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.
Feedback on NIH Scoring
07.16.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Update: Jeremy Berg has posted similar analyses of Approach and Innovation scores at the Feedback Loop … and now, regression analysis results, too!
My NIGMS Feedback Loop listserv alerted me to Jeremy Berg’s assessment Model Organisms and the Significance of Significance. Not much on model organisms (an interesting comment by Whimple – update: and others now), but Dr. Berg notes that:
To examine how reviewers apply the significance criterion in determining overall impact scores, I analyzed 360 NIGMS R01 applications reviewed during the October 2009 Council round. [he shows a plot, too]
As anticipated, the scores are reasonably strongly correlated, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.63. Similar comparisons with the other peer review criteria revealed correlation coefficients of 0.74 for approach, 0.54 for innovation, 0.49 for investigator and 0.37 for environment.
Hmm. Not too surprising. Research is not likely to have much impact if it is not both significant (meaningful) and well designed/planned. I realized on reading his post that I do indeed tend to discount the scores (and, to some extent, the comments) under the other criteria and focus on the overall impact bullets plus Significance and Approach when reviewing Summary Statements.
I actually like this definition of Overall Impact from Sally Amero’s presentation on peer review at the June 2010 NIH Regional Grant Seminar:
Likelihood for the project to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved
- Likelihood (i.e., probability) is primarily derived from the investigator(s), approach and environment criteria
- Sustained powerful influence is primarily derived from the significance and innovation criteria
Though I still focus on assessment of Significance and Approach in the review …
I’ll be interested to see if these data change with the just-completed reviews of the first short-format applications submitted during Cycle 1. If anything, I would expect them to become more tightly correlated, which is I’m sure what Toni Scarpa hopes as well. Then again, the Summary Statements from this round that I’ve already read invariably note something to the effect that details are lacking (in approach), so we’ll see.
(and, after ignoring the blogosphere for a few weeks due to travels & grant overload, I just thought to check, and, yes, DrugMonkey covered this as well … but in case there’s anyone here but not there who might be interested in the NIGMS Feedback …)
NIH Guide 2.0 – Enhanced FOAs
06.25.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Yesterday I attended a last-minute session at which NIH folks presented potential new changes to the way FOAs are released, the idea being that shorter, simpler applications deserve shorter, simpler funding announcements.
The question to you all: what data are most important in an FOA (especially in the Part 1. Overview Information) – that is, what would you not want to see disappear from this section (e.g. key dates, number of applications allowed, etc.) … and what aspects of FOAs do you feel need to be changed (e.g., details on eRA registration, page limitations, submission requirements, etc.)?
At the end of the session, one brave volunteer gave an e-mail address to which comments/suggestions could be sent … or you could add them here in response to this post.
And now … off the grid for a few days. Try not to trash the place while I’m gone …
NIH Regional Grants Seminar
06.24.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Writedit is in Portland for the NIH Regional Grants Seminar (& I recommend everyone attend one of these or at least view the online presentations) – limited Web access and will be off the grid for a few days after. Have fun.
But … a few tidbits already. Later this afternoon, I’ll learn about plans to shorten/streamline/”enhance” the writing of FOAs. More on that later.
At one talk, an SRO shared a good rule of thumb for differentiating Impact from Significance: Significance is the hypothetical benefit to science/technology/clinical practice *if* the aims are achieved … Impact is the real-world impact, taking into account why the investigators & environment will really make this cool study work & shift a paradigmm or two.
Also, for resubmissions, SROs really want the reviewers to look at the A1 as a “new” application (reviewers don’t see old application in any case) evaluated based on its own merit – not in relation to how much it improved from the prior submission or whether all the reviewer critiques were met. Not news – but clearly laid out today.
