“Case Studies inResearch Misconduct”

Tony Onofrietti, M.S., CRSSDirector of Research Education

The University of Utah801-585-3492

tony.onofrietti@hsc.utah.eduwww.education.research.utah.edu

University of Alabama in HuntsvilleSeptember 15 & 16, 2011

Meet Your Colleagues

Thank You for Being Here Today!

Antoine LavoisierFather of Modern Chemistry

Charles Darwin

Albert Einstein

Albert W. Overhauser, Purdue“Dynamic Nuclear Polarization”

South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-Suk

Overview ofPresentation

• Define research misconduct and explain its governing policies and procedures

• Describe several cases from the history of science involving both the responsible and irresponsible conduct of research

• Discuss a variety of ethical issues encountered by researchers and research administrators in order to better identify and avoid research misconduct

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR)The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is organized

under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (OS), and the Office of Public Health and Science (PHS).

ORI describes education and training in responsible conduct of research (RCR) in terms of nine instructional areas:

1. Data Acquisition, Management, Sharing & Ownership2. Conflicts of Interest and Commitment3. Human Subjects4. Animal Welfare5. Research Misconduct6. Publication Practices and Responsible Authorship7. Mentor / Trainee Responsibilities8. Peer Review9. Collaborative Science

NSF Agency Specific RequirementsResponsible Conduct of Research

• … NSF requires that grantees must have a plan in place to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research (RCR) to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers who will be supported by NSF to conduct research. Training plans are subject to review, upon request.

• … Grantees must designate one or more persons to oversee compliance with the RCR training requirement.

• … Grantees are responsible for verifying that undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers supported by NSF to conduct research have received training in the responsible and ethical conduct of research, in accordance with the plan the grantee has put in place for their organization.

• … Grantees shall ensure that these RCR requirements flow down to all subrecipients, or are otherwise appropriately addressed in the subaward instrument.

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/rtc/nsf_110.pdf

“A systematic investigationdesigned to develop

or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”

45 CFR 46.102(d)

The Regulatory Definitionof Research

Definition ofResearch Misconduct

• Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reportingresearch results.

42 CFR 93.103

Fabrication

• Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.

Infamous Case

Dr. John Darsee• Regarded as a brilliant student and medical

researcher at the University of Notre Dame (1966-70), Indiana University (1970-74) and Emory University (1974-79)

• Research Fellow in the Cardiac Research Laboratory at Harvard University, 1979

• Produced 5 major papers in 15 months; offered faculty position in 1981

• Colleagues became concerned about the accuracy of Darsee’s results

Dr. John Darsee• Investigation found that Darsee had been

altering dates on his laboratory workto make a few hours of work appear to be several weeks of data.

• Further scrutiny revealed Darsee hadpreviously used false data between 1966and 1970 at Notre Dame University.

• Harvard University retracted 30 papers and abstracts in February, 1983. Subsequently, Emory University retracted 52 papers and abstracts published between 1974 and 1979.

Dr. John Darsee

• Darsee later apologized in the New England Journal of Medicine citing career ambition and professional pressures as motivation.

• Darsee’s lab head drew criticism for lax supervision and for creating "a hurried pace and emphasis on productivity, coupled with limited interaction with senior scientists"

• Coauthors were criticized for their unfamiliarity with his work and their lack of awareness of the scientific misconduct.

Falsification

• Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.

Infamous Case

Robert A. Slutsky, M.D.• Radiology Resident and Associate Clinical

Professor of Radiology at the University of California at San Diego, 1986

• Published 161 articles in 6 years;over a period of two years, he was completing an article every 10 days

• Included the names of many co-authors to mislead journal editors and cover up for what was later found to be false output

Dr. Robert A. Slutsky

• Publications between 1975 to 1985 contained “statistical anomalies” and “duplicated data” that raised the question of falsified research records

• Faculty investigation of 137 of his publications found that 77 were valid, 48 were questionable, and 12 were fraudulent

Infamous Case

Jan Hendrik Schön• Bell Labs Researcher, 2002 • Performing groundbreaking electronics

research in superconductivity, molecular crystals, and molecular electronics. Apparently had constructed a transistor out of a single molecule … the “holy grail” for building super-powerful nano-computers.

