctoral fellow, WSU, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by R01ES012974.
PHS found that the Respondent engaged in scientific (42 CFR 50.102) and research misconduct by fabricating and falsifying data in Figure 3 of a paper published in Endocrinology. Specifically, PHS found that:
Respondent, by not conducting any of the claimed bisulfite sequencing, fabricated the methylation status of CpG sites in 8 candidate genes identified in both Figures 3 and 4 as No. 11, No. 12, No. 13, No. 14, 15, No. 22, No. 26, No. 31, and No. 19, to support the hypothesis that the environmental compound, vinclozolin, induces a permanent alteration in the epigenetic reprogramming of the germline that promotes transgenerational disease states.
Respondent, by conducting only a small fraction of the claimed bisulfite sequencing, and falsifying the results obtained, falsified the methylation status of CpG sites in eight additional candidate genes, identified in Figures 3 and 4 as No. 2, 3, 24, No. 5, 6, 9, No. 8, No. 16, No. 17, 18, No. 27, 28, No. 29, and No. 33.
Dr. Chang has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on July 21, 2010:
(1) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant;
(2) that any institution that submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which the Respondent’s participation is proposed or that uses him in any capacity on PHS-support research, or that submits a report of PHS-funded research in which the Respondent is involved, must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of the Respondent’s duties to the funding agency for approval. The supervisory plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of the Respondent’s research contribution while applying for or conducting PHS-supported research. Respondent agrees to ensure that a copy of the supervisory plan is submitted to ORI by the institution for ORI approval. Respondent agrees not to participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervisory plan is submitted to ORI.
Award Data by Impact Score & Percentile (NIGMS)
09.1.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Jeremy Berg has posted data that will be of exteme interest to any NIGMS applicants: a plot of impact score versus percentile of the 655 R01 applications reviewed during the January 2010 Council round, including color-coded data points to identify which scores/percentiles received awards.
Jeremy adds a note explaining that most of the black squares in the lower left quadrant (i.e., competitively scored but unfunded applications) represent Type 1 R01s submitted by PIs with more than $750K DC (including the submitted application). For those of you who weren’t aware, many ICs have policies that limit the number or dollar total of grant awards to any one lab … though exceptions can be made.
Findings of Scientific Misconduct
08.30.10 by Michelle Kienholz
As foreshadowed by a news piece and letter in Science previously reported here … note the passage of time since this case came to light as well …
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the report of an investigation conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, the US PHS found that Elizabeth Goodwin, PhD, former associate professor of genetics and medical genetics engaged in scientific misconduct while her research was supported by grants R01GM051836 and R01GM073183.
PHS found that in grant application 2R01GM051836-13, Respondent knowingly and intentionally:
- Falsified Figures 5A and 5B by reusing figures from two of her earlier published papers and falsely labeling them to claim results that had not been achieved in her laboratory.
- Falsified Figure 7B by reusing a figure from one of her published papers and both relabeling it to claim she had detected the STAR-2 protein rather than the TRA-l protein actually detected and modifying the image in the application to disguise its origin.
- Falsified Figure 8C by using a figure produced by one of her students and relabeled it to show that RNAi treatment of C. elegans led to increased expression of the TRA-2 protein when this result had not been obtained by the student.
- Falsified the table on Page 20 of the application showing phenotypic frequencies of worms expressing star-2 (ok483) mutants by significantly overstating the level of aberrant phenotypes and fabricating certain categories of phenotypes not seen by the student conducting the research.
PHS finds that in grant application 1R01GM073183-01, Dr. Goodwin knowingly and intentionally:
- Falsified Figure 5 because she used the same two lanes in both Figure 5 and Figure 7, although they were flipped horizontally in one of the figures to disguise their reuse. In Figure 7, the lanes illustrated an effect on laf-1 during developmental stages of C. elegans, and in Figure 5, the same lanes purportedly illustrated an effect on laf-1 noncoding RNA. A witness testified that the result in Figure 5 had not been observed, while that in Figure 7 had, indicating that the claims for Figure 5 were falsified.
- Falsified Figure 8 by reusing photographs prepared by a student that identified the location of rRas-l expression in adult worms and claiming instead that the images illustrated the location of laf-1 mRNA. The images had been enlarged and cropped to disguise their location.