And Sally Rockey (head of OER) confirmed that the NIH is rigorously sniffing out “new” applications that are not new. Rigorously (investing time & personnel needed). Please remember that just changing PAs does not make the application new (changing mechanisms, resubmission after failing at an RFA do qualify as new). She also noted that so far, there has only been a 10% bump in applications submitted. The next big jump will likely be in 2012, when everyone who had ARRA funding and asked for no-cost extensions comes back to the trough for more ….
Collins on NIH Budget, Investigator-Initiated Research, Basic Science, etc.
06.4.10 by Michelle Kienholz
In the published version of his interview with Science, Francis Collins had some rather grim news for NIH-supported investigators, particularly those in the basic sciences:
Q: Regarding the budget and grant funding, you’ve said that you expect very low success rates in 2011, 15%. What’s this going to mean?
F.C.: We don’t know what the budget will end up being. Obviously, the signs are not particularly good that the Congress will do better than the president’s budget [a 3.2% increase]. Some noises might even indicate that they’ll do worse.
We will undoubtedly have to look at draconian things like downward negotiations, which means cutting the budgets of approved grants in order to try to free up dollars to fund more grants. We are trying to protect certain parts of the enterprise. Postdoc training slots, for instance. But I’m sorry, I can’t come up with a magic solution here that is going to reduce all of the pain.
Q: Some researchers are worried that your emphasis on translational research and big goals will mean cutting back on investigator-initiated grants.
F.C.: I don’t think they should be very worried. Everybody’s going to be stressed, so it will be tempting if your grant didn’t get funded to look around for some reason other than the fact that it was a tough year budgetarily. The amount of additional funds that might go into focusing on translation are going to be maybe 1% or thereabouts of the overall NIH effort. That shouldn’t have a very big effect.
Q: Does that mean 1% less for investigator-initiated research?
F.C.: I would argue that if NIH simply said we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along, we’re not in a very good position then to ask the Administration or the Congress to give us more resources.
The translational goals get a lot of traction with the Congress, with the public. They should. I mean, we’re the National Institutes of Health. We are supposed to be coming up with ways to prevent and treat disease.
I was a bit taken aback by that last answer, but in the complete transcript of his almost hour-long interview with Science staffers Jocelyn Kaiser, Eliot Marshall, and Laura Zahn, Collins’ full sentiments become more clear. The full question was:
so we wanted to talk about the budget and the stimulus cliff which you’ve been talking about on the Hill lately. You’ve said that you expect very low success rates, 15%. What’s this going to mean? Is it going to shut labs down? We’ve heard plenty of people talking about posdocs being out of work. What’s it going to mean if that’s what you get?
Collins first notes that success rates depend on a lot of things, including “the budget you actually have to spend.” And then …
Yesterday’s primary result was a big disappointment, I think to many people. {clearly the interview was held on May 19th, the day after our primary election here in BICO- writedit} We were hoping to see Senator [Arlen] Spector [(D-PA)] reelected because he’s been such a strong champion for medical research, as you all know. And I am personally grieving at that outcome because of what it may mean for medical research in the congressional appropriation process. And because Senator Specter as a human being has been remarkably devoted to making the case for the importance of this kind of work. And he’s a courageous cancer survivor himself.
And the real pisser is what has happened in the aftermath of Sestak’s win … but don’t get me started.
Collins adds
So we don’t know what the budget will end up being. Obviously the signs are not particularly good that Congress will do better than the president’s budget. Some noises even indicate they’ll do worse with all the other pressures upon them from education needs and so on.
The other question we don’t know the answer to is what will be the number of grant submissions in FY’11. I will tell you, there were some concerns that we would see a huge deluge already in the January submissions because even though they would be submitted in January 2010 because of the cycle time, they wouldn’t be funded until early ’11. And many people were wondering if all those Challenge Grant applications, those 20,000 that came in during the stimulus and only 800 of those got funded, are the other 19,200 going to come back? … {but} We didn’t see a particularly big bump.
