October 18, 2002

Charges of Laboratory Theft Vex the Research World

By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET

The reports smacked of a summer supermarket thriller. First, in June, two postdoctoral researchers from Asia were accused of creeping away from their Harvard University laboratory in the dark of night in December 1999, sneaking samples away for financial gain, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Then, in July, according to federal law-enforcement authorities, security officials at Hancock International Airport, in Syracuse, N.Y., found more than 100 vials, test tubes, and

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