• Producing one paper every 8 days andwas deemed to be on the ‘fast track’ toa Nobel Prize

Jan Hendrik Schön• An independent committee found Schön had

made up or altered data at least 16 times between 1998 and 2001; Bell Labs terminated his employment

• Schön "did this intentionally or recklesslyand without the knowledge of any of hisco-authors”

• New Scientist editors stated that collaborators should have been held accountable since only one of themactually witnessed any research

• Schön’s doctorate was revoked by hisalma mater in Germany

Plagiarism

• Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.

A Famous Case …Ward Churchill• Professor, Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado• Wrote an essay in 2002 about the September

11th terrorist attacks referring to World Trade Center workers as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Nazi Adolf Eichmann, the"architect of the Holocaust."

• Following public outcry, CU began probing his work and found multiple instances of plagiarized data and misrepresented historical facts.

• Investigations from 2005 to 2007 led CU to terminate Churchill in 2007 for academic misconduct. Churchill then sued the University for damages and reinstatement.

Ward Churchill• In April, 2009, a Denver jury ruled

Churchill was fired not because of the research misconduct, but in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment.

• Churchill was awarded $1 in damages and sought reinstatement in light of the verdict.

• In July, 2009, Denver District Court vacated the ruling and determined that CU did not have to rehire nor pay Churchill.

A Famous Case …

Martinson, et al., Nature 2005; 435:737• Surveyed 3,247 researchers in different

levels of career about whether or notthey had engaged in a specific activity orbehavior during the past 3 years

• Argued that to protect the integrity of science, we must look beyond falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, to a wider range of questionable research practices

• Suggestions for the potential developmentof policies to address “Research Misbehavior” have arisen

Titus, et al., Nature 2008; 453:980• Surveyed 4,298 researchers, 2,212 responded

(51%), primarily biomedical– 8.7% observed or had direct evidence of

misconduct over the previous 3 years• 60% fabrication or falsification• 36% plagiarism

– 37% of incidents were not reported– Rank of those suspected

• Professor or senior scientist: 22%• Associate professor 14%• Assistant professor 17%• Graduate student 14%

How Prevalent?Office of Research Integrity (ORI)• 2006: 111 institutions reported a total of

151 allegations of misconduct– 69 allegations of falsification– 53 of fabrication– 29 of plagiarism

• 2007: ORI opened 14 new cases, 39 remained open, 28 closed– ~33% of ORI cases find misconduct

• Most common actions– 2/3rds were debarred from federal funding for a

minimum of 3 years to lifetime

Finding ofResearch Misconduct

A finding of research misconduct requires:• there be a significant departure from

accepted practices of the relevant research community; and

• the misconduct be committedintentionally, knowingly, orrecklessly; and

• the allegation be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.

42 CFR 93.104

Clarifications• A finding of research misconduct requires

that the allegation is proven by a preponderance of evidence

• The definition of research misconduct does not include disputes over authorship or credit

• Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion

Why Exclude Authorship from the Definition of Research Misconduct?• “Publication Practices and Responsible Authorship” is another component of RCR

• It is subsequent to the research experiments,data and findings

• Authorship disputes are oftenlinked to other ethical problemsin research

• A variety of discipline-specificstandards exist for determiningappropriate authorship and credit

Authorship and Credit IssuesAdvancing Author’s Career vs. Advancing the Field

What implications exist for career advancement?• tenure & promotion?• contracts & grants?• status & prestige?Who should be an author?• People who have left the lab?• Technical staff?• PI with no involvement in the work?• Contributors on already published work?How should authors be listed?• First author, last author, co-first authors?• Should authors be required to specify who did what?• Patent percentage vs. authorship?When and Where should work be published?• Can you publish without the PI?• “Incomplete” work?• To which journal or journals?• Should practical issues influence decision?

