Scientists With Links to China May Be Stealing Biomedical Research, U.S. Says

Administrators at M.D. Anderson said three of the scientists had resigned and one had retired. The fifth case involved a scientist whose transgressions may not be serious enough to be fired.

Dr. Xifeng Wu, who left M.D. Anderson and is now dean of the School of Public Health at Zhejiang University in China, declined to comment on the circumstances of her resignation. “I would like to focus on my research,” she said.

M.D. Anderson is not the only institution wrestling with possible scientific misconduct.

Last month, two married scientists, Yu Zhou, 49, and Li Chen, 46, who had worked at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for a decade, were indicted on charges that they stole technology developed at the hospital and used it to apply for Chinese patents and set up biotech companies in China and the United States.

Dr. Zhou’s lawyer, Glenn Seiden, said in an email that the couple did not commit any crimes, and that Dr. Zhou is a “trailblazer” in scientific research.

In May, two scientists at Emory University in Atlanta, Dr. Li Xiao-Jiang and Dr. Li Shihua, were fired after administrators discovered that Dr. Li Xiao-Jiang had received funding from China’s Thousand Talents Program.

The couple had worked there for more than two decades, researching Huntington’s disease. University administrators declined to provide further information.

“They treated us like criminals,” Dr. Li Xiao-Jiang said in an interview near Jinan University in southern China, where he and his wife now work. He disputed the suggestion that they had failed to report ties to China.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/health/china-nih-scientists.html?emc=rss&partner=rss