ChemBark

After thorough examination, the Chemmy “Award” for Villain of the Year goes to:

Prof. Dr. Dalibor Sames for the Columbia C-H Activation Fiasco

The sad part of this post is not that Sames won, but that there were other legitimate contenders. The strongest cases could be made for Dalibor Sames, Bengu Sezen, and JJ La Clair. Some people might have also thrown R&D at Pfizer into the mix for ruining our stock portfolios, but that’s not really fair. The fact of the matter is that the system seems to have worked in the case of Torcetrapib—the drug’s danger was discovered in clinical trials and the project died. That’s life.

So, why not La Clair? Any other year he probably would have won, but in the end: 1) the hexacyclinol story was not as disgusting as the Columbia case, and 2) hexacyclinol has locked up the Chemmy in a different category.

The decision between Sames and Sezen was a tough call. If Columbia’s investigation shows that Dr. Ms. Dr. Sezen did naughty things with her data, you can bet that she’ll will run away with the Chemmy next year. For now—as is the custom in academia—the advisor takes home the award.

And I really think that Sames deserves it. Let’s review his credentials:

1. He retracted six papers and a significant part of a seventh. What chemist (besides Sezen) has ever had to do anything like this?

1a. If you think that Sames might be an “innocent victim,” please refer to Columbia’s policy on professional misconduct:

In modern collaborative research, the implications of academic misconduct or fraud go far beyond the individual; they also affect collaborators whose own work has been committed to objective search for truth. The specter of guilt by association may lurk in the background for many years to come. Therefore, joint authorship requires joint responsibility; each author claiming credit for the entire work must also be aware of joint discredit. Investigators in collaborative research projects each must make reasonable and periodic inquiry as to the integrity of and processes involved in gathering and evaluating data. It should be understood that overall responsibility for the integrity of collaborative research rests with the principal investigator. Senior investigators cannot be allowed to escape the consequences of the discovery of misconduct or fraud committed under their supervision.

2. The first round of retractions submitted by Sames had Sezen’s name on them without her approval or any indication that he was acting without her consent. (Note that JACS changed the wording of these retractions after publishing them—without making note of the edits).

3. While it has yet to be confirmed by Columbia, a lot of people have said that one or more students were essentially encouraged to leave (a.k.a. fired from) the Sames Lab for incompetence, at least in part because they could not reproduce the results that were eventually retracted. If someone in your lab raised questions about the reproducibility of an experiment, wouldn’t you feel obligated to check the procedure out for yourself? It’s not like Sames was that far removed from bench work; he easily could have run these reactions. Doing so probably would have prevented a lot of the subsequent mess.

4. When it became clear that something was wrong, Sames waited at least six months before publishing the retractions. Why did he wait if it wasn’t for her approval? Taking so much time was inconsiderate, as other chemists in the area of C-H activation wasted time trying to use Sames’ reactions (for example: Bellina, et al. Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2006, 1379).

5. Sames has publicly blamed Sezen in a variety of ways, such as in his wording of the retractions, in statements to news organizations, and by removing her from his lab’s Web page. While he was willing to fire these shots at her, when the press came calling to question him, he threw up his hands up and claimed that he’s not allowed to comment on the case due to the ongoing investigation. Either talk or shut up. Pick one. To do otherwise is unfair and cowardly.

There’s more, as you know, but you can use Google to refresh your memory. And if anyone thinks that this wasn’t a significant story, feel free to go crying to the editors of C&EN, Science, Nature, and the NY Times, too. The story is legitimate and newsworthy. If you don’t want to hear people talk about it, go somewhere else.

In fact, given the gravity of this particular story, I think we should consider including an actual prize with the Chemmy. Perhaps we can put Ed the Dog in charge of raising funds for an all-expenses-paid trip to Circle 8, Bolgia 8.

Who’s willing to chip in?

Previous Comments

1. anon Says:
   January 1st, 2007 at 7:20 am What a load of crap. Sames is a quality guy who is doing, on the whole, exellent chemistry. He was unlucky with his student. Yes, technically if you read the code of misconduct smallprint he is responsible. But I think a large proportion of leading chemists in the world could have suffered the same fate. He should have been more rigorous in checking the data, but the supervisor himself did not purposely deceive anyone. Seriously, all this “if he takes the credit for good stuff he should take the flak for the bad” must make you sound very self-important when you say it, but things simply don’t work that way. Maybe they should, but they don’t.
2. Also Anon Says:
   January 1st, 2007 at 6:07 pm I cannot agree with anon if it turns out that he fired graduate students for not being able to reproduce the work. If he fired students, then he should have seriously checked into the work prior to letting them go, rather than waiting. In this I am taking the word of several Columbia insiders who posted on Paul’s previous blog and who intimated that there were still other shoes to drop.I am sure that all facets of the charges made on the blog are being investigated and that Dali will get a fair hearing.
3. Albert Says:
   January 1st, 2007 at 6:51 pm I agree with you, Also Anon.Those poor lads, fired for THAT reason! It’s outrageous and unbelievable.
   I hope they immediately found a (better) place.
   Yes, if that’s true, the award went to the right person. No question about that.Mind you, if I remember correctly one of the rumours, I think you should send him to the Second Circle.
4. Paul Says:
   January 1st, 2007 at 10:01 pm Yeah…don’t know what to think about that rumor. I’d probably need photographs of the pair in flagrante delicto to believe it.
5. excimer Says:
   January 1st, 2007 at 10:27 pm I dunno… I would have put Sezen and maybe Sames in Circle 8, Bolgia 10. The one reserved for falsifiers, alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators. The damned there are infected with diseases.Some food for thought: about ten years ago, when one of EJ Corey’s grad students committed suicide, how would the chemical blogosphere of current times have treated the situation? I imagine that Corey’s reputation would have been severely diminished among readers, even if, as is the most probable case, Corey had little to do with the psychological state of the deceased student. As I feel that the chemical blogosphere in general has contributed more opinion than fact in the Sames/Sezen case, I cannot help but be skeptical of judgement of either of them quite yet. What role Sezen played in the fiasco and the reasons behind Sames’ conduct in this case are still unresolved, and are not trivial points of consideration. Sames is no saint, but the extent of his villainy has yet to be determined. The chemical blogosphere is not the chief investigator- it is the merely the eyes and the messengers of the things it sees, and it is important not to lose perspective of this if people like Paul are so optimistic about the future of the legitimacy of the chemical blogosphere.Yes, Sames has the appearance of a villain. But I, for one, will withhold judgment until the official investigation is complete, and Sames incurs his penalty.
6. HOMO-LUMO Says:
   January 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 am We don’t have a clue of what really went on, so I feel it might be unfair to do judgements without having the whole picture.Sames WOULD not be guilty for his retractions, actually if he was the victim of his student ambition and misrespect for ethical reseach values, he did the right thing (actually he did them before nobody noticed, so why he didnt try to get away with it, when more people than we think do that?).Sames WOULD be guilty for being naive, because if you have 3-5 persons working in the same field and only one person got the reactions to work, then that’s smelly enough to bring your own ass down to the lab and repeat the experiment yourself.
7. European Chemist Says:
   January 2nd, 2007 at 5:26 am My two cents on this: the blogosphere is there essentially to provide opinions and I don’t feel we should blame the readers for giving their input into what is surely one of the worst cases of article-retraction in the past years. Put it this way: what is now being “written” about this affair was most likely being “said” at the time of the Corey student’s suicide.
   Excimer: Corey’s reputation as a PI WAS severely tarnished due to that incident, at least in Europe. Even though, as you rightly state, he probably had little to do in the matter, no student I know would want to work for him after that. Even though.‘Seriously, all this “if he takes the credit for good stuff he should take the flak for the bad” must make you sound very self-important when you say it, but things simply don’t work that way. Maybe they should, but they don’t.’Anon, you’re right. This could have happened anywhere else in the chemistry world. MAYBE Sames is indeed only guilty of not having been careful enough to check his student’s work. At least he sure did take a huge risk in retracting those papers. What I find particularly intriguing is that “the beautiful work of Sames et al.” suddenly becomes “the irreproducible data of Sezen”, and this is a consequence of the current system in academia.And the more you read, the more puzzling it gets. If you were a Group Leader (and I personally aspire to becoming one in the future) and you were faced with such a situation, the logical order of events would be: 1) go to the lab yourself and try to repeat it, 2) call the concerned student(s) and eventually ask him/her to come back to the lab for a couple of days and repeat it him/herself 3) only retract the paper after none of the authors could reproduce the data. And most of all, 4) do not comment AT ALL on the matter, or at least assume your responsibility as the one who gets the asterisk.Sames’ attitude appears to be irrational as he seems to have gotten to step 3) way too soon and completely broke step 4). He wasn’t forced to comment. And he surely didn’t need to drag his student’s reputation in the mud. He is clearly an intelligent man. So why did he do that??