(graduation, grant deadline, performance review)

Ethically QuestionablePublication Practices

• Gift Authorship:listing an individual as an author as a personal or professional favor, or for reciprocal coauthor arrangements

• Honorary Authorship:listing an individual as an author as a sign of respect or gratitude

• Prestige Authorship:listing an individual with a high degree of notoriety as an author to give the publication more visibility or impact

• Ghost Authorship:common in industry-sponsoredclinical trials, a ghostwriter is usedfor listed “authors” in order tovalidate the publication

Determining Authorship

• Larger research groups and multi-institution collaborations have complicated authorship criteria and publication records

• Many individuals are involved in various phases of the research process

• Multiple authorship has been accompanied by a steady rise in disputes over credit

• Academia and the private sectorvalue the quality and the quantityof publications differently

Failure to Grant Proper Authorship or Credit

• Quest for Priority:first to discover new phenomenon or to propose a new theory

• Patents and Intellectual Property Rights: co-inventors on a patent application or institutional invention royalties

• Increase Citation Exposure:limit number of authors to keep the names of one or two authors more visible

Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism and“Citation Amnesia”:

extreme examples of failing to grant proper acknowledgment may result in allegations and findings of research misconduct

Criteria for AuthorshipAuthors should generally meet all three of

the following conditions:1. “Significant Contribution” - planning,

conceptualization, or research design; providing, collecting or recording data; analyzing or interpreting data; or writing and editing the manuscript.

2. Accountability - prepared to defend and explain the publication, its results, and have read and reviewed the entire work.• Determine who can be held accountable for the whole

project and who is to be acknowledged for relevant contributions.

• The order of authors should reflect the importance of each individual’s role and should be listed according to the specific discipline’s standards.

3. Final Approval of the Published Version

Author ContributionCredit Specification

• (2009), “Finding the Missing Heritability of Complex Diseases”, Nature 461: 747.

• Acknowledgements: This paper is inspired by the deliberations of an expert working group convened by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) on 2–3 February 2009, to address the heritability unexplained in GWAS. The authors acknowledge the participation of J. C. Cohen, M. Daly and A. P. Feinberg in the workshop.

• Author Contributions: T.A.M., F.S.C., N.J.C., D.B.G., L.A.H., D.J.H., M.I.M. and E.M.R. planned and participated in the workshop; L.R.C., A.C., J.H.C., A.E.G., A.K., L.K., E.M., C.N.R., M.S., D.V., A.S.W., M.B., A.G.C., E.E.E., G.G., J.L.H., T.F.C.M., S.A.M. and P.M.V. participated in the workshop; T.A.M., P.M.V., G.G., M.I.M., E.E.E., T.F.C.M. and S.A.M. drafted the manuscript; F.S.C., N.J.C., D.B.G., L.A.H., D.J.H., E.M.R., L.R.C., A.C., J.H.C., A.P.R., A.E.G., A.K., L.K., E.M., C.N.R., M.S., D.V., A.S.W., M.B., A.G.C. and J.L.H. critically reviewed and revised the manuscript for content.

Why Authorship & Accountability?• Granting authorship absent of

accountability leads to ethically questionable authorship practices

• Responsibility for any errors, omissions or potential misconduct lies with all the authors

• Promotes justice and fairness in research:

- it is unfair to deny authorship to a worthy individual, and it is equally unfair to grant authorship to an individual who cannot be held accountable for the work

Types of Contributions• Defining problems• Proposing hypotheses• Summarizing background literature• Designing experiments• Developing the methodology• Collecting and recording data• Providing data, managing data, analyzing data• Interpreting results• Assisting in the technical aspects, assisting in

the logistical aspects, applying for a grant or funding

• Drafting, reviewing and editing manuscripts

Research Misconductand the History of Science

• The discipline of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), and its regulatory system,is a relatively new development.

