NIH两千万项目造假 博导博后齐落马

　　

生物通报道，美国的研究诚信办公室（Office of Research Integrity，ORI）近期又爆出一起学术造假案，两名学者在过去8年16篇研究论文涉嫌伪造实验数据。

 

两名科学家分别是Judith Thomas和Juan Contreras，两位都是来自伯明翰阿拉巴马大学的学者，他们在做抑制免疫排斥方面的研究中涉嫌伪造实验数据以及谎报实验方法。

 

阿拉巴马大学研究副主席Marchase表示，两位学者的研究实验无法验证，再次重复相同的实验却无法得到相同的结果。

 

Judith Thomas和Juan Contreras两人这期间共获得NIH发放的2300万资助经费。

 

目前，两位学术不端的动机不明，涉嫌数据造假的文章也已经被撤回。

 

据悉，Juan Contreras曾跟随Judith Thomas做博士后研究，起初，Judith Thomas将学术不端责任推卸到Juan Contreras身上。后来，经过ORI缜密的调查后发现其实Judith Thomas也是主动涉案而非被动。

（生物通  小茜）

附ORI通告全文

 

链接地址：http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-15910.htm

 

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity 

(ORI) and the Assistant Secretary for Health have taken final action in 

the following case:

    Judith M. Thomas, PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham: Based 

on a finding of scientific misconduct made by the University of Alabama 

at Birmingham (UAB) on January 24, 2008, a report of the UAB 

Investigation Committee, dated November 21, 2007, and additional 

analysis conducted by ORI during its oversight review, the U.S. Public 

Health Service (PHS) found that Dr. Judith M. Thomas, former Professor 

of Surgery, UAB, engaged in scientific misconduct in research supported 

by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 

National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants R01 AI22293, R01 AI39793, 

and U19 AI056542, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and 

Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH, grant U19 DK57958, and NIH/Novartis 

Cooperative Research and Development Agreement 96-MH-01/NIHITC-0697.

    The objective of the research was to test the effectiveness of 

different agents, such as Immunotoxin FN18-CRM9 or 15-deoxyspergualin 

(15-DSG), administered around the time of renal transplantation in non-

human primates, in preventing rejection of the transplanted kidney. To 

determine whether or not the transplanted kidney was functioning (able 

to sustain life) after the immunomodulating therapy, the animals were 

to have both of their native kidneys removed at or shortly after the 

time of transplant, so that their survival would depend solely on the 

viability of the transplanted kidney. It was postulated that the use of 

immunomodulating agents would increase tolerance of the host animal to 

the grafted kidney and thus eliminate the necessity for chronic 

administration of immunosuppressive medications commonly required to 

prevent rejection in renal transplant recipients. Failure to remove 

both native kidneys would render it impossible to assess the 

effectiveness of the immunomodulating treatment, and could give totally 

misleading results, suggesting that the treatment worked while in fact 

survival was due entirely to the remaining native kidney.

    PHS found that Respondent engaged in scientific misconduct by 

falsifying reports of research results in NIH-supported experiments 

with non-human primate (NHP) renal allograft recipients in 15 

publications and in progress reports in two NIH research grant 

applications.