   So, as I’ve said, this could have happened in ANY research group in the world. The question is, how would other PI’s have handled the matter? Maybe Sames simply deserves the award for completely blundering this matter in terms of “public relations”…

   Happy New Year everyone….

8. milkshake Says:
   January 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm FYI: At the time of the Jason’s suicide EJ was not taking grad students anymore, just postdocs.I know Sames from Prague when we were just highschool kids (and I run into him many times over the years). I don’t have any feud with him but I think that he is not a decent man. I don’t have any inside scoop as to what has happened there with Bengu but I would not be surprised if it turns out that such aloof and over-reachingly ambitious guy did some questionable things to his students.
9. eugene Says:
   January 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 pm Milkshake, I’m guessing the next time you two guys meet, it won’t be that cordial if Dr. Sames reads blogs…Hey, also, my friend is now a postdoc at Scripps Florida!
10. milkshake Says:
    January 2nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm Good for her/him. Which group?Dali’s cordiality does not worry me – we were never friends. I don’t rejoice about his crash – even if I am inclined to think that he had it coming – and I feel sorry for his group members. My comment was reaction to the statement in one of the previous posts, indicating that “Sames is a quality guy who is doing, on the whole, exellent chemistry. He was unlucky with his student”
11. Anonymous Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 am

    FYI: At the time of the Jason’s suicide EJ was not taking grad students anymore, just postdocs.

    Hmm, I’m pretty sure that this policy started the next morning. It was certainly the belief among at least some students that the faculty response had exactly two prongs: 1)no more students for EJ, and 2)weekly please-don’t-kill-yourself dinners in the library…

12. HOMO-LUMO Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 2:28 am If he is guilty, what I really don’t understand is why he had to retract his own papers, when apparently nobody knew anything, I mean why did he exposed himself to the storm.
13. milkshake Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 10:59 am Anon, you have no clue what you are talking about and because you are dumb and mean please shut up. EJ was retired when the tragedy happened and he was not taking new students at the time. He took no students the year before. Two years before the tragedy he took exactly one last student.
14. SynthesisIsFun Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 5:35 pm Dali pretty much blew up the field in C-H bond activation. He’s a top-notch scientist if you don’t like his methods, well too bad, it’s about the science. Chemistry has always been a psychologically demanding slave/master—grad student/advisor relationship, we pay our dues.
    Le Clair made up a whole synthesis. Hello!? Are you kidding me? Has anyone ever used Le Clair’s contributions to science? He’s a joke and will hopefully be forgotten.
    
15. Wolfie Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 9:14 pm I said it’s fun and wonderful. No more comments from my side.
16. milkshake Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm Wolfie, if you realy are who I think you are it would be helpful if you could write up your side of story about what has happened (before you started in Heidelberg).
17. Wolfie Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm You wanted it. Now you get it.“When it became clear that something was wrong, Paul waited at least six months before publishing anything. Why did he wait if it wasn’t for his advisor’s approval? Taking so much time was inconsiderate, as other chemists in the area of self-assembly wasted time trying to use Pauls’ reactions.”
18. Yuck Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 11:29 pm Sezen = VillainSames and others involved = Victums
19. Wolfie Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 pm Oh, but this was so bold ! We thought we had some thinking involved.
20. Paul Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    You wanted it. Now you get it.

    “When it became clear that something was wrong, Paul waited at least six months before publishing anything. Why did he wait if it wasn’t for his advisor’s approval? Taking so much time was inconsiderate, as other chemists in the area of self-assembly wasted time trying to use Pauls’ reactions.”

    Wolfie, what the hell are you talking about? Why don’t you step out of the closet and let everyone know who you are and what your side of the story is? It would do wonders for your credibility.

21. Wolfie Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 12:17 am Oh, no, I am a girl. You know, I just want to be the bad side of yourself.
22. Anonymous Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 12:32 am

    because you are dumb and mean please shut up

    Wait, wait, I’m sure I know a good comeback to this… thinking… thinking… well, I’m sure I could come up with something if I had a bit more time.

    More interesting than whether EJ had taken students the year before is whether anyone had heard before that day that he wasn’t taking students as a matter of policy. I readily admit that my sample was not exhaustive, but it certainly yields a uniform result.

    And, um, strictly speaking, he did take one student in 1997. That didn’t work out so well either.