• Examples of responsible and irresponsible conduct of research are prevalentthroughout the history of science.

• The definition of research misconducthas evolved over time as science,scientists and society has evolved.

• Some contemporary practices, presently identified as “research misbehaviors”, may eventually join fabrication, falsification and plagiarism in the formal definition.

Research Ethics Timeline (1932-Present)Adapted from David B. Resnik, J.D., Ph.D.

1865Claude Bernard, Physician, publishes “The principle of medical and surgical morality consists in never performing on man an experiment which might be harmful to him to any extent, even though the result might be highly advantageous to science, i.e.,the health of others.”

1932-1972 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health. Studied the effects of untreated syphilis in 400 African American men. Researchers withheld treatment even when penicillin became widely available. Researchers did not tell the subjects that they were in an experiment. Most subjects who attended the Tuskegee clinic thought they were getting treatment for "bad blood."

1939-45 German scientists conduct research on concentration camp prisoners.

1947 The Nuremberg Code for research on human subjects is adopted. The Allies use the document in the Nuremberg Trials to convict Nazi scientists of war crimes.

1966 Henry Beecher publishes an article in N. Engl. J. Med. exposing 22 unethical studies in biomedicine, including the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Willowbrook hepatitis study.

1974 Congress passes the National Research Act, which authorizes federal agencies to develop human research regulations, e.g. 45 CFR 46, 21 CFR 50,54,56.

1974 William Summerlin admits to fabricating data by using a marker to make black spots on white mice at Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute. He was developing a technique for transplanting skin grafts.

1979 The National Commission releases The Belmont Report, principles of ethical research on human subjects. The Report becomes a key document in human research ethics regulations in the U.S.

1980 Congress passes the Bayh-Dole Act, which allows researchers to patent inventions developed with government funds; the Act is amended by the Technology Transfer Act in 1986.

1981 John Darsee, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, is accused of fabricating data.

1986 Robert Slutsky, a Radiology Resident and Associate Clinical Professor of Radiology at the University of California at San Diego, is accused of falsifying dozens of research records collected over a ten year period.

1989 The PHS forms two agencies, the Office of Scientific Integrity and the Office of Scientific Integrity Review to investigate scientific misconduct and provide information and support for universities. It also amends its definition of misconduct. The two agencies are reorganized in 1992 as the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

1989 The NIH requires that all graduate students on training grants receive education in responsible conduct of research.

1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann hold a press conference at the University of Utah to announce that they have discovered a way to produce nuclear fusion at room temperatures. Dozens of labs across the world fail to reproduce their results. They are accused of fraud, sloppiness, and self-deception.

1989 The NAS publishes On Being A Scientist (revised in 1994), which is a free, short book on research ethics for scientists intraining.

1992 NAS publishes Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process. The book estimates the incidence of misconduct, discusses some of the causes of misconduct, proposes a definition of misconduct, and recommends some strategies for preventing misconduct.

1993 Fertility researchers successfully clone human embryos.

1994 The Clinton Administration declassifies information about secrethuman radiation experiments conducted from the 1940s-1980s and issues an apology.

1995-2003 Dozens of studies are published in biomedical journals which provide data on the relationship between the source of research funding and the outcomes of research studies, the financial interests of researchers in the biomedical sciences, and the close relationship between academic researchers and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

1995 The NIH and NSF revise their conflict of interest policies.

1996 Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, is born; her birth is announced in 1997. Several European nations ban human cloning. Congress considers a bill to ban all human cloning but changes its mind after scientists argue that the bill would undermine biomedical research.

1998 Scientists perfect methods for growing human embryonic stem cells. Some countries ban the research; others promote it.

