A three-year investigation into a University of Connecticut biology laboratory has found its chief guilty of falsifying and fabricating data on more than two dozen papers and grant applications.

Dipak Das, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) in Farmington, and his lab studied the beneficial health effects of wine (including one component resveratrol, which has been linked to life extension and other health benefits) and other foods, as well as cardiology.

A 60,000-page report issued yesterday (you can read a 49-page summary here) by UCHC found Das guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data, involving at least 23 papers and 3 grant applications. The alleged misconduct involved manipulating the presentation of experiments called western blots, which assess the presence and amounts of specific proteins. The report documents dozens of instances in published papers where protein bands from separate experiments were spliced and pasted together to suggest that they had been measured in the same experiment.

The UCHC investigation began after the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) notified the university, in November 2008, of a complaint involving a paper published by Das's laboratory. UCHC began its investigation in January 2009. The ORI is conducting its own investigation, according to a University of Connecticut press release.

UCHC has frozen externally funded research in Das's lab, and it turned away US$890,000 in federal grants while the investigation was underway. The university has also begun proceedings to fire Das.

The report focuses on Das's role in the alleged misconduct, but the university is also looking into the roles of graduate students and other former members of the laboratory. The report notes that two doctoral theses from former graduate students contain "anomalies" and "problematic images". The report notes that during the investigation, members of Das's lab said that there was nothing wrong with digitally manipulating western-blot images. The report cites e-mail exchanges between Das and lab members documenting data manipulation, and in one e-mail to Das, a student in the lab wrote: "I have changed the figures as you told me."

But the report also notes that only certain members of Das's lab conducted biochemical work and data analysis, while others performed different tasks. "This type of compartmentalization of research effort increases the opportunity that research misconduct might not be detected by other authors and could potentially lead to blame falling, unfairly, on other authors."

In a June 2010 letter included as evidence in the report (and posted by the Chronicle of Higher Education), Das denied that he modified the western-blot images and accused the university of racial discrimination. He also complained that stress caused by the investigation had caused him to suffer a stroke.

Das has not yet responded to an e-mail from Nature, but Retraction Watch posted a bizarre press release this morning that the blog says it received on Das's behalf. The release denies the allegations of data manipulation and again suggests that the investigation is racially motivated. The release goes on to say that the unnamed informant who turned Das in was a "troublemaker" who worked in the laboratory. The statement claims that the informant attempted to pour wine down the throat of another worker in the laboratory in an effort to get the worker to disparage Das.

4 Comments

1. 1. srademaker 05:01 PM 1/12/12

   "A 60,000-page report" summed up in 49 pages? What???????????????????????????????????????????????????

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2. 2. Obarryon 07:33 PM 1/13/12

   I absolutely hate it when people make spurious claims of racism as a way to try to discredit those who caught them up to no good. Not only is it dishonest, it harms other people who may have a genuine claim of racism, and that claim is then lumped in with all the nonsense claims.
   
   If you are caught in an unethical or criminal act, the fact that you are caught is in no way racist. It is incredibly disingenuous and cynical to say that it is.

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3. 3. bucketofsquid 10:36 AM 1/17/12

   Mr. Das sounds like he is insane. My only real question is what impact this has on the validity of claims that Resveratrol fights heart disease?

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4. 4. Laird Wilcox 04:09 AM 1/18/12

   I wonder if the explanation may be a simple human desire to be the bearer of good news. I read a lot of science material on the web and I'm constantly seeing items about new discoveries that represent some kind of hope or prospect for something better. Thanks to scientists, the world is getting better and study after study proves this.
   
   Writing a good news article can please your friends and associates, increase your popularity, establish your identity as a "good news" kind of person, make the world seem a brighter place and probably help your career along. For example, all of the health benefits attributed to chocolate make it sound like a miracle nutrient of some kind, and most of us like chocolate. Ive wondered if all of these findings were entirely reliable for the same reason.
   
   On the other hand, if you wrote an article saying that some popular food resulted in a .001% increase in toe cancer, might make you smell funny or contributed to world stupidity this would be a downer, especially to people who liked it. They would worry about their toes, buy more deodorant and feel even guiltier about stupid people in the world. Who needs bad news?
   
   Something done for social approval, or which has social approval as a predictable consequence, always adds a motive to fudge facts or omit conflicting information and otherwise influence the way people deal with it. Look at the effect this had in the AGW issue. Say the right thing and you were a good guy, but say the wrong thing and you were one of those denialists. This silenced a lot of skeptics. Stephen Jay Goulds misrepresentation of Samuel Mortons research on race created an opportunity for him to strike a blow for anti-racism and please his friends. Social causes may provide a very strong motive to fudge a lot of research. This probably happens more than we might ever suspect.
   
   I suspect this guy isn't a tool for international wine cartels at all. He was probably just looking for a positive aspect of a popular beverage to make himself and his friends feel better about consuming it.
   

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