ISU researcher quits amid allegations of AIDS-research fraud involving millions of federal dollars

[DeSwiss]

Subchat.com | 3:51 PM, Dec 23, 2013 | by Tony Leys
{Originally posted: Des Moines Register}

An Iowa State University professor has resigned after being accused of spiking rabbit blood to make it appear that an AIDS vaccine [font size=1]{my emphasis}[/font] was working better in the research animals than it really was. Dr. Dong-Pyou Han was an assistant professor of biomedical sciences. He resigned in October after admitting responsibility, an ISU spokesman said.

The fraudulent results helped an ISU research team gain millions of dollars in federal money, according to Dr. James Bradac, who helps oversee AIDS vaccine grants for the National Institutes of Health.

Bradac said in a phone interview Monday that Han apparently added human blood components to the rabbit blood to skew the results. The human blood came from people whose bodies had produced antibodies to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Bradac said. The presence of these antibodies in the rabbits’ blood made it appear that the vaccine was spurring the animals to build defenses against HIV. “This positive result was striking, and it caught everybody’s attention,” Bradac said.

Federal documents released Monday show the results were presented at numerous scientific meetings over several years [font size=1]{my emphasis}[/font]. But researchers at other institutions became suspicious after they were unsuccessful in duplicating the ISU results.

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- When money is central to scientific inquiry, the results are already tainted before the first pin prick......

[longship]

1. Thank goodness that science has the checks and balances to weed out these people.

The guy has utterly destroyed his career. He will never ever again find work in his field.

Fraud in science is not unknown, but thankfully it is rare. When it happens, it is almost always found by other scientists because the scientific method has checks and balances that are tough to get through. And since science is also competitive, there is always a chance that a competitor will find out the fraud. Regretfully, that same competitive spirit sometimes spurns some to cheat.

Thankfully, it rarely works. But only for a time. In the end, it is always found out.

Nota bene: in general, academic researchers do not get rich from their research. I have no idea what this guy was trying to prove by cheating. It certainly wasn't a Nobel Prize. This is just puzzling from all perspectives. Did he actually think he would get away with it?

[Vashta Nerada]

4. I got the impression he fabricated the results just to get more grant money.

You're absolutely right. Science has a way to see if a researcher is lying or not about his/her results and I'm glad the scientific community became suspicious when they couldn't replicate the results.

[Aerows]

2. Sad

Looks like Dr. Dong is going to have to find a new line of work.

[DeSwiss]

3. Something will probably come up.

- He could always go work for the FDA. He seems qualified......


This Xmas tolerance thing is getting way out of hand.....

[Aerows]

5. OMG...

I didn't notice that image before. That's hilarious!

And yeah, he's probably qualified to work there!