23. Wolfie Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 12:46 am EJ ? He was my scientific great-grandfather, in a direct line, so to speak. What merits do you want to claim this way ?
24. milkshake Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 1:07 am Sorry, I got it wrong by one year. But in 98 it was known that he was not taking new students anymore – policy or not he was very determined about it, citing concern about his own age and saying that he wanted everybody in his group to finish, and that he cannot commit himself for another 5 years, etc.
    The year before, in 97 it was almost the same situation and it took quite a lot of persistence for that last student to get in. (Also, the reasons why it hadn’t worked out were completely unrelated to EJ in this case.)
25. excimer Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 2:53 am Wolfie is the Tokyo Rose of Chembark
26. another anon Says:
    January 4th, 2007 at 12:39 pm I concur with milkshake comment #24. I entered that year (98) and it was made quite clear that EJ was not taking students. The guy who started in 97 didn’t work out for reasons completely unrelated to EJ. The suicides in EJ’s group, while quite sad, are not the result of his managment style. There are plenty of very difficult advisors out there who make EJ look like a saint. I just think that he attracted very highly motivated (and stressed) students who had a difficult time with failure. You could maybe say a more gentle and understanding advisor would have helped, but who can really know.As to the whole Sezen thing. What she did was enough to warrant a ban from even doing chemistry in the future in any way shape or form. Sames just was caught in the middle. Yes, he should have caught on sooner and ultimately, he is responsible as the PI, but he did the right thing in the end by admitting his mistake. Trust me, the embarassment will be attached to his name forever and that’s punishment in itself.
27. European Chemist Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 6:39 am Another Anon, the way you say things makes it seem like you’ve already condemned Sezen. Do you have evidence to do this? Everyone, is there any tangible proof that Bengu Sezen is to blame in this affair?The true questions for me are:- will Sames be fired from Columbia?
    - is his career completely wrecked or is the scientific community going to forget this “as time goes by”?
28. anon Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 7:27 am #27Chemistry doesn’t work at all + papers withdrawn = Sezen guilty
29. SynthesisIsFun Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 8:31 am @ European Chemist1. His career is will be fine. In fact he has some recent JACS pubs.2. He is not getting fired. He is well liked on the organic side of the department.
30. milkshake Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 8:40 am organic side of the department = Sam
31. joel Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 1:46 pm I think Breslow, Katz, and Nakanishi are worth mentioning too.
32. Wolfie Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 12:04 am Tokyo Rose ?? I’m not doing propaganda here, but I’m just telling the full truth, just like Paul.
33. Wolfie Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 12:18 am And, for the sake of losing any image here, I repeat: Life is not only cold rationality, as Paul is suggesting, but politics, contracts, reputation, and everything else. Columbia is certainly smart enough (you would think) to keep all that in mind.
34. Wolfie Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 12:25 am I am still looking for the right Dante quotation to oppose you, but excuse me, even I myself need time.
35. Also Anon Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 9:25 pm Clearly Paul thinks Wolfie is a current Molecular Biology student in Heidelberg.I do like her nom de plume as it reminds of a now departed Austrian/Swiss chemist whose personality was not unlike Dalibor’s. He fired a graduate student or two in his day.
36. Computational Chemist Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 10:30 pm From Sezen’s comments it is clear that she is happy now and acknowldege Paul’s contrubtion for that. After all everybody will be happy when they recognise that there is nothing more to do to fulfill their ambition/target. As some body pointed out earlier because of these trauma she learns and succed elswhere and down the road she would be more happier than a less sucesful researcher.
37. Anon Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 11:52 pm “..a lot of people have said that one or more students were essentially encouraged to leave (a.k.a. fired from) the Sames Lab for incompetence, at least in part because they could not reproduce the results that were eventually retracted.”I can confirm that four people left the Sames group around the time that the retracted work was being questioned. One was asked to leave by the department for being incompetent in many things beyond labwork, one left to pursue a different career path (a move that was in the works before Bengu’s work was in question), and a couple of students switched groups (mostly because they were very early in their PhD’s and didn’t want to be in the middle of the inevitable scandal). From what I’ve heard, Sames knew that the retractions were probably going to happen a few months before they did. He made his group aware of this reality, and some members just didn’t want to deal with the tight budgets and extra editorial scrutiny that are associated with such a scandal. To the best of the our knowledge here in the department, no one came anywhere close to getting “fired” because of their inability to reproduce Bengu’s results.For better or worse, this blog has become a source of information for many in the chemistry community. While I think that it’s great that you encourage discussion on issues like the Sezen scandal, it would be really nice if you would try to keep damaging speculation to yourself.
38. Paul Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 5:39 am Ok Anon #37. Thanks for contributing to the discussion, but I know at least one thing you wrote above is incorrect. Forgive me if I take the rest of it with a grain of salt.I can’t believe that you think that Sames and his managerial style had nothingto do with the departure of any of these four students. Are you kidding me? I can hear it now:“Yeah…I really love working for Dali, but we might have trouble getting grants in a couple of years so I’m going to pack my bags and restart from the beginning.”Pluh-eeze. The money issue could have been a factor, but the advisor had a lotto do with one or more of these departures.But that’s OK, if the rest of Columbia shares your steadfast support of Sames, I’m sure he has nothing to worry about. In fact, it would make for an interesting ad campaign:

    “Columbia Chemistry: Our tenured faculty have averaged 0.5 retractions/year over the past two decades!”