Dr. Goodwin has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on July 22, 2010:
-
(1) To exclude herself from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the U.S. Government and from eligibility for, or involvement in, nonprocurement programs of the U.S. Government referred to as “covered transactions’ pursuant to the HHS Implementation of OMB Guidelines to Agencies on Governmentwide Debarment and Suspension at 2 CFR 376, et seq.; and
(2) To exclude herself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.
Fabrication of “Errors” and Mentoring Misconduct
08.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
The Chronicle of Higher Education today reports on an internal Harvard document (a statement by a former research assistant given in 2007) as part of the obscure Marc Hauser case that describes
how research assistants became convinced that the professor was reporting bogus data and how he aggressively pushed back against those who questioned his findings or asked for verification.
The former research assistant described the motivation for coming forward as a concern to “make it clear that it was solely Mr. Hauser who was responsible for the problems he observed … [and to] help other researchers make sense of the allegations.”
So what happened?
The experiment tested the ability of rhesus monkeys to recognize sound patterns. … If a monkey looked at the speaker, this was taken as an indication that a difference was noticed. … the experiment in question was coded by Mr. Hauser and a research assistant in his laboratory. … [the research assistant] found that the monkeys didn’t seem to notice the change in pattern. … [Hauser] found that the monkeys did notice the change in pattern—and, according to his numbers, the results were statistically significant.”
Okay – big discrepancy as to who saw what and how they interpreted what they saw. Solution? Have a third researcher analyze the tapes, which is what a research assistant assigned to analyze the two sets of data (Hauser’s and the RA who did not see the monkeys recognize any changes) suggested. A graduate student agreed. Hauser did not.
“I don’t feel comfortable analyzing results/publishing data with that kind of skew until we can verify that with a third coder,” [wrote the research assistant assigned to analyze the data] …
“i am getting a bit pissed here,” Mr. Hauser wrote in an e-mail to one research assistant. “there were no inconsistencies! let me repeat what happened. i coded everything. then [a research assistant] coded all the trials highlighted in yellow. we only had one trial that didn’t agree. i then mistakenly told [another research assistant] to look at column B when he should have looked at column D. … we need to resolve this because i am not sure why we are going in circles.”
Given earlier studies whose findings were questioned when independent scientists reviewed Hauser’s videotapes, this is not surprising. The research assistant and graduate student took the initiative to get to the bottom of the discrepancies themselves:
The research assistant who analyzed the data and the graduate student decided to review the tapes themselves, without Mr. Hauser’s permission, the document says. They each coded the results independently. Their findings concurred with the conclusion that the experiment had failed: The monkeys didn’t appear to react to the change in patterns.
They then reviewed Mr. Hauser’s coding and, according to the research assistant’s statement, discovered that what he had written down bore little relation to what they had actually observed on the videotapes. He would, for instance, mark that a monkey had turned its head when the monkey didn’t so much as flinch. It wasn’t simply a case of differing interpretations, they believed: His data were just completely wrong.
So, complete fabrication in this experiment. Perhaps much of Hauser’s career.
As word of the problem with the experiment spread, several other lab members revealed they had had similar run-ins with Mr. Hauser, the former research assistant says. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. There was, several researchers in the lab believed, a pattern in which Mr. Hauser reported false data and then insisted that it be used.
Recall, too, that the original Globe report noted that “Colleagues of Hauser’s at Harvard and other universities have been aware for some time that questions had been raised about some of his research …”
After three years of investigating, Harvard took steps to have the scientific record corrected (retractions) but did not acknowledge, despite apparently knowing, the type of misconduct that led to these errors or what the errors were, leaving this to ORI – which will take additional time, perhaps years, to complete and report its investigation.
In the meantime, perhaps the scientific community can begin to sort out how to reassess the state of the field, and at least Hauser won’t be engaging in his special sort of mentorship, as described by the whistle-blowing research assistant: “The most disconcerting part of the whole experience to me was the feeling that Marc was using his position of authority to force us to accept sloppy (at best) science.”
Fund Science Seeking Public Buy-In
08.13.10 by Michelle Kienholz
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a nice feature on Fund Science, whose launch and initial solicitation for grant applications (and reminder) was covered here previously.
Now David Vitrant and Mark Friedgan are asking the public to donate directly to two projects that would be unlikely to receive funding from the NIH or NSF, not necessarily due to scientific shortcomings but to the junior status of the applicants.