1999 Jessie Gelsinger dies in a human gene therapy experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. The event triggers heightened scrutiny of conflicts of interest in human subjects research, including institutional conflicts of interest. Penn settles with the Gelsinger family for an undisclosed amount of money.

1999 The NIH and the OHRP require all people conducting or overseeing human subjects research have some training in research ethics.

2000 The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) finalizesa federal definition of misconduct as "fabrication, falsification or plagiarism“, but not "error honest error or differences.The policy is still not effective.

2002 The NAS publishes Integrity in Scientific Research, which recommends that universities develop programs for education in responsible conduct of research (RCR) as well as policies and procedures to deal with research ethics.

2004 The NIH and other agencies adopt the OSTP misconduct definition.

2005 University of Vermont researcher Eric Poehlman admits to fabricating or falsifying data in 15 federal grants and 17 publications.

2009 The Obama Administration announces it will significantly expand NIH funding of human embryonic stem cell research which had been restricted under the Bush Administration.

The Case of Ernst Haeckel

• Ernst Haeckel(1834-1919)

• Biogenetic Law: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

• Naturlische Schopfungsgeschichte (1868)

Haeckel collected embryological data on the similarities and differences between embryos across the animal kingdom to

explore the evolutionary common descent among them.

The Case of Ernst Haeckel

• Ernst Haeckel(1834-1919)

• Biogenetic Law: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

• Anthropogenie (1874)

Haeckel’s illustrations showed "very early", "somewhat later" and "still later" stages of embryos off fish (F), salamanders (A), turtles (T), chicks (H), pigs (S), cows (R), rabbits (K), and humans (M).

The Case of Ernst Haeckel• Anthropogenie significantly

contributed to the continuing controversy between Darwinism and Creationism.

• Expert anatomists politically opposed to Haeckel’s views joined church officials in attacking the illustrations.

• Critics claimed Haeckel’s observations had revealed more differences than expected, and that Haeckel had decided to alter the images of the embryos in the sketched drawings of his observations.

The Controversy:• Fraud was charged against Haeckel alleging he faked his

images by removing limbs from several embryo species to exaggerate the similarities and minimize the differences between related organisms.

(Karl von Baer, Wilhelm His, Ludwig Rutimeyer,Theodor Bischoff)

• The removal of limbs was selective in that it was doneonly to particular developmental stages.

• In the 1900s, Haeckel admitted he had retouched the images “without intent to defraud but for the mere purpose of making the truth more tangible.”

Implications in the Modern Era:• Richardson et al. (1997): “Our survey seriously undermines

the credibility of Haeckel’s drawings…”• Calls for removing these images from textbooks, such as

Molecular Biology of the Cell (Stephen Jay Gould)• Creationists alleged all of evolutionary theory is suspect:

“The more frauds have been exposed and the more genuine scientific evidence produced, the more the collapse of Darwinism has become ever more apparent.” (Harun Yahya)

The Case of Ernst Haeckel

Published: November 27, 1910

Copyright © The New York Times

ORI Experience

Image Data Fabrication found by South Korean Scientists

Published in Reproduction in 2004 Published in Molecules and Cells in 2005

Miz-hES6Miz-hES4

Miz-hES1

Miz-hES1

Woo Suk Hwang, …, Sun Jong Kim, et. al. 2005.Science, supplementary data Figure 2

Image Data Fabrication

Seon Hye Cheon, Sun Jong Kim, et. al. 2005.Biology of Reproduction, Figure 4. A

What should Haeckel ideally have done to eliminate any controversy?

The Case ofRobert Millikan

• Robert Millikan (1868-1953)• 1900-1913: Oil-drop

experiment to determinethe charge of an electron

• Result: 1923 Nobel Prize• But: Data Selection!

Only 58 of 140 data points were used.(ref: Gerald Horton, 1937-39)

• Data falsification or controlling forexperimental error?

