The National Institutes of Health has halted a $9.3-million five-year research project at Emory University, pending an investigation into potential conflicts of interest by the project’s former leader, according to Ron Sauder, vice president for communications and marketing at Emory.

The university had received funds for the first two years of the project, a study on depression, but the NIH this summer froze the rest of the money for the study. People involved in the project told The Chronicle that the study stopped recruiting new patients in August, although individuals already enrolled are continuing to be seen.

The university is investigating allegations concerning Charles B. Nemeroff, a professor of psychiatry and the former principal investigator of the depression project. Investigators with the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance have disclosed that Dr. Nemeroff received substantial sums, about $2-million, from pharmaceutical companies for speeches and consulting work without disclosing those payments to his university, as is required by university and federal policies.

Last month Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s top Republican, sent a letter to Emory’s president inquiring about Dr. Nemeroff’s earnings from drug companies and whether they had been properly disclosed. Within days of the letter, Emory announced that Dr. Nemeroff had stepped down as chairman of the psychiatry department, pending an investigation.

Mr. Sauder, the Emory official, said that Dr. Nemeroff was cooperating with the university investigation. Dr. Nemeroff released a statement saying, “To the best of my knowledge, I have followed the appropriate university regulations concerning financial disclosures.” —Richard Monastersky