39. Paul Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 5:51 am Another thing I find interesting is that everyone who comes here in support of Sames chooses to post anonymously. I can understand why you’d want anonymity if you were posting criticism, but why would you be embarrassed to speak up in support of someone that you thought was being judged unfairly?Maybe it’s the gag order? Does it apply to all Columbians or just those in the Sames Lab?
40. Anon (#37) Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 4:31 pm Nope, the gag order – if you want to call it that – doesn’t apply to all Columbians. I would be glad to use my real name if I thought my posts would be taken seriously. Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that you want to discover the truth about the Sezen scandal, as it seems now that you’re just interested in propagating your own perverted version of it. You’ve been complaining for a long time that no one from Columbia is willing to talk about the situation, but here I am. If you want to ignore what I have to say, well, that’s your loss. Havemeyer is a long way from Mallickrodt, and there’s no way for you to know what really happened if you’re not willing to listen to people who were here in the early days of the scandal.And two more things…(1) What do you “know” to be incorrect? If you want to use that to discredit me, you should probably consider posting your information.(2) The situation was mishandled in a lot of ways, many of which you pointed out above. I’m not a diehard Sames supporter, but I think you should at least be accurate in your criticisms.
41. Paul Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 9:17 pm I have taken your comments seriously, otherwise I wouldn’t have responded. Go ahead and post who you are. We can have an open discussion about the story where you set the record straight, and other people who are interested can pose questions too. With your name behind the answers, I’m sure your comments will be given the respect you desire.
42. SynthesisIsFun Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 9:23 pm I call bullshit on Anon
    …as much as I like Dali.You’re an asshat.
    Innocent people did get fired.
    Do not use that as an argument.He does good science that is why he is at Columbia. —Steppenwolf
43. joel Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 10:10 pm Would it be fair to name the people who were fired for not reproducing Sezen’s work?
    I assume that someone reading these blogs must know, and 1 in 10 may be eager to
    dish the dish—otherwise all of these particular allegations are based on innuendo.
44. Paul Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 12:02 am I don’t think it would be fair to name them, and if anyone posts their names without their permission, I’ll delete them. They did nothing to draw attention to themselves and knowing their names adds almost nothing to the discussion. What matters is whether these student(s) exist, not that they are named “John Smith” and “Jane Doe.” Even if we know a John and Jane left the lab, knowing their names doesn’t equate to knowing why they left.If you are curious as to whether any students left the lab, you can use the magic of the Wayback Machine to collect information on which to draw your own conclusions. All of the information there is public and was published on the Internet, at one point, with the permission of the parties involved.
45. Anon (#37) Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 4:41 am “You’re an asshat.
    Innocent people did get fired.
    Do not use that as an argument.”I’m glad to see that there is such a high degree of civility here at ChemBark. To clarify, I’m not making an argument for or against Dali – I’m simply giving a Columbia grad student’s account of what happened. SynthesisIsFun and Paul, you both seriously need to check your sources if you want to know the truth about the incident. I’m not a member of the Sames group and don’t claim to know every detail about the situation, but I know enough about it to say that the accusations you both are making are pretty much false.Paul, a while back you remarked, “everyone at Columbia hates [your] guts”. No one cares that you’re covering this story, but the manner in which you’re doing it is entirely unprofessional. You claimed not to have confirmation of the fired students rumor in the text of this post, I came along and commented, and you immediately dismissed what I had to say with no explanation other than a restatement of your erroneous beliefs. Just so you know, your many posts on this subject along with your blatant disregard for discovering the truth would make it pretty easy for a lawyer to prove actual malice should Sames ever sue you for libel.Anyway, I’ve given my side of the story and feel I have nothing more to contribute. Have fun wallowing in your ignorance and calling me an “asshat”.
46. Paul Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 5:31 am No one cares? Youobviously care.And dude, the statement to which I was referring was that “Sames knew that the retractions were probably going to happen a few months before they did.” You must have a very liberal definition of “a few.” Some of the retractions came out in June 2006, but people were talking about them in 2005. Incidentally, I love your use of the passive voice in how the retractions “happened.”Plato said that “we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” At the end of the day, Anon #37, you are a coward. That said, you are still welcome to come to this site and anonymously bad-mouth me because you are an entertaining idiot. If you actually believed what you were writing, you’d put your name behind it. But you won’t.I have little doubt that some of the material that I’ve written in posts or comments is based on information that has been distorted or embellished, and I’ve tried to label these areas with appropriate qualifying statements. On the whole, a lot more of the information here is right than is wrong, and I imagine that the points of contention that people have are questions of magnitude or differences of opinion. I’ve written nothing that I’ve known to be untrue, and I think that blogs are appropriate venues for the discussion and dissemination of moderated, “institutionally-unconfirmed” information because Columbia has favored obfuscation over candor and has not acted in the best interests of the community. This whole situation has been mishandled from step one and there’s a lot to learn from it.
47. joel Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 10:26 am So if we do not know precisely why certain people left the group, then it is
    wrong to continually propagate this part of the story if no one is willing to
    substantiate these claims beyond having a strong feeling about it.
48. Paul Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 10:52 am No. I’ve heard the same story from multiple people. This story has not been officially confirmed by Columbia or Sames. I have no problems discussing it in the context of unconfirmed information.Sames is welcome to try his luck with a libel tort against me. He will lose.
49. joel Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 1:42 pm All I am saying is that if you repeatedly bring up unconfirmed
    information to support your conclusion, then the onus is on you
    to prove it. It is the difference between science and punditry,
    and I don’t watch Fox News.Forgive me if I laugh at all this talk of lawsuits.
    Hypersensitive eastcoasters.
50. Paul Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 1:57 pm News organizations report information obtained from anonymous sources all the time. For instance, someone in the White House says something to a reporter, but the administration won’t comment when asked about it. Would you prefer that the organization not report the news because it came from an unnamed source? Should the reporter have to “out” his sources?I think not.
51. Wolfie Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 9:31 pm Be careful what you say, Paul, a future employer, should he or she not be some naive academic organization, might have a look at what you have posted here using your full name. Maybe a future girlfriend will do it, too, but I don’t know what matters more for you.BTW, I think Heidelberg is still the world’s most outstanding chemistry department. They do not claim that they are the best in world, but they simply have always been. What are Corey, Karplus, etc ? Any child knows Bunsen and Erlenmeyer.
52. Anon (#37) Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 10:43 pm Paul, Joel really does have a point here. If no one from Columbia was commenting on the situation (as you imply in your White House analogy), then you would be entirely within your rights to draw conclusions from the limited information that you have. It was when you dismissed my account of the incident with no evidence to support your own claim that you crossed the line…You should also seriously think about the first part of Wolfie’s post. Though 99% of what Wolfie posts is random crap, I think he (she?) has hit on something here. I doubt employers really value sarcasm and blatant disregard for the truth in their employees…
53. Wolfie Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 11:09 pm even a blind troll may sometimes hit the mark
54. Wolfie Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 11:31 pm and I refuse to tolerate the word “random”
55. eugene Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 12:26 am Yeah, employers suck. But when I start my own company and after earning a lot of money get bored and do a search on ‘Bracher’ one day, I’d give they unemployed lout a job.Yes, I am thinking of going into business these days. Blogs have shown me that most chemists have no business sense and I think the competition might not be as bad as it seems.Hey Paul, read this article on scientific fraud, it’s pretty good.http://web.archive.org/web/20080222214745/http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n1/full/7400884.htmlTo milkshake: Actually, I don’t know what group he’s in apart from the fact it’s famous (maybe? I’m not too sure). He told me like, three times. And I forgot it immediately afterwards. Well, when I go down to Miami and Key West, I’ll make sure to drop by and visit. Even though it is a two hour trip from Miami-Dade depending on traffic.

    Speaking of South Florida, they really should have built the campus on Key West, although I suppose the prices and the problems with deliveries, weather, and environmental impact all played a role…. Oh well, Marathon or even Key Largo would also have been okay with me also. Then I’d be there too.