Well, a 13% increase in applications received since Oct 2009 (even with some ARRA applications still coming in) isn’t nothing …
We will undoubtedly have to look at draconian things like downward negotiations, which means cutting the budgets of approved grants in order to free up dollars to approve more grants.
Undoubtedly.
When asked whether the NIH would be “facing more flat funding”, Collin states the obvious:
Our system is every year is a brand new year and you’re very much at the mercy of what’s happening with the economy and the political system. And we have to roll with that and do the best we can. … It will obligate all of us who are science managers … to look really hard at whether there are less productive areas of sicence that we can’t continue to push forward just because we always have.
And then we get to the full answer to the “Does that mean 1% less for investigator initiated research?”, which is quite a bit longer and a bit more encouraging – for those in basic research – than the printed excerpt:
… When you no doubt listened to the hearings in the House and the Senate, a lot of interest about translation, about the Cures Acceleration Network and whether it’s going to get appropriated and not just authorized. And I think that puts us in a pretty good position to say, we really are at a critical juncture as far as moving basic science forward discoveries into the clinic in ways that we couldn’t have 5 or 6 years ago.
All that being said, I totally want to protect the basic science foundation of everything we do because that is our future. And I would certainly say to any R01 investigator who’s worried about this that the vast majority of the discoveries that are going to matter are going to come from those hypothesis-driven investigator-initiated efforts.
… But I also want to inspire those individuals who may have thought of themselves as lifelong basic scientists to think translationally if the opportunity arises and not to feel that’s off limits. And that’s not for everybody but I can certainly point to a few basic scientists who found that pretty exhilarating. Why do people go into biomedical research? Curiosity, sure, it’s fascinating, it’s intellectually stimulating, it’s not very profitable if you’re in the academic sector. But also because you have a dream that you’re going to do something, that you’re going to discover something that wasn’t known before and you’re going to help somebody. And if we in this effort to emphasize translation are going to give a few more basic scientists a chance to see that part of their dream become a little more real, I don’t think that’s bad as long as we’re not seen as putting down the basic science part of their careers and many others like them. We can’t do that.
However, the funding emphasis will remain on translational and applied research – accelerating cures … on cue, it seems. And the more pure basic science, seeking to serendipitously discover mechanism … the way things work? I worry that these sorts of projects will be lost as “less productive” … harder to explain to Congress.
But then, in moving on to talk about drug discovery, a question comes up about the new regulatory science initiative between NIH and FDA, which will be paid for out of the NIH Common Fund. Eliot Marshall asks, “They [FDA] do have a research program, right?” To which Collins replies:
Very, very limited and they certainly have not had anything like this. And so we – most of this is actually funded by the NIH since their budget is so tight, so we volunteered because it seems like a great idea that will cover most of our costs. We put out an RFA and we got 59 letters of intent. I’ve read all of those and they’re really interesting. In fact, we’re going to be challenged when the review goes through, we may not have enough money to fund the best stuff and have to go scrabbling around to fund more.
Having read the RFA, I’m impressed they got 59 letters of intent (all read by the NIH Director – not something you think about when jotting off these formalities). I wonder how many applications came in and how much more than the budgeted $6M will go toward this rather unusual RFA … and those to follow as part of the larger “regulatory science” initiative.
Broader Impact of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010
06.1.10 by Michelle Kienholz
As nicely summarized by Jeffrey Mervis in ScienceInsider, the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (H.R.5116) has passed the House on its third attempt. The Senate still needs to take up the measure, and then any differences would need to be reconciled. While this bill authorizes $84 billion for research, education, and other programs over the next 5 years at the NSF (which gets $40B), the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, another less welcome bit of NSF authorization is include. Namely, the new Broader Impact review criteria:
SEC. 214. BROADER IMPACTS REVIEW CRITERION.
(a) Goals- The Foundation shall apply a Broader Impacts Review Criterion to achieve the following goals:
(1) Increased economic competitiveness of the United States.
