Nobel Laureates disagree at misconduct hearing

Abstract

To Walter Gilbert, 1980 winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Thereza Imanishi-Kari is guilty of falsifying data in a 1986 paper on transgenic mice. But David Baltimore, winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine and one of the controversial publication's coauthors, does not believe the Tufts University immunologist committed scientific misconduct. Both men testified during the first three weeks of a Washington, D.C., administrative hearing, requested by Imanishi-Kari, who insists she is innocent (C&EN, June 19, page 7). She asked for the trial-like appeal proceeding after the Department of Health & Human Service's Office of Research Integrity (ORI) concluded late last year that she fabricated data, then tried to cover up with additional falsifications. Imanishi-Kari will be denied federal grant or contract money for 10 years if the three-member panel judging the appeal finds that ORI's lawyers have proven their case. The paper in question [ Cell , 45, 247 (1986)] was first ...