56. Wolfie Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 12:39 am Yeah, he is back. Thank you, Eugene, for covering us. By the way, who is the person that decides or not to reject any fraudulent articles for Science ?
57. milkshake Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 4:03 am I am in no famous group Eugene, I am MS chemist, and was in pharma industry for quite some time before coming here. The address is 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL 33458 and it is on FAU campus. And your taste is weird if you think Key West is a worthwile place – I mean getting there on the elevated highway over the ocean is spectacular sight but the traffic jams, faux antique shops and muddy beach… I heard they have lively costume-parties scene there though.
58. Paul Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 6:25 am Anon #37: Nice try. You have no idea who I’ve talked to, and I refuse to be embarrassed for voicing valid opinions. If I were hiring someone, I’d be a lot more concerned if a prospective employee would choose to look the other way when serious scientific misconduct and/or negligence occurred in my organization. And unlike working for a company, as a grad student, I haven’t signed a non-disclosure agreement that prevents me from talking about anything. If I had, I would honor it.Tell us who you are. I doubt that you acutally know what happened, because even you preface your facts with things like “from what I’ve heard.” I will continue to ignore your stupid babble, especially when you demonstrate your stupidity by joining forces with people like Wolfie. What a power team!
59. eugene Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 9:47 am Cool! Not only will I get to visit my friend, but also the famous milkshake as well… But it might be a long time before I make it down there. I like Key West because the beer is cheap and there is more of a breeze than in Miami. Plus, I’ve read all of Hemingway’s novels and it’s nice being in a place that gave him inspiration. You can still sort of jump over the wall to his museum if you don’t want to pay the entrance fee. But I have to admit that the last time I went there, I slept in the car. And the time before that, drove back to Marathon (and slept in the car there). The hotel prices are outrageous.
60. When do you sleep? Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 9:51 am Are the post times shown East Coast USA? Cause if they are, I advise you to get more sleep Paul. I see one day you are posting at midnight and then again at 5:50 in the AM. Brings me back to my Grad School Days to think of a schedule like that!
61. joel Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 12:01 pm Paul, it will be interesting to see if bloggers can actually claim the same
    freedom of the press as reporters, though I’m afraid that reporters might
    lose theirs before a proper blogger test case comes to trial.Regarding your commment, I think a good news organization wouldn’t trott out
    this kind of unconfirmed information all the time unless there is new information
    to report about and/or support the information.I realize that you mentioned this in the context of an award, but I just wanted
    to point out that it has been more than a year and that it is unfortunate to the
    affected people that none of the unconfirmed information has been confirmed. This
    should make you suspicious…unless your sources are that good. But how are we to
    know?
62. Paul Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 4:24 pm A news organization wouldn’t keep publishing the info because once it has been published, it’s no longer news. We know that something happened, but Columbia hasn’t confirmed anything of interest. At one point, their spokeswoman wouldn’t even confirm there is an investigation, even though she had referred to one in previous statements. Are we just supposed to let the story go away? As to whether blogs enjoy the same rights as the media, they do. Check out chillingeffects.org for more information.
63. tinkerbolt Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 9:20 pm Sames is not well-liked at Columbia and he is not a quality scientist. Each year the Columbia students roast the Chemistry faculty during their winter show. Watch the DVDs of the 2003 and 2004 shows. The way the students chose to mock Sames involves skits about how he mistreats and fires his workers. Better yet, just ask the fourth and fifth year students what they think.
64. Paul Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 10:06 pm OMG…there are DVDs?! Someone…anyone…please, please, please pass these along. I am willing to pay.
65. Anon (#37) Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 10:19 pm Yes, Paul, I did preface one of my comments with “from what I’ve heard”. I’ve already told you that I’m not a member of the Sames group, and I’m not going to pretend that I was present in private meetings. That said, I don’t think even you would contest the rest of that sentence…“And unlike working for a company, as a grad student, I haven’t signed a non-disclosure agreement that prevents me from talking about anything. If I had, I would honor it.” – What does a nondisclosure agreement have to do with any of this? Perhaps you’re the one spewing out “stupid babble”.At the end of the day, this discussion boils down to one question – why should we put any faith in your version of the story? Even reporters give broad titles to their anonymous souces to gain legitimacy. Recall the description of deep throat: “a source in the Executive Branch who had access to information at CRP as well as at the White House”. Your description of your sources is nowhere near as forthcoming as that, and you’re no Woodward or Bernstein…Quite frankly, I don’t know why you’re being so hostile. I think you’ve done the community a big service by covering this story, and all I’m trying to do is clear up one of the details.
66. Paul Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 10:50 pm First, I agree that I am no Bob Woodward. And once again, thanks for commenting. I really mean that. I think it’s great that you can offer another perspective, even though you’re only willing to do so anonymously. We have obviously heard different stories, and it appears that the only conclusion others can come to is that one of us is right and the other is wrong. The *only* thing I know that attests to the validity of your information is that your IP address traces to Columbia, so pardon me if I opt to place my trust in more corporeal beings. I do not feel compelled to disclose more information about any of the people who’ve passed along information about this case, but I appreciate your wanting to learn more about them.I’m sorry that you felt that my tone in some of the above comments was harsh, but your comments have been similarly confrontational.
67. European Chemist Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 7:08 am Let me try to make some sense out of this all.It seems we do have quite opposing versions of the stories involved. At one time someone wrote that Sames is highly backed by the organic staff at Columbia. But then someone wrote later that in their winter shows, Columbia students mock Sames supposedly because of the way he treats students. So, fellow colleagues would like him but students not.
    Then, we have the whole Sezen/Sames/who’s to blame story. Has Sezen been summoned back to the lab to repeat the experiments? Why did Sames wait all that time to retract the papers?There is however a big piece of information I would enjoy seeing a bit clearer. Who, from other laboratories, has tried to repeat such work and did they succeed? Have people attempted to reproduce other work by Sames? How many students have effectively left the laboratory since Sames is there and why?
    When you take a look at the pictures from some dinner-party in their website everyone looks extremely happy and in a good mood, and Sames looks like the kind of guy that enjoys drinking and having fun with his students as he appears in a number of pictures! By the way, is Bengu Sezen in any of those pictures??Anon #37, you can at least tell us which group you are in? That should at least give us a better perspective of which “faction” supports Sames in the whole issue.Oh boy. What a mess. And I was planning to use some nice work by Sames, that is NOT co-authored by Sezen. But of course now I’m giving it a second (and a third, and a fourth and a fifth) thougt. And the worse is that I probably shouldn’t.
68. Milo Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 6:37 pm #67,Don’t feel bad about questioning the work, in fact, I would argue that you should always be wary of what is in the literature. I would not just abandon the hope of using his work, just do a SciFinder search (or similar) to see who has referenced those papers. Go fetch those references and see if they used the procedures or not.
69. Also Anon Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 6:52 pm People in my group have tried to repeat the portions of the work and were unsuccessful. I have heard from at least 3 other groups that they were also not successful. I know that one of my sources took up the matter with Sames and tried to get the “secret” of the chemistry from the source. When the imidazole “C-H functionalization” (Sames own wording rather than the C-H activation moniker everyone else was using)paper published I thought it was an extremely important publication and in fact forwarded the link to my entire department. Bellina and coworkers in Italy tried very hard to make it work and eventually came up with their own independent procedure to arylate imidazoles. Their paper early in 2006 in Eur. JOC had a reference to the fact they could not repeat the Sames work. People in my group have been able to get the Bellina procedures to work as published.