(2) Development of a globally competitive STEM workforce.
(3) Increased participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM.
(4) Increased partnerships between academia and industry.
(5) Improved pre-K-12 STEM education and teacher development.
(6) Improved undergraduate STEM education.
(7) Increased public scientific literacy.
(8) Increased national security.
(b) Policy- Not later than 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall develop and implement a policy for the Broader Impacts Review Criterion that–
(1) provides for educating professional staff at the Foundation, merit review panels, and applicants for Foundation research grants on the policy developed under this subsection;
(2) clarifies that the activities of grant recipients undertaken to satisfy the Broader Impacts Review Criterion shall–
(A) to the extent practicable employ proven strategies and models and draw on existing programs and activities; and
(B) when novel approaches are justified, build on the most current research results;
(3) allows for some portion of funds allocated to broader impacts under a research grant to be used for assessment and evaluation of the broader impacts activity;
(4) encourages institutions of higher education and other nonprofit education or research organizations to develop and provide, either as individual institutions or in partnerships thereof, appropriate training and programs to assist Foundation-funded principal investigators at their institutions in achieving the goals of the Broader Impacts Review Criterion as described in subsection (a); and
(5) requires principal investigators applying for Foundation research grants to provide evidence of institutional support for the portion of the investigator’s proposal designed to satisfy the Broader Impacts Review Criterion, including evidence of relevant training, programs, and other institutional resources available to the investigator from either their home institution or organization or another institution or organization with relevant expertise.
Actually, the new first and eighth goals are not far off from the NSF’s original intent: “The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 ‘to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…’ ” Who knew?
Nature’s Corie Lok recently took a look at the NSF’s broader impact requirement, which began in 1997 (and started to be enforced in 2002), though this was based on prior NSF criteria. Even so …
Many NSF-funded researchers find the foundation’s definition of broader impacts to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, broad, and frustratingly vague. …
Because it lacks conceptual clarity, the broader-impacts requirement often leaves researchers unsure about what to include in their proposals, and leads to inconsistencies in how reviewers evaluate applications. …
To make matters worse, the NSF has made little attempt to systematically track how its broader-impacts requirements are being met, or how much grant money is being spent in the process. Nor does it have a system in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the various projects.
Indeed, how does one track the impact of individual NSF-funded investigators on achieving the new first and eighth goals (increased economic competitiveness and national security)? It seems, at least, help may be on the way:
In March, the NSF’s oversight body, the National Science Board, launched a task force to examine how broader impacts can be improved. Chaired by Alan Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, the task force is not expected to make its recommendations until 2011.
Perhaps the task force will concur with suggestions that remove the burden of broader impacts from individual investigators:
Yet such ideas lead to a more fundamental question. Is having every principal investigator working individually on broader impacts — for which many are inexperienced and untrained — the most efficient way of achieving the maximum effect?
Some scholars say no. In a paper published last year, Warren Burggren, a biologist and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Texas in Denton, writes that the job of implementing broader impacts should fall to the researcher’s institution, not to the researcher him or herself. The institution, be it college, department or centre, would pool a portion of the NSF grants obtained by its members and hire the professionals needed to broaden impacts effectively. Scientists should still be involved, but the coordination would happen at the institutional level. “I think it will be more efficient, because you’ve got people doing what they’re trained for,” says Burggren.
Another idea, suggested by Barry Bozeman, a science-policy expert at the University of Georgia in Athens, is for the NSF to create specific research programmes with strong broader-impact goals around areas in which the effects are important and obvious, such as climate change. Bozeman says that the NSF is already following this strategy with awards that, for example, promote the recruitment and retention of women in academic science.
Imagine that … having everyone concentrate on doing what they’re trained to do … talk about making America competitive in science again.
