An associate professor of medicine at Duke University falsely claimed to be a Rhodes scholar when applying for grant money, reports The Cancer Letter. Anil Potti, a cancer-genomics researcher, listed a Rhodes scholarship in Australia in his application for funds from the American Cancer Society. The society awarded him $729,000 for research. However, officials of the Rhodes Trust, which manages the prestigious scholarship program, state that they have no record of Dr. Potti’s receiving a scholarship. The scholarships may be used for study only at the University of Oxford, making Dr. Potti’s claim of being a Rhodes scholar in Australia impossible. In an e-mail to The Cancer Letter, Mr. Potti stated that he had been a nominee for the award.
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9 Responses to Duke U. Researcher Falsely Claimed to Be Rhodes Scholar, Report Says
washingtonwarrior - July 16, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Somebody needs to go back to school and study a little geography…
lsalin - July 16, 2010 at 3:55 pm
My university is danger of losing its geography program. Perhaps Dr. Potti and some of his colleague would like to major in geography here and help save our program. How could he confuse Australia with England?
11294136 - July 16, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Yeah, that’s what happens when science students don’t take other liberal arts courses. . .
bstevens - July 16, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Wouldn’t anyone who is qualified to read a grant application know that Rhodes Scholarships are only at Oxford in England???
ksledge - July 16, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Idiot. If he had gotten that far in the Rhodes process you’d think he’d remember that it’s a scholarship for England and would not lie about it on his c.v. And if he was just a nominee from his school, it’s really not worth mentioning on his c.v. after so much time has passed. (I’d say that’s worth mentioning in applying for grad school, but once you’re a professor you should cull your c.v. to make room for more recent and/or more prominent achievements.)
whitecld - July 16, 2010 at 7:59 pm
It is in fact much worse than just faking a prize that he did not win.Anil Potti is not only known for faking a Rhodes Scholar, but also known for as serious errors in his cancer research conducted in human cancer patients. As reported by Keith Baggerly and Kevin Coombes from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Anil Potti mislabeled his data on real human cancer patients. These investigation reports were published in the November 2009 issue of the Annals of Applied Statistics. Baggerly and Coombes argued that these trials “may be putting patients at risk.”
snakecharmer - July 16, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Click through to the full story: http://cancerletter.com/tcl-blog/copy148_of_whats-going-on-with-nihIt's pretty amazing.First of all, it’s completely ridiculous to call yourself a Rhodes Scholar (Australia) or Rhodes Scholar (Australia Board) when you were just a nominee. Second, he couldn’t have been a nominee as he claims. The article says that University of North Dakota records show he was in India doing a residency during the time he says he was doing the Rhodes in Australia. (And any nominee would know he was supposed to go to England as pointed out above.) The guy he claims was his mentor in Australia says this Dr. Potti wasn’t there. And the Rhodes Trust says they have no record of it.
jthelin - July 16, 2010 at 9:01 pm
In the early 1990s when the then President of The College of William & Mary resigned abrupty to become President of the Automobile Club (AAA) the only explanation people on campus could devise for this peculiar career change was that, “Well, now he’s a Roads Scholar . . .”
kcissna - July 19, 2010 at 7:20 am
I was nominated, too. Never occurred to me to put that on my CV.