70. eugene Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 9:34 pm “And I was planning to use some nice work by Sames, that is NOT co-authored by Sezen.”Literature group meeting material so far for me.Also one of the first references in my thesis. That Science review. The thesis is a long way off of course, but they make you write something for candidacy. Intermediate thesis like.“Their paper early in 2006 in Eur. JOC had a reference to the fact they could not repeat”I remember that from the Tenderbutton archives. There was also a note in the SI of one of the retracted papers that said the system is very difficult and pernicious and you have to buy brand new septa and make sure everything is clean and super dry or it will not work. So… not that simple of a procedure I guess. Nice to know that at least one procedure works.
71. eugene Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 10:46 pm Take a look at this gem of “apparent” irreproducibility. The paper is a fun read and only two pages. Give it a try. The paper is highlighted on the Organometallic current.http://web.archive.org/web/20080222214745/http://pubs3.acs.org/acs/journals/doilookup?in_doi=10.1021/om061009yhttp://web.archive.org/web/20080222214745/http://organometallics.blogspot.com/They couldn’t reproduce the reactions and tried everything (the old magnet leaching iron thing) before figuring out the guy doing them had a fluorescent light overhead. And now they even improved the yield. Maybe Sezen’s reactions should be tried under a fluorescent light? Or done in the dark?
72. milkshake Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 10:54 pm Sometimes a dumb mistake is what actualy makes a catalyst work – I was trying Cu asymmetric ene catalysts and they were eating my substrates like snack – it was possible to get some product but the yields sucked and one had to work very carefuly when setting the experiments and I had to add the catalyst solution as the last component. Until one humid summer day in the catalyst solution turned deep blue instead of the usual pale green and I got wonderful yields – the hydrated catalyst was attenuated just enough to not polymerize my starting olefins but would stil effect the reaction.Today we had Richmond Sarpong here giving his methodology/tot synth seminar and he was asked why was he actually adding PhIO (20mol%) to his Pt-phosphine catalyst. He replied that the only postdoc that could make this particular Pt-catalyzed reaction to work was a particulary sloppy guy – I mean he would open Schlenkware without Ar blanket, to repeatedly take samples with a TLC spotter. It turns out a little air was what was needed to oxidize phosphine away from the catalyst, so they ended up adding an oxidant, to activate the Pt catalyst in a more controlled fashion…
73. eugene Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 11:04 pm That’s why I try to be sloppy on purpose. Not “opening Schlenk ware under nothing” sloppy, but I don’t dry my solvents too rigorously and sometimes leave in reagents in a reaction that didn’t work and add some other reagents to the whole mix… That sort of stuff. Only when I get a complex mixture of products or something really good happens, do I become rigorous. I often try to let air into my glove box reactions (when they are in an NMR tube). Just to see ‘what if?’.I’m worried that I’m becoming more ‘by the book’ lately. I’ve got to focus on being more controlled sloppy.
74. eugene Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 11:11 pm Hey, I just had a thought… Maybe the Sames group should seriously read that paper to which I provided the link and try to repeat the experiments one more time.Maybe Bengu liked to operate in the dark a lot?(sorry, sorry, couldn’t resist… it’s a Red Dwarf joke)
75. Wolfie Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 1:02 am Eugene, Eugene. It will come to a bad end with you.
76. eugene Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm Wolfie, oh don’t go out tonight. I hear in Heidelberg, there’s a bad moon on the rise.
77. Wolfie Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 10:48 pm I guess so. Always when someone is posting from the East Coast, but lives really in Heidelberg.
78. Wolfie Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 10:55 pm But my second guess is that Paul’s prediction on Sames’s fate will go awry the same way he has predicted the Nobel Prize for his Boss. Please correct me if Whitesides will win it, ’cause it could be good for my own career.No ?
79. Jennifer Ball Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 4:00 pm My novel Catalyst (which I wanted to title The Arachidonic Acid Cascade but my editor at Faber and Faber thought this would scare people off) was published in 1997, and it is a fictional account of fraud in a chemistry department at a New York university. You can search the novel at Amazon.com.http://web.archive.org/web/20080222214745/http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0571199151/ref=olp_product_details/103-1260159-1681440?ie=UTF8&seller=Jennifer Ball
80. Shrug Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 10:00 pm Amazon.com helped me learn the following fun tidbits about your book:
    - It contains 6,337 words per ounce of, you know, book.
    - The following is a list of capitalized words that appear in the novel:
    New York, Wonder Woman, Jesus Christ, Blue Rose Lounge, Rat Corner, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Dennis Trantin, Merck Manual, New Jersey, Cap’n Crunch, Hottentot Venus, John Holmes Enlarger, Willie Nelson.
    - Its sales rank is 1,581,665.
    - I’ve never written something that’s been sold on Amazon.com, so I’m not one to talk about sales rank
81. Paul Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 1:07 am Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer…out of all the chemistry departments in the country, you had to choose my beloved alma mater? Well, at least it’s fiction.
82. Paul Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 6:20 pm Oh…at a New York university (not necessarily New York University). Phew.
83. Andy Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 7:15 am New Sames paper on functionalisation of indoles in JOC asap articles.
    Phosphine-Free Palladium-Catalyzed C-H Bond Arylation of Free (N-H)-Indoles and Pyrroles
84. When do you sleep? Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 9:58 am Andy, can you send me some of that prochiral water you advertise on your website? I need to do an enantioselective extraction!
85. cs Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 12:46 pm To be honest, unless it has metaphysical significance, who cares if Sames puts out another paper. The man’s honesty is a crapshot so it’s better to spend time studying someone’s work who has not yet lost their integrity.
86. European Chemist Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm Hum… #85’s comment is the kind of thought I was trying to avoid myself. Does this whole fiasco really mean that Sames has irreversibly lost his credibility among us “common” scientists? Is his future work to be regarded as “who cares if Sames puts out another paper”? Just a thought.
87. per Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm i am utterly bemused that sames is the guy that gets the villain award.Part of this is that I come from biomedical science. It is not quite routine, though not vanishingly rare, to see examples of fraud; though truth be told, there are examples of both PIs and PhDs/ postdocs commit the dirty deeds. There are large numbers of utterly irreproducible papers out there, and for some reason, authors are sometimes rather reluctant to face up to and publicise the reality of what has happened.Near as I can see from the sames website, Sames runs a team of 15+ folks. Coupled with teaching, grant-writing, paper-writing, and university pen-pushing, the idea that Sames could go into the lab to check a reaction seems fanciful. There are many examples of deliberate fraud, and it can be very difficult to spot.Most of your reasons given against Sames allow for eloquent alternative explanations, and it would be strongly preferable to have more factual information. Why did Sames wait six months to retract; obviously, it would be preferable to have the facts. However, one can imagine that a Professor seeing the possibility of multiple retractions might commit considerable manpower and time to reproducing the experiments before being forced to admit that he couldn’t.while i have no knowledge of who is at fault here, I find it difficult to support your first reason. If Sames retracted papers because they were fraudulent, that is to his credit. If Sezen is the wronged party, then my view would change. I am particularly amused by your 1a, which suggests collective guilt for the PI in the face of someone else commiting fraud. I am sure that you are a very talented person, and it is inevitable that you will shortly be in the position of supervising other people, whether in science or elsewhere. It will be interesting to see how your position on collective guilt for supervisors evolves.