More Retractions, More Misconduct
05.19.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Nothing to say here except thanks to DrugMonkey for the heads-up on spotting another case of misconduct causing extensive havoc in the scientific community – this time, Suresh Radhakrishnan, PhD, formerly at the Mayo Clinic Dept of Immunology. No word on whatever formal misconduct investigation may be in progress, but quite a list of affected articles, and some brief insight via the authors’ note to PLoS ONE:
An investigation by the Mayo Clinic has determined that one of the researchers in Professor Pease’s laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Suresh Radhakrishnan, tampered with another investigator’s experiment with the intent to mislead toward the conclusion that the B7-DCXAb reagent has cell activating properties. Using blinded protocols, experiments were done to see if the results based on this reagent could be replicated. Specifically, the repeat experiments examined the activation of dendritic cells, activation of cytotoxic T cells, induction of tumor immunity, modulation of allergic responses, breaking tolerance in the RIP-OVA diabetes model, and the reprogramming of Th2 and T regulatory cells. In no case did these repeat studies reveal any evidence that the B7-DCXAb reagent had the previously reported activity. The authors of this paper therefore wish to retract this paper because of the inability to reproduce key aspects of the studies and hence the results in them cannot be considered reliable.
The note in PNAS gives the scope: “In the course of this re-examination, we were able to study all the antibodies used in the various phases of our work spanning the last 10 years. None of these antibodies appears to be active in any of our repeat assays. We do not believe something has happened recently to the reagent changing its potency.”
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Esteban Celis, and Larry R. Pease, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005;102:11438–11443
Retraction: Radhakrishnan S, Cabrera R, et al. (2009) PLoS ONE 4(4): e5373
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Loc T. Nguyen, Bogoljub Ciric, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 1830–1838
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Koji Iijima, Takao Kobayashi, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2004, 173: 1360–1365.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Loc T. Nguyen, Bogoljub Ciric, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 178: 1426–1432.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Karla R. Wiehagen, Vesna Pulko, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2007, 178: 3583–3592.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Rosalyn Cabrera, Erin L. Schenk, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 3137–3147.
Retraction: Suresh Radhakrishnan, Laura N. Arneson, Jadee L. Upshaw, et al., The Journal of Immunology, 2008, 181: 7863–7872.
He has other publications and patents that may have some issues as well. Stay tuned.
Press Reports on Another UW Misconduct Case
05.17.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Update: A King County Superior Court Judge rejected Aprikyan’s request for a temporary injunction to stop the university from firing him. A trial on the case has been set for November.
Hot on the heels of one sensational misconduct case at U Wash, details have been made public about another since the research assistant professor (and UW table tennis coach) at the heart of the investigation, Andrew Aprikyan, has sued in court to save his job.
The Seattle Times reports on “some eye-opening revelations in the court documents — including Aprikyan’s own account that a technician working with him at one point wrote research notes on ‘approximately 30 paper towels,’ and the notes were never transcribed.” Clearly someone missed the seminar on maintaining a good lab notebook.
The case has dragged on 7 years, during which time Aprikyan has continued to publish, secure grant funding, and present his results. This year, UW President Mark Emmert intervened to say Aprikyan should be fired for academic misconduct.
But getting back to that long investigation (Duke watchers take note):
In 2003, when the journal “Blood” posted an Aprikyan paper on its website, another researcher noticed that something looked wrong: An image of a cell in one panel appeared to have been rotated 90 degrees and relabeled in another panel.
Aprikyan later withdrew the paper, which other researchers contributed to, noting that “errors in some of the digital images in the manuscript are under investigation.”
“We … extend our deepest apologies to the scientific community,” Aprikyan wrote on the “Blood” website.
In court papers, Aprikyan said it was a rival faculty member who turned him in after “I had refused to work with him on a research project.”
The UW appointed a committee, composed of three scientists, to investigate Aprikyan’s work. Under UW rules, such investigations are supposed to take 90 days. But the committee got at least 16 extensions as the investigation dragged on. It worked for three years, eventually issuing a report of more than 450 pages.