In addition to funding the science of young investigators, Fund Science seeks to educate the public in a meaningful way on how research works, why it is important, and how the projects receiving public support are progressing. Right now, most Americans don’t associate the taxes they pay with the “research findings” publicized in the media … or how much invisible, untouted work goes on before the white lab coat figure shows up on the screen. Perhaps direct investment from their pocketbook will translate into being more invested in understanding how the sausage is made and in turn committed to its support. The Fund Science experiment itself should be of interest to the scientific community – and beyond.
More Retractions, More Misconduct
08.10.10 by Michelle Kienholz
this time at Harvard, which has put Marc Hauser on leave for “misconduct” following 3 years of investigation (Duke watchers take note). At least one and possibly a passel of papers are likely to be retracted, but no one is quite sure why.
According to the Boston Globe, the editor of one of the journals does not know the nature of the misconduct:
The editor of Cognition, Gerry Altmann, said in an interview that he had not been told what specific errors had been made in the paper, which is unusual.
[from the retraction: “An internal examination at Harvard University . . . found that the data do not support the reported findings. We therefore are retracting this article." and "MH accepts responsibility for the error."]
Neither does at least one co-author:
Gary Marcus, a psychology professor at New York University and one of the co-authors of the paper, said he drafted the introduction and conclusions of the paper, based on data that Hauser collected and analyzed. … “I never actually saw the raw data, just his summaries, so I can’t speak to the exact nature of what went wrong.’’
However, everyone seems to have been “troubled”:
Colleagues of Hauser’s at Harvard and other universities have been aware for some time that questions had been raised about some of his research, and they say they are troubled by the investigation and forthcoming retraction in Cognition.
Two other papers co-authored by Hauser, one in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and one in Science, are also under review.
The work had been funded by the NIH, the NSF, and Harvard’s Mind, Brain, and Behavior program, so perhaps a future ORI report will be more enlightening.
The Globe article goes on to summarize a prior incident:
In 1995, he was the lead author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looked at whether cotton-top tamarins are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. Self-recognition was something that set humans and other primates, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, apart from other animals, and no one had shown that monkeys had this ability.
Gordon G. Gallup Jr., a professor of psychology at State University of New York at Albany, questioned the results and requested videotapes that Hauser had made of the experiment.
“When I played the videotapes, there was not a thread of compelling evidence — scientific or otherwise — that any of the tamarins had learned to correctly decipher mirrored information about themselves,’’ Gallup said in an interview.
In 1997, he co-authored a critique of the original paper, and Hauser and a co-author responded with a defense of the work.
In 2001, in a study in the American Journal of Primatology, Hauser and colleagues reported that they had failed to replicate the results of the previous study. The original paper has never been retracted or corrected.
Well, now everyone will be watching to see what PNAS does.
A quote by Michael Tomasello toward the end of an article sums up why this (and other reports of misconduct) are important:
“If scientists can’t trust published papers, the whole process breaks down.’’
Author of the “Moral Mind”, Hauser is apparently currently working on another book entitled, “Evilicious: Explaining Our Evolved Taste for Being Bad.’’
Indeed.
Update: I just learned of even better blog coverage of this strange tale, including links to all the articles in question, with plenty of other items of interest to keep your eyeballs on that page.
Enhancing Summary Statements
08.9.10 by Michelle Kienholz
or touching up the previously enhanced version at least.
The Extramural Nexus from OER this month indicates that “help is on the way” … (that does not involve making Madame Zelda an allowable consultant cost):
NIH will begin requiring reviewers to include a paragraph in their written critiques to explain the factors that informed his or her overall impact score … [to] provide applicants with greater insight into how each reviewer assessed scientific merit of the grant application and determined his/her overall impact score. … You will see the additional information in summary statements for applications reviewed this fall.
Well then, something to look forward to. One wonders if reviewers will be required to remember verbatim the drunken comment made by the applicant at a Gordon conference …
NSF Budget Holding Its Own
07.29.10 by Michelle Kienholz
According to Jeff Mervis in Science today,
Last week, a Senate committee declared the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to be “the finest science foundation in the world.”
Nice. Even nicer is the Senate appropriations committee giving the Foundation a 6.2% budget boost over FY10 levels. And even nicer was the House counterpart recommending the entire 7.2% increase requested by the Administration, for an NSF FY11 budget of $7.4 billion.
Of course, who knows when appropriations bills will be signed and what might happen in the meantime, but I’m glad the NSF is starting out from a good position at least. The new broader impact criteria, I’m less excited about …
Findings of Research Misconduct
07.28.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Notice is hereby given that ORI and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in the following case:
Based on the reports of an inquiry and an investigation conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and analysis conducted by the ORI Division of Investigative Oversight, ORI found that Gerardo L. Paez, PhD, former postdoctoral fellow, Section of Medical Genetics, UPenn School of Veterinary Medicine, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by R01EY06855 and R01EY13132.