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• This work on a very slow drop was done to see whether there were appreciable convection currents. The results indicate that there were. Must look more carefully henceforth to tem[perature] of room. (12/19/1911)

• Conditions today were particularly good and results should be more than usually reliable. We kept tem very constant with fan, a precaution not heretofore taken in room 12 but found yesterday to be quite essential (12/20/1911)

• Possibly a double drop (01/26/1912)• This seems to show clearly that the [electric] field is not exactly

uniform, being stronger at the ends than in the middle (01/27/1912)

• This is good for so little a one but on these very small ones I must avoid convection still better (02/09/1912)

• This drop flickered as tho unsymmetrical (03/02/12)• This is OK but volts are a little uncertain and tem also bad. It

comes close to lower line. (03/07/1912)

From Millikan’s Lab Notes: (Experimental Set-up and Corrupting Influences?)

• This is almost exactly right & the best oneI ever had!!! (12/20/1911)

• Exactly right (02/03/1912)• Publish this Beautiful one (02/24/1912)• Publish this surely / Beautiful !! (03/15/1912)• Error high will not use (03/15/1912)• Perfect Publish (04/11/1912)• Won't work (04/16/1912)• Too high by 1½% (04/16/1912)

From Millikan’s Lab Notes: (Judgment and Scientific Integrity?)

Sometimes “the boundary between falsification and creative insight might not be obvious”.

Those scientists and other scholars who have carefully reviewed this case have failed to agree on whether Millikan was guilty of unethical behavior or "bad science" in the treatment and presentation of his data. One of the expressed opinions condemns Millikan on the simple basis of the fact that his published statement is at odds with what can be concluded from an uncritical examination of his laboratory notebooks. Others exonerate Millikan on the basis of a careful analysis and interpretation of comments on the data that appear in the notebooks. In the opinion of these Millikan defenders, the assertion that all drops were presented in the paper refers to all of the data taken under those conditions when the apparatus was working properly. Some of the scientists who have commented on this case appear to permit Millikan much discretion in the use of his "scientific intuition" to decide which data to include or exclude. This latter view seems to be guided by the principle that any scientist who consistently gets what turns out to be the correct answer is doing "good" science.

1992 Report of the National Academies of Science

The Case of Cyril Burt

• 1909: showed upper-class children in private preparatory schools did better in IQ tests than those in public elementary schools, and that the difference was innate

• 1913: established that girls were equal to boysin general intelligence

• 1931: named Professor and Chair of Psychologyat University College, London

• 1942: elected President of the British Psychological Society; later becamethe first psychologist ever to be knighted

• 1946: suggested the formationof an organization for peoplewith high IQ scores

• 1960: was made honorary presidentof Mensa; officially joined as amember soon thereafter

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Sir Cyril L. Burt(1883-1971)Educational

Psychologist and Statistician

Developed IQ testing and statistical methodsfor the genetic analysis of intelligence

The Case of Cyril Burt• Burt studied sets of identical twins raised

apart, concluding heredity plays a greater role in intellectual ability than environment

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• Correlation coefficients of twins' IQ scoresremained constant (0.771) despite new data added in later studies (1943: n=15; 1955: n=21; and 1966: n=53)

• After his death in 1971, it was discovered that all notes and records had been burnt; subsequent investigations accused him of falsifying research data (Kamin, 1974)

• Many sets of identical twins and at least two supposed research collaborators never existed (Gillie, 1976)

• Leslie Hearnshaw, a close friend and Burt’s official biographer, examined the criticisms and concluded most of Burt's data after World War II were not basedon experiments but rather on estimates of home background and intelligence made at a distance (1979)

• William H. Tucker (1997) compared Burt’s twin samples with data from other well documented studies and argued there was little doubt Burt committed fraud

• However, Joynson (1988) and Fletcher(1991) argued Burt used pseudonymswhen publishing and that at least oneallegedly fictious co-worker, a Dr. Margaret Howard, had existed, though she never came forward

• Rushton (1997) reported Burt’s correlations were actually in line with those found in five different studies on twins by independent researchers (0.75 vs. 0.771)

• Jensen (2002) argued that "[n]o one with any statistical sophistication, and Burt had plenty,would report exactly the samecorrelation…three times in successionif he were trying to fake the data.”

