*This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated. 
 1994.
11.25 :  Researcher Guilty of Misconduct

Contact:  Public Health Service
          Bill Grigg, (202) 690-8104
November 25, 1994

              ORI FINDS RESEARCHER GUILTY OF MISCONDUCT

     The federal Office of Research Integrity today announced it
has found that Dr. Thereza Imanishi-Kari deliberately falsified
research conducted under U.S. Public Health Service grants and
then covered up her initial scientific misconduct with additional
falsifications when the original data were challenged.

     In finding Imanishi-Kari guilty of 19 charges of misconduct,
the Office of Research Integrity relied on three proofs: a
computerized, statistical analysis that showed the false data
were not chance errors but conscious ones aimed at a particular
result; forensic analysis conducted by the U.S. Secret Service on
when certain notations were made, and scientific evidence.

     The report of the Office of Research Integrity was made
available to Dr. Imanishi-Kari three months ago for her review. 
It says that the fabricated results were initially published in a
scientific report co-authored with Nobel laureate Dr. David
Baltimore titled, "Altered Repertoire of Endogenous Heavy Chain
Gene," in the April 25, 1986, issue of the journal Cell and that
further fabrications appeared in her letter of correction, also
published in Cell, and in two grant applications submitted to the
National Institutes of Health.

     The article had no immediate impact on human health. 
However, it purported to show that a gene from one strain of
mouse had been transferred to another strain of mouse, resulting
in the latter's production of high levels of antibody molecules
it would not normally produce -- antibody molecules mimicking the
antibody molecules produced by the original strain.  These
results were fabricated, ORI said.  

     Besides raising the false hope that a way had been found to
transfer resistance to disease, the research may have caused
other researchers to pursue unproductive studies.  Other
scientists have not been able to reproduce the most significant
findings claimed in Cell.  

     As a result of the finding of scientific misconduct, Dr.
Imanishi-Kari would be barred from receiving federal grant or
contract money or participating in cooperative agreements for 10
years. 

     However, the Office of Research Integrity said today that
Dr. Imanishi-Kari has filed an appeal of the ORI findings with
the HHS Departmental Appeals Board, an independent body.  To hear
appeals, the board appoints a three-member adjudication panel to
hold formal evidentiary hearings.

     The federal Office of Research Integrity was created to
protect the accuracy of scientific work performed under grants
from Public Health Service agencies such as the National
Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

     "Ultimately, we are safeguarding the honesty of work done
with taxpayers' money," Lyle W. Bivens, director of the Office of
Research Integrity, said, "as well as the impact of such
misconduct on the course of medical research.  We are proud of
our record of success.  In fiscal year 1994, we closed 52 major
cases, making findings of no misconduct in many and making and
sustaining findings of scientific misconduct in 14."  

     This case began when Dr. Margot O'Toole, a researcher in 
Dr. Imanishi-Kari's laboratory, reported that she could not
replicate the results of the research Dr. Imanishi-Kari had
supposedly completed and reported in her laboratory notebook.  

                                 ###