    yours
    per

88. to number 87 Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 am As a P.I. of a group it is your responsibility to manage that group along with thousands to millions of dollars, awarded partially by taxpayers, to further science. If your group publishes 6.5 papers that are later retracted you sir are a horrible manager and you should be replaced. There must be true accountability. If blame can get shifted down to the lowest levels there is no longer any reason for the PI to ensure that trusted work is being published.If you can’t manage a group of 15 people your group should not be that large. Put the proper management in place to limit money squandering and to ensure the integrity of your published work. Running a lab is more than just thinking of good science.
89. Wolfie Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 12:11 am Yes.
90. Paul Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 1:07 am Agreed, and to add:1. Just because you see a lot of misconduct in biomedical research doesn’t make it OK. If a city experiences an increase it the number of murders, the last thing it should do is prosecute fewer cases.2. I’m not saying I want PI’s to go to the lab and repeat all of their students’ reactions, just exceptional cases. If a student came to me and said that he couldn’t get a reaction to work, my instinct would be to try it myself before firing him.
91. K Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 am One thing that’s worth mentioning to the biological folks: It seems to me that reaction setup is not nearly as difficult or specialized in chemistry as it is for biology types. For that matter, the starting materials aren’t that specialized, either. Therefore, it’s a lot easier to check someone else’s results.I don’t remember the reaction setups for the Sames/Sezen experiments. Assuming that the catalyst was on hand, I’m guessing they’d take maybe 30 minutes to set one up. (I don’t remember the reaction time; I’m guessing it’s pretty long.)
92. to number 87 Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm Check out the JAN 18th issue of Nature. Sames/Sezen are mentioned in a where are they now pieice, along with 2 other stories on misconduct. Although Nature does not have the facts right in regards Sames/Sezen (only 2 retractions!) some interesting general points points on misconduct are made.
93. tinkerbolt Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm And let’s remember, irreproducibility regarding Sames’ has been talked about since atleast late 2002(at least that’s when I first heard). The chemistry faculty at Columbia knows this, or at least the two that are part of the investigation know this. I think the investigation is concerned with retracting Sezen’s PhD, not prosecuting Sames. Seeing how Columbia operates, my guess is that they would call on a separate investigation for Sames, but they will wait until the first is over. This gives him plenty of time to publish more papers(hopefully with new scientific standards), plenty of time for people to graduate that know all the intimate details and plenty of time for people to become unconcerned about this.
94. Wolfie Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 8:25 pm I thought, comment No. 88 was at least in part highly ironical. But I may be in error.
95. per Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 2:14 pm “As a P.I. of a group it is your responsibility to manage that group along with thousands to millions of dollars, awarded partially by taxpayers, to further science. If your group publishes 6.5 papers that are later retracted you sir are a horrible manager and you should be replaced.”
    This is bizarre; how can a PI know if a worker is lying to him and committing fraud ? You are dismissing many extremely eminent scientists as “horrible manager(s)”. Telepathy/ omniscience is not a reasonable standard for assessing management adequacy.
    “If you can’t manage a group of 15 people your group should not be that large.”
    I point out to you that the nature of academic research disproportionately rewards those academics who get extremely large well-funded groups. Perhaps you might give some thought to the nature of the system that rewards this behaviour- and frequently results in the firing of academics who don’t do this.
    “Just because you see a lot of misconduct in biomedical research doesn’t make it OK.”
    I don’t believe i argued that; I merely point out that misconduct is known to have a fairly reasonable incidence in the building next door to chemistry, and I very much doubt that there is a magical formula whereby chemists are saints. So in partial answer to your rhetorical question “What chemist has ever had to [retract six papers]?”; if you think that there is no fraud in chemistry, I know you are delusional and ignoring the documented examples.“I’m not saying I want PI’s to go to the lab and repeat all of their students’ reactions, just exceptional cases. If a student came to me and said that he couldn’t get a reaction to work, my instinct would be to try it myself before firing him.”
    like I said, just wait till you are running a group of 15+ people, plus the rest of the crap. You don’t seem to have any inkling of the demands on your time that are made in such a position.yours
    per
96. per Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 2:27 pm “One thing that’s worth mentioning to the biological folks: It seems to me that reaction setup is not nearly as difficult or specialized in chemistry as it is for biology types. For that matter, the starting materials aren’t that specialized, either. Therefore, it’s a lot easier to check someone else’s results. “
    it’s easier to check, therefore no-one commits fraud in chemistry ? You only have to state the idea to see how silly it is. If this were true, you would be able to uncritically accept all research in the literature as true, and there would never be any problem in getting the same yield in the same reaction that the literature reports.I suspect that there is an awful lot of stuff in the literature which would not be reproducible if anyone cared enough to check it. I know people who tell me directly that they have been involved with examples of fraud in chemistry.I wouldn’t make a case that Chemistry is any different from any other science; but I am just a little bit surprised that there is a view that chemistry is an oasis of untrammeled purity.per
97. K Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 8:08 pm Per:it’s easier to check, therefore no-one commits fraud in chemistryYou said it, not me. My point is: in synthetic organic chemistry, it’s a lot easier to set up an experiment. The starting materials are typically very common, as opposed to biology, where you may have to get the author’s clones or probes or tissue samples before you can even try to reproduce their work.I don’t appreciate words being put in my mouth. I didn’t say that chemistry is any different than other sciences in terms of reproducibility. You did. I didn’t say “oasis of untrammeled purity”; you did.I think it’s easier to check. Is that true or untrue?
98. Mitch Says:
    January 26th, 2007 at 4:18 am This is a silly argument. Chemistry is full of fraud that never ever gets caught. I would be really surprised if other fields fraud rates were statistically more significant than Chemitry’s.Mitch
99. per Says:
    January 26th, 2007 at 6:25 am “You said it, not me…I don’t appreciate words being put in my mouth.”I don’t understand how you are arguing, K. If there are no implications of your statement, if we cannot infer anything other that what you have said, then your comments about ease of reproducibility in chemistry have no application to the sezen case, the discussion at hand, or anything else.I am not sure that I accept your premise uncritically anyway. If Biology were such an infinitely multivariate domain, where even starting materials were difficult, no-one would be able to reproduce anyone else’s work. There are lots of cases where biological materials are better defined (e.g. your suggestion of a clone) than a chemical with impurities.“I didn’t say that chemistry is any different than other sciences in terms of reproducibility.”
    ok, so why did you tell us that it is a lot easier to check reactions in chemistry than in biology ? What is your point ? Are you now going to say the above, so it officially becomes your point ? Or are you going to tell us that chemistry is just the same as every other science in terms of fraud ? Or maybe that your comment had no substance to it ?waiting with bated breath.

