Research

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3 NYU Researchers Are Accused of Secretly Sharing Information With China

Three medical researchers at New York University have been charged with commercial bribery for allegedly trading information about their magnetic-resonance-imaging research for payments from a Chinese company, according to The Wall Street Journal and a news release by federal prosecutors.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said in the news release that two of the researchers, Yudong Zhu and Xing Yang, were arrested on Sunday. The third, Ye Li, was believed to have flown to China before charges could be brought. All three were charged with one count of commercial bribery. Mr. Zhu, an associate professor of radiology, was also charged with falsifying records in connection with a National Institutes of Health grant that financed the research. The three were accused of concealing ties to a Chinese medical-imaging company and a research institute sponsored by the Chinese government.

A spokesman for NYU’s Langone Medical Center said the institution was “deeply disappointed” by the researchers’ alleged misconduct. He said the university became aware of possible irregularities in the research, and notified prosecutors after conducting its own investigation. He said the three researchers had been suspended and added that the university was continuing to cooperate with the investigation.

Lawyers for Mr. Zhu and Mr. Yang did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.

Filed under: Legal, Research, New York University

Political-Science Group Hires Lobbyists to Push Back on Limits to NSF Spending

The American Political Science Association has hired lobbyists who will seek to eliminate restrictions on the National Science Foundation’s spending on political-science research, Politico reported.

The limits were included as an amendment to a spending bill passed by Congress in March and later signed into law by President Obama.

The measure, which drew harsh criticism from the American Association of University Professors, restricts the NSF’s ability to approve grants for political-science research unless the agency can certify that the work promotes the United States’ national security or economic interests.

Filed under: Government, Research

Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto in Seed-Patent Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided unanimously with the Monsanto Company in affirming that an Indiana farmer had violated the agribusiness giant’s patents by planting successive generations of the company’s genetically modified soybean seeds without paying the company a fee, according to The New York Times.

A federal judge in Indiana had ordered the farmer to pay Monsanto more than $84,000, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld that ruling, in 2011. Advocates for academic researchers urged the Supreme Court to reverse the decision, saying it would harm scientists’ ability to perform independent research on crops.

Some research universities and higher-education groups filed a brief, however, warning that if the Supreme Court overturned the patent-infringement ruling, companies would have fewer incentives to license self-replicating technologies from universities.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, stressed that the justices intended their decision to be narrow, addressing the specific case before them “rather than every one involving a self-replicating product.” The ruling made no mention of the objections of those who argued that Monsanto’s policies hampered academic research.

Filed under: Legal, Research

2 Neuroscientists Lead Faculty Exodus From UCLA to U. of Southern California

The University of Southern California has hired two prominent neuroscientists from the University of California at Los Angeles, leading to an exodus of faculty and staff members from a UCLA laboratory to USC, which plans to expand the lab by establishing a new brain-research institute, the Los Angeles Times reported.

USC announced the hires on Friday, saying that the two UCLA researchers, Arthur W. Toga and Paul Thompson, would lead 110 faculty members, researchers, and others to join the institution from UCLA.

The two researchers told the Times that USC had been pursuing them for years, with offers of additional resources and better facilities. Scientists called the move a boon for USC, which has recently hired professors away from other prominent institutions.

In a statement cited by the newspaper, Gene D. Block, UCLA’s chancellor, expressed disappointment at the move but said that the departure of the lab would not diminish UCLA’s impact in neuroscience.

Filed under: Research, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Southern California

White House Rolls Out New Rules to Open Up Government Data

The White House on Thursday introduced new rules that seek to make government data more open and accessible to researchers and the public, through an executive order signed by President Obama and an open-data policy released by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The president’s executive order says that the default state of government data must be open and machine readable, and that agencies must protect “privacy, confidentiality, and national security” when releasing information in such open formats.

In announcing the new rules, the White House also pledged to improve Data.gov, a central repository that houses government data, and to use open-source tools to make information more accessible. The White House’s move comes about three months after it announced a new policy seeking to improve access to federally financed research.