• Critics maintain numerous researchershave been unsuccessful in replicating orverifying Burt’s data. Supporters claimdiscrepancies have been exaggeratedand mostly caused by negligencerather than deliberate data falsification.

59The Case of Cyril Burt

What should Burt ideally have done to eliminate any controversy?

The Case of Harvey FletcherHarvey Fletcher (1884 - 1981)

• Born in Provo, Utah,a son of Mormon pioneers

• BYU graduate (1904) and professor

• Invented the hearing aid;“the father of stereophonic sound”

Ph.D.: University of Chicago• Studied under Robert Millikan• Fletcher suggested using oil rather

than water for the drop experiment• Fletcher first showed that the

oil-drop system worked• Fletcher worked with Millikan

throughout the crucial experimental years (1909-1911)

• Fletcher, Harvey. “My Work with Millikan on the Oil-Drop Experiment”, Physics Today, June 1982: 43-47.

• “Answering a knock, I went to the door and was surprised to see Millikan. I wondered why he had come to our humble apartment. I soon found it was to decide who was to be the author of the paper referred to above. There were four other papers in the formative stage that were coming out of these oil-drop experiments and I had expected they would all be joint papers. He said that if I used a published paper for my doctor’s thesis that I must be its sole author. … It was obvious that he wanted to be the sole author on the first paper. I did not like this, but I could see no other way out, so I agreed to use the fifth paper as my thesis.”

The Case of Harvey Fletcher

• Fletcher, Harvey. “My Work with Millikan on the Oil-Drop Experiment”, Physics Today, June 1982: 43-47.

• “People have frequently asked me if I had bad feelings toward Millikan for not letting me be a joint author with him on this first paper, which really led to his getting the Nobel Prize. My answer has always been no. It is obvious that I was disappointed as I had done considerable work on it, and had expected to be a joint author. But Millikan was very good to me while I was at Chicago. It was through his influence that I got into the graduate school. He also found remunerative jobs for me to defray all my personal and school expenses for the last two years. Above this was the friendship created by working intimately together for more than two years. This lasted throughout our lifetime.”

The Case of Harvey Fletcher

The Discovery of DNAJames D. Watson & Francis Crick

• 1953: proposed the double helix, or spiral staircase, structure of the DNS molecule

Maurice Wilkins• Physicist and Molecular Biologist whose

lab studied optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction; led to the development of radar

Rosalind Franklin• Biophysicist and Chemist working in

Wilkins lab• Recorded a photograph of a DNA

molecule which Wilkins showed to Watson and Crick without her knowledge or permission.

• This image led Watson and Crick to construct the double helix model.

Result: 1962 Nobel Prize forWatson, Crick and Wilkins

Research Ethics Timeline (1932-Present)Adapted from David B. Resnik, J.D., Ph.D.

1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discover the structure of DNA, for which they eventually would share the Nobel Prize in 1962. They secretly obtained key x-ray diffraction data from Rosalind Franklin without her permission. She was not awarded a Nobel Prize because she died in 1953 from ovarian cancer (at age 37), and the prize is not awarded posthumously.

What should Watson and Crick ideally have done to eliminate any controversy?

