The University of Wisconsin at Madison has revoked a scientist’s laboratory privileges for five years, saying he conducted unauthorized experiments that could have posed a risk to human health, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The scientist, Gary Splitter, a tenured professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine, says the work in question, involving antibiotic-resistant strains of brucellosis, was conducted by graduate students without his knowledge. Brucellosis is an animal disease that can affect people, and the bacteria that cause it are among the “select agents” regulated by the federal government. The university agreed to pay a $40,000 federal fine in September to settle alleged violations of those regulations, according to the Associated Press.
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4 Responses to U. of Wisconsin Bars Scientist From Lab Over Unauthorized Work With Select Agent
lethalfang - May 12, 2010 at 8:01 am
Is the grad student really doing it behind the PI’s back, or is it more of a “I don’t know exactly what my grad students are doing” excuse?
tridaddy - May 12, 2010 at 9:38 am
If a PI doesn’t know what his students are doing in the lab (whether turning a blind eye or just “out of it”), the PI should not have a lab or students. Did the students have a “real” project they discussed with the PI and their “secret” project on the side? How in the world did they obtain the antibiotic resistant brucella strain(s)? I wonder what the real story is!
ellenhunt - May 12, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Oh, ignorance isn’t bliss is it? How did the grad student get an antibiotic resistant brucellosis strain? The grad student made it by transfection. It is easy to do if you know how, one of the most basic techniques in molecular biology that we have. Yes, a grad student could have done it as a matter of course without informing the PI, because it is so basic. And if you know anything about microbiology lab work you know that it is impossible to tell what is going on by looking at it. Now, why would a student produce an antibiotic resistant brucellosis strain? Antibiotic resistance is the standard technique for selecting for bacteria that you have inserted a gene into. The student was trying to insert another gene into brucellosis other than antibiotic resistance in order to study the bacterium. But when you transfect bacteria, maybe 1 in a million or so take up the DNA. So the standard method is to put a gene for resistance to some antibiotic into the DNA you are transfecting with. That way, only the bacteria that have your DNA in them survive when you culture them in the antibiotic brew. Taking away lab privileges is ridiculous though. Those select agent regulations are extremely overdone, they won’t stop anyone who wants to from doing virtually anything, and that includes in a university lab. Someone with intent to cause harm could easily create something deadly. Creating something deadly has nothing to do with what this student did. The usefulness of such regulations is in applying them judiciously to people that are intending to cause harm. Adding resistance to just one antibiotic to an organism like brucellosis is of no consequence whatsoever. Many of the standard antibiotics used for such selection aren’t used on people anyway, and it is a simple matter to use a different antibiotic. Unless you give a bacteria resistance to all the major antibiotics simultaneously, it really doesn’t matter. There is no functional difference between brucellosis with no antibiotic resistance and brucellosis with resistance to one laboratory antibiotic.Stupid.
honore - May 13, 2010 at 9:57 am
nothing but a wing-flapping, dust-flying attempt of pretend-outrage that such a situation could actually go on for years by an administration so out of touch from what is actually happening outside of its gleaming windows.more clearly a reflection of an institutional culture that allows incompetence to thrive, corruption to exist and political correcntess and publcity quotients to dictate every action and decision.typical UW-Madison sloth and stupidity