Filed under: Government, Research

UCLA Chemistry Professor Is Ordered to Stand Trial Over Fatal Lab Fire

Patrick G. Harran, a chemistry professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been ordered to stand trial on felony charges stemming from a 2008 laboratory fire that killed a 23-year-old research assistant, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The researcher, Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji, suffered severe burns when she was accidentally splashed with a chemical compound that ignites when exposed to air. She died 18 days later.

The University of California, which had also faced charges in connection with Ms. Sangji’s death, reached a settlement with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office last summer to resolve those charges. The institution has pledged to support Mr. Harran’s defense. If he is convicted, he faces up to four and a half years in prison. His case is believed to be the first such prosecution over an incident in an academic-lab setting in the United States.

Mr. Harran’s lawyer said after a hearing on Friday that he expected his client to be vindicated, according to the newspaper. He called Ms. Sangji’s death “a tragic accident.”

Filed under: Research, University of California at Los Angeles

Former Researcher at UC-Irvine Faces Felony Charges of Conflict of Interest

A computer engineer who stepped down in January from the University of California at Irvine faculty has been charged with six felony counts in connection with his alleged receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Japanese company that financed his research, according to the Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative news agency focusing on Orange County, Calif.

The researcher, Tatsuya Suda, an Irvine faculty member for 25 years, also has been charged with perjury for his alleged attempts to hide the payments, which amounted to $325,000 to $700,000. According to local prosecutors, Mr. Suda double-billed the university for travel expenses that had already been covered by the Japanese company, KDDI Inc. If convicted of the conflict of interest, Mr. Suda could face up to eight years in prison, the news service reported.

Mr. Suda pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, the news service said, and his lawyer did not respond to an interview request.

Following an internal investigation by the university that began in 2009, Mr. Suda paid restitution of $145,000, but Irvine is seeking nearly $200,000 more, prosecutors told the Voice of OC.

Court records indicate that Mr. Suda acknowledged double-billing the National Science Foundation, where he served in the late 1990s, while on leave from Irvine, as director of a computer-networking division.

Filed under: Legal, Research

U.S. Presidents Dedicate George W. Bush Library at Southern Methodist U.

President Obama joined the four living former United States presidents in Dallas on Thursday to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University.

The center is home to a presidential library and museum, as well as an institute bearing Mr. Bush’s name. Its establishment at Southern Methodist was the subject of much negotiation and debate, as some faculty members were concerned that the institute would be too partisan. But Mr. Bush has asserted that the institute would be nonpartisan, and the think tank lists education reform, economic growth, global health, and freedom among its chief interests.

In his remarks at the ceremony, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Bush for the resolve he showed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and credited him with restarting an “important conversation” about immigration reform.

Filed under: Government, Research, Southern Methodist University

Harvard Will Close Beleaguered Primate-Research Facility

The Harvard University primate-research center that came under intense scrutiny after four monkeys died because of animal-care problems will be largely shut down by 2015, The Boston Globe reported.

The New England Primate Research Center, a Harvard Medical School facility, pledged reforms after the monkey deaths, which prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to cite the center for animal-welfare violations.

The announcement surprised researchers, according to the newspaper, because the facility had been working to correct problems that had led to the monkey deaths.

Medical-school officials told the newspaper that the decision not to reapply for a federal grant that provides support for the institution had been prompted by economic challenges, and not by the facility’s troubled history.

“Difficult choices must be made at a time when all of the revenue sources upon which a research university depends are under pressure and the future of federal support for scientific inquiry seems uncertain,” said Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s provost, in a statement cited by the newspaper.

Filed under: Research

Scholarly Group Votes to Support a Boycott of Israeli Institutions

Members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted this weekend to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, making the group the first U.S.-based scholarly association to support such a measure, according to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.

The resolution says the boycott is “in protest of the illegal occupation of Palestine, the infringements of the right to education of Palestinian students, and the academic freedom of Palestinian scholars and students in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.”

It goes on to say that “Israeli academic institutions are deeply complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and human rights and in its denial of the right to education and academic freedom to Palestinians, in addition to their basic rights as guaranteed by international law.”

Filed under: Global, Research