History of Cold Fusion• 1927: Swedish scientist J. Tandberg claims to have

fused hydrogen into helium resulting in useful reaction energy; patent denied when physical processes could not be explained

• 1957: American physicist Luis W. Alvarez researching muon-catalyzed fusion, coins the phrase “cold fusion” as a process allowing nuclear fusion to occur at temperatures significantly lower than thermonuclear fusion; won Nobel Prize in 1968

• 1978: Fleischmann serves as Pons’ doctoral advisor at the University of Southampton, UK

• 1983: Pons and Fleischmann create excess heat production in experiments performed at room temperature; continue research using a small device built with $100,000 out-of-pocket expenses

• 1986: E. Paul Palmer, BYU geophysicist , investigates possible “geo-fusion” in planetary cores

• 1987: Steven E. Jones, BYU physicist measuring neutron flux, publishes “Cold Nuclear Fusion” in SciAm

• 1988: Pons and Fleischmann apply for Department of Energy grant; work is peer reviewed by Jones and BYU co-workers. Pons and Fleischmann claim discovery could bear significant commercial value and be entitled to patent protection; Jones’ work had no commercial potential. The teams agree to simultaneously and separately publish their results.

67

In 1989, Stanley Pons was Chair, Department of Chemistry, at the University of Utah;

Martin Fleischmann was an Honorary Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK

Cold Fusion: 1989• Pons and Fleischmann, pressured by

University of Utah officials to establishpriority of discovery and to protectpending patent claims, brake their agreement with Jones and publish in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry

• University President Chase Petersen, Pons and Fleischmann announce the “new clean energy source”at a hastily scheduled press conference on March 23rd

• Jones submits to Nature after the press conference

68

Full Press Conference: <embed id=VideoPlayback src=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5820042344911746802&hl=en&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash> </embed>CBS Coverage of Cold Fusion Announcement:<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/s83NzS93wXY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>KUTV2 Evening News Segment on Cold Fusion Publications (May 9, 1994):<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LCFVuVwwxCQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

• Several laboratories in several countries failed to duplicate the results. Critics cited cold fusion was not likely to occur, many sources of experimental error existed, and nuclear reaction byproducts were not found.

• The American Physical Society concluded the Utah report was a result of “the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann”, and an episode of pathological science

• Nature, Science, Physical Review Lettersand Physical Review C (nuclear physics) published papers critical of cold fusion claims

• The Department of Energy concludedresults did not present convincing evidence; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now rejects patents claiming “cold fusion”

• Research termed “Low Energy NuclearReaction (LENR)”, and “Chemically AssistedNuclear Reaction (CANR)”, continues today

69Cold Fusion Controversy

What should Pons and Fleischmann ideally have done to eliminate any controversy?

Take Home Points• The discipline of Responsible

Conduct of Research (RCR),and the regulation of ResearchMisconduct, continues to evolve.

• Examples of both responsible and irresponsible conduct of research remain prevalent throughout science.

• If you ever find yourself in a situation involving a questionable research practice, there are many resources available to help you think through the issue: • Your mentor(s)• Peers in your department• Professional colleagues at other institutions• Regulatory personnel, committees or agencies

• Institutional Review Board• Conflict of Interest Committee• Research Compliance Office• The Office of Research Integrity (ORI)

AcknowledgementPresentation content includes class materials

provided by several instructors in theResearch Administration Training Series (RATS)

at The University of Utah.Complete class descriptions and instructor

information is available at www.education.research.utah.edu .

Additional ResourcesUniversity of Utah Policy

http://www.admin.utah.edu/ppmanual/6/6-1-1.htmlFederal PHS Policy

http://ori.dhhs.gov/documents/FR_Doc_05-9643.shtmlFederal Office of Research Integrity

http://ori.dhhs.gov/

References• Shamoo, A. E., and Resnick, D. E., Responsible

Conduct of Research, Oxford University Press, 2009.• Jeffrey R. Botkin, M.D., MPH

Associate Vice President for Research, IntegrityThe University of Utah

• Gary C. Schoenwolf, Ph.D.Distinguished Professor, Neurobiology and AnatomyAdjunct Professor, PediatricsThe University of Utah

• James Tabery, Ph.D., MAAssistant Professor, Department of Philosophy & Division of Medical Ethics and HumanitiesThe University of Utah

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/• http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&q=cl&tab=vi• http://www.youtube.com/• http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/tim

eline.cfm