ORI found that the Respondent engaged in research misconduct by falsifying and fabricating retinal gene profile data that he purportedly obtained from 3-week old normal dogs and dogs with X-linked progressive retinal atrophy in abstracts and poster presentations for the 2006 and 2007 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meetings and in an unsubmitted manuscript draft. The Respondent also falsely labeled data files in the UPenn bioinformatics core computer and submitted falsely identified files to his research mentors.
Dr. Paez has voluntarily agreed, for a period of 3 years, beginning on June 9, 2010:
(1) To exclude himself from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant;
(2) that any institution that submits an application for PHS support for a research project on which the Respondent’s participation is proposed or that uses him in any capacity on PHS-supported research, or that submits a report of PHS-funded research in which he is involved, must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of his duties to the funding agency for approval; the supervisory plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of his research contribution. A copy of the supervisory plan also must be submitted to ORI by the institution. Respondent agreed that he will not participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervisory plan is submitted to ORI.
Duke is Capable of Acting Quickly on Misconduct …
07.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Update: On Sunday, Duke and other participating sites (again) halted the 3 clinical trials based on Potti’s earlier results. This morning, Rob commented on the lack of local media coverage of the Hellinga case but the quick reporting of Duke’s rapid action taken against Anil Potti:
Durham’s media has been absolutely silent on the Hellinga debacle. The did, however, take note of another pompous liar in the medical center ranks:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/17/585434/duke-scientist-placed-on-leave.html
Our friends at GenomeWeb have also alerted the scientific community to detective work by The Cancer Letter (also noted on their blog):
… one of Potti’s biographical sketches says he was a “Rhodes Scholar (Australia)” in 1995 and another says he held a “Research Fellowship at Queensland Research Institute, Australia (Mentor: Gordon McLaren)” at that time. “We don’t have any record that Anil Potti was a Rhodes scholar,” a Rhodes Trust spokesperson told The Cancer Letter. In addition, Rhodes says that its scholarships may only be used to study at the University of Oxford.
Furthermore, McLaren was “‘shocked,’ ‘saddened,’ and ‘flabbergasted’” to learn he was listed as Potti’s mentor in Australia, according to the newsletter. The Cancer Letter goes on to describe other inconsistencies on Potti’s résumé, including the year he graduated from medical school and an assertion that he was a National Merit Scholar.
According to The Cancer Letter, Potti claims to have worked under McLaren at the “Queensland Research Institute” (which does not exist). The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, which does exist, does not have any records of Potti having ever studied or existed there.
GenomeWeb also includes links to Potti’s 2006 Nature Medicine article, Genomic signatures to guide the use of chemotherapeutics, plus 2 corrigenda to correct errors in 2007 and 2008 (MD Anderson biostatisticians found the errors, as reported by Nature Medicine, which also noted Duke’s reluctance be entirely forthright about their outside review of 3 suspended clinical trials that were resumed this January).
According to the Durham News Observer:
“Duke is aware of the allegations raised in the article regarding Dr. Potti and has instituted a formal internal investigation,” Duke spokesman Douglas Stokke said Friday afternoon. “Dr. Potti has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”
… On Friday, the American Cancer Society suspended payments to Potti’s grant pending its own investigation.
“We are profoundly concerned to learn that a Duke University researcher made claims about his credentials in applications to the American Cancer Society and others that may not be true,” said Otis W. Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer.
It isn’t clear whether a false biographical claim would put a federal research grant in jeopardy. NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky would say only that “it is NIH policy to neither confirm nor deny that a review has been initiated or is under way.” [Potti is PI on 5R01CA131049-02 and 1R01CA136530-01A1]
… If he did falsify his biography, Potti may have committed a crime. The federal False Claims Act prohibits, among other things, falsifying applications in order to receive grant funding.
“It is most certainly unethical,” said Peg Vigiolto, UNC-Chapel Hill’s associate vice chancellor for research, speaking generally and not about Potti specifically. “And it would most certainly initiate all sorts of scientific integrity questions.”
Indeed.
As a side note, this issue of The Cancer Letter also covers Harold Varmus’ return to NCI, and his distinct lack of enthusiasm for megascience, giving preference to work done by individual scientists.