It took another year for Paul Ramsey, dean of the UW School of Medicine, to review the reports and issue his own findings. Ramsey concluded that Aprikyan had falsified seven figures and tables in two research papers, and that his actions amounted to academic misconduct.
Then things took a turn. Ramsey and Provost Phyllis Wise asked a faculty panel — which included professors of English, Scandinavian studies and several other disciplines — to decide whether Aprikyan should be fired. Aprikyan, in turn, asked the panel to reconsider the entire case against him.
Over the objections of UW administrators, a law professor decided the faculty panel could reconsider the case. Two years later, the panel concluded, in a 70-page report, that while there was plenty of evidence of sloppy methods and erroneous results, there was no evidence Aprikyan had deliberately falsified his work.
Earlier this year, Emmert made his own ruling: The second panel had no authority to review the first committee’s findings. Emmert wrote that he, therefore, accepted those initial findings — that Aprikyan had committed scientific misconduct — and concluded the researcher should be fired.
Whoa … 3 scientists devoted 3 years to preparing a 450-p report about 7 falsified figures & tables in 2 papers?
Wonder what will be left for ORI to say when they finally issue their report.
NIH & NSF Entering a New Line of Business
05.13.10 by Michelle Kienholz
Funding it, that is, as part of the new i6 Challenge.
I couldn’t possibly describe this program better than the full announcement:
The i6 Challenge is a new, multi-agency innovation competition led by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and its Economic Development Administration (EDA). The DOC and EDA will coordinate this funding opportunity with the NIH, the NSF, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to leverage federal resources and maximize available funding to i6 Challenge winners.
The i6 Challenge is designed to encourage and reward innovative, ground-breaking ideas that will accelerate technology commercialization and new venture formation across the United States, for the ultimate purpose of helping to drive economic growth and job creation.
To accomplish this, the i6 Challenge targets sections of the research-to-deployment continuum that are in need of additional support, in order to strengthen regional innovation ecosystems. Applicants to the i6 Challenge are expected to propose mechanisms to fill in existing gaps in the continuum or leverage existing infrastructure and institutions, such as economic development organizations, academic institutions, or other non-profit organizations, in new and innovative ways to achieve the i6 objectives.
Applicants are also expected to leverage regional strengths, capabilities, and competitive advantages. Furthermore, they are expected to identify a real or persistent problem or an unaddressed opportunity with a sense of urgency, cultivate strong public-private partnerships, provide a credible plan to access resources, demonstrate how the effort will be sustained, and bring together a well-qualified team and partners.
EDA intends to fund implementation grants for technical assistance through its Economic Adjustment Assistance Program under the i6 Challenge.
EDA will make at least 6 awards of up to $1M – one in each of its 6 regions. EDA can only fund proposals in an area that, on the date of application, meets one (or more) of the following economic distress criteria: 1. An unemployment rate that is, for the most recent 24-month period for which data are available, at least one percentage point greater than the national average unemployment rate; 2. Per capita income that is, for the most recent period for which data are available, 80% or less of the national average per capita income; or 3. Has a “Special Need,” as determined by EDA.
Successful Applicants who are NIH SBIR Grantees with an active SBIR grant as of October 2010 are eligible for up to $500K in supplemental awards.
Successful Applicants who are NSF SBIR Grantees with an active SBIR grant as of July 15, 2010 are eligible for up to $100K (individual) to $500K (collective) in supplemental awards.
USPTO will provide customized intellectual property seminars to entrepreneurs and innovators associated with the winning Applicants.
Applicants must demonstrate a Matching Share of at least $500K, which must be available and committed to the project from non-federal sources. EDA will give preference to applications with higher Matching Shares and to applications with higher levels of cash contributions in their Matching Share.
Strongly recommended letters of intent are due June 15th – full applications due July 15th.
Questions? I can’t imagine … but there will be a conference call on Monday, May 17, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT.
