MIT professor is fired over fabricated data
By Gareth Cook and Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | October 28, 2005
MIT has fired an associate professor of biology for fabricating data in a published scientific paper, in unpublished manuscripts, and in grant applications, the university announced yesterday.
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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Luk Van Parijs, 35, who was considered a rising star in the field of immunology research, admitted to the wrongdoing, said Alice Gast, associate provost and vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His employment was terminated on Wednesday, she said in an interview.
The university said the work in question was done after Van Parijs started at MIT in 2000, but the school refused to identify the paper that contained the fabricated data, citing ongoing work being done to correct the scientific record. However, a scientific journal published an erratum in May 2005, stating that the authors of a 2004 journal article, of which Van Parijs was the senior author, were unable to document an impressive claim involving the genetic modification of mice.
The investigation of Van Parijs's work is now expanding to where he worked before MIT, with the California Institute of Technology looking into research he did and Brigham and Women's Hospital weighing how to respond. The MIT investigation, which lasted 14 months, determined that none of his coauthors was guilty of any misconduct, Gast said.
In an e-mail sent to the Globe last night from his MIT account, Van Parijs said, ''I was shocked at the timing and manner in which MIT made the announcement since I had cooperated with the investigation to the fullest of my capabilities."
Cases in which professors are terminated for research fraud are very infrequent, said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education, who estimated that only a handful come along in a decade.
The revelations are a serious blow to MIT, which prides itself on its reputation as a scientific powerhouse. The announcement also serves to answer the rumors that have been swirling on the campus since Van Parijs vanished from the campus more than a year ago and had his lab disbanded without any comment from the university. Until then, his career had been highly promising, including being hired as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of famed Nobel laureate David Baltimore.
''He was a very personally attractive, excited, and thoughtful guy who cared about a wide range of science," Baltimore, now president of the California Institute of Technology, said in an interview yesterday. ''When I first heard there was a question about his work, it came as a very great surprise to me."
The investigation began in August 2004, when a group of researchers in Van Parijs's laboratory brought their concerns to university administrators. MIT said Van Parijs quickly admitted fabricating data, as well as falsifying data, which means changing it in a misleading way. The confidential investigation was conducted by MIT scientists whom Gast declined to name. Van Parijs was placed on paid administrative leave in September 2004, and did not have access to his lab, she said.