Looking at some of the cases from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), I decided to share three of their cases in this blog post. First I should mention that all three cases were engaged in data falsification. The first case is from the department of Health and Human Services. Based on investigation ORI has found that one of the a former Associate Professor of Medicine in Duke engaged in research misconduct by including false research data in published papers , submitted manuscript, grant application, and research record. Three misconducts has been reported:
- Respondent stated in grant application 1 R01 CA136530-01A1 that 6 out of 33 patients responded positively to dasatinib when only 4 patients were enrolled and none responded and that the 4 CT scans presented in Figure 14 were from the lung cancer study when they were not.
- Respondent altered data sets to improve the accuracy of predictors for response to treatments in a submitted paper and in the research record by:
- reversing the responder status of 24 out of 133 subjects for the adriamycin predictor in a manuscript submitted to Clinical Cancer Research
- switching the cancer recurrence phenotype for 46 out of 89 samples to validate the LMS predictor in a file provided to a colleague in 2008
- changing IC-50 and R-code values for the cisplatin predictor in a data set provided to NCI in 2010
- Respondent reported predictors and/or their validation by disregarding accepted scientific methodology.
Respondent has entered into a Voluntary Settlement Agreement with ORI. Respondent neither admits nor denies ORI’s findings of research misconduct; the settlement is not an admission of liability on the part of the Respondent. The parties entered into the Agreement to conclude this matter without further expenditure of time, finances, or other resources. Respondent has not applied for or engaged in U.S. Public Health Service (PHS)-supported research since 2010. Respondent stated that he has no intention of applying for or engaging in PHS-supported research or otherwise working with PHS.
The second case is from the department of Health and Human Services. A former postdoctoral fellow in University of Maryland in Baltimore engaged in misconducting research by falsifying graphs supported by National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant R01 DC010110. The “Respondent neither admits nor denies ORI’s findings of research misconduct; the settlement is not an admission of liability on the part of the Respondent”.
The third case is from the same department in University of California in San Francisco. A graduate student engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), training grant T32 GM007810 and grant R01 GM109176. ORI found that the respondent falsified data in two publications.
- to have his research supervised for period of three (3) years beginning on August 4, 2015; Respondent agreed that prior to the submission of an application for U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) support for a research project on which his participation is proposed and prior to his participation in any capacity on PHS-supported research, Respondent shall ensure that a plan for supervision of his duties is submitted to ORI for approval; the supervision plan must be designed to ensure the scientific integrity of his research contribution; Respondent agreed that he will not participate in any PHS-supported research until such a supervision plan is submitted to and approved by ORI; Respondent agreed to maintain responsibility for compliance with the agreed upon supervision plan;
- that for period of three (3) years beginning on August 4, 2015, any institution employing him shall submit in conjunction with each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which Respondent is involved, a certification to ORI that the data provided by Respondent are based on actual experiments or are otherwise legitimately derived, and that the data, procedures, and methodology are accurately reported in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract;
- to exclude himself voluntarily 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 for period of three (3) years beginning on August 4, 2015; and
- to retraction or correction of the following papers:
- Science Signaling 7:ra114, 2014
- Chemistry & Biology 21:453-458, 2014