    per

100. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 11:04 am I think my problems with your implications, per, is that you are a serial exaggerator of others’ comments: “chemists are saints”, “uncritically accept”, “untrammeled purity” and “biology is infinitely multivariate.” Please — we’re full up on straw men already.Perhaps I should have been more clear for the overly irritated: My point is that I believe that in synthetic chemistry, running experiments takes a lot less work than in biology. Therefore, checking others’ results should be easier and the needed skills and materials are less specialized.I didn’t say that chemistry is somehow ‘cleaner’ than any other science. I’m not quite sure where that came from. I do think this (my point) has implications for the theory that it’s too much work for PI’s to reproduce controversial results.I think you should take a chill pill, per. Too much time at work? Supervising too many cowokers? Hanging out with fradulent chemists? Need a vacation?
101. joel Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 11:25 am I doubt there are more cases of fraud in biology.However, I think it is worth making the point that in some circumstances–ie. when particularly exotic cell lines such as stem cells are involved– reproducibility is difficult because of limited access.
102. per Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 1:44 pm I would tend to agree with both Joel and K that there can be such a wealth of variables in biological experiments, that replication can fail on the lack of precise replication very easily- at least in theory. This isn’t always so.It was Paul that said:
     “What chemist (besides Sezen) has ever had to do anything like this?”
     it is obviously a rhetorical device, but it seems to me that there is an implication (1) this has never happened in chemistry before and (2) chemistry is cleaner than other sciencesI say (2), because it is blindingly obvious in medicine and biology that there are a large number of well-documented frauds, and an even larger set of “irreproducible experiments” where one can be somewhat sceptical about how these bizarre, statistically significant and consistent data cannot ever be reproduced in the same lab.And that brings me back to the essay at the top of the page. The default when something goes wrong is to sweep it under the carpet and go quiet; I know personally of several Nature papers where the work is irreproducible in house, and there is no retraction in Nature or anywhere else. Between just these two cases, there was ~$6 million in grants awarded. Somehow, no-one is culpable, and there is a distinct reluctance to go into print to say how the work isn’t reproducible. In the meantime, everyone else is misled, and the PIs still have the bandit work on their CVs.I am very much of the opinion that Sames is to be congratulated for coming forward with retractions, if he cannot replicate the original data after due effort. If you want to criticise him, it seems to me that this is a bad reason to do so. Amongst other reasons, I suspect that Sames knows an awful lot more about the facts of the matter than Paul.
     per
103. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 3:39 pm “I am very much of the opinion that Sames is to be congratulated for coming forward with retractions, if he cannot replicate the original data after due effort.”I am tempted to say that you might thank people for not robbing banks, but that’s too flip. You’re right; this did take guts and I’m sure that he knew the second the retractions hit print, he’d get hammered. I am not quite sure that “congratulations” is the right word for it.
104. Paul Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 5:59 pm Per: Name one chemist who has had to retract 7 or 8 papers. Name one. I think we are close to the extreme end of the spectrum of all cases of misconduct in chemistry, both the reported and unreported.Data fabrication is the scientific equivalent of murder one. If you kill someone and confess, you are still going to prison for life. You aren’t given a free pass.Now, if you a co-author with someone that you subsequently find to have fabricated data, you should be commended for coming forward. The reason you are to be commended is because you realize that you are opening yourself to ridicule. If you were the advisor of the individual who fabricated data, you bear a greater degree of responsibility in that you were negligent as a manager. Your degree of responsibility will be judged by how well the person who fabricated data hid it from you and whether you acted appropriately when questions were raised about the results.What is so hard to understand about this? What do you believe is the appropriate punishment? Feel free to speak hypothetically.
105. per Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 6:09 pm K, i think we have common ground It would obviously have been better if Sames had addressed these issues before publication, whatever they are. He must have some culpability for that.I would just note the example of Arnold in the synergistic estrogen paper published in Science.As I understand it, the PI, McLachlan, required multiple rounds of additional experiments and independent confirmation to confirm the original surprising results; likewise, the refereeing at Science was robust. But the postdoc concerned did all the requested controls, and came back with the data, which led to the publication in science. The postdoc falsified throughout. In the face of outright falsification, I am not sure how you can easily determine what reality is; other than by running your lab members in pairs against each other.per
106. per Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 6:53 pm “Your degree of responsibility will be judged by how well the person who fabricated data hid it from you and whether you acted appropriately when questions were raised about the results.”
     let me just say I agreeI would guess that a professor running a group of 15+ people will have their time eaten up by other duties ; so that there is maybe 4 hours per week to supervise the 15+ researchers. I am quite clear that the people who investigate Sames will be under exactly the same pressures, and are unlikely to excoriate Sames for behaviour they undertake regularly.“What do you believe is the appropriate punishment? “
     it depends what the crime is ! I can easily imagine circumstances which could result in a Prof being dismissed; but if the prof has merely retracted papers that they cannot reproduce after one lab member has departed, none whatsoever.I am intrigued by your challenge to find retracted chemistry papers. I will investigate.
     per
107. Paul Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 8:08 pm At least it looks like we’re in the same ballpark.
108. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 9:45 pm Per:I don’t want to belabor my point, but I just looked up one of the retracted papers (JACS, 2003, 5274) and found the procedure in the patent that Sames and Sezen received. It’s from page 19 of WO2004069394A2:1. Dry flask with cesium acetate for at least 2 hours over vacuum.
     2. Add reagents (palladium acetate, triphenylphosphine)
     3. Add starting materials (indole, iodobenzene, solvent)
     4. Heat at 125°C for 24 hours.
     5. Dilute with solvent, filter, concentrate to dryness. Purify with column.Outside of wait time, a working chemist would spend about 60 minutes in front of their hood. They claim 88% yield; I’d believe it if I got yields in the 60% range the first time I did it. Trust me when I say this reaction is child’s play to reproduce. The starting materials are incredibly common and the procedure is not difficult.The Arnold paper’s (fascinating subject, BTW) first procedure what I’ll use for comparison:

     YES was developed by transforming yeast strain
     BJ2407 (MatalMata ura3-52, trp 1, /eu2, srb 1-1 122,
     prcl-407, pep4-3) with an expression plasmid containing
     the complementary DNA of hER and a reporter
     plasmid containing two estrogen response elements
     linked to the lacZ gene. A single yeast colony
     was grown overnight at 30 degrees C in synthetic media supplemented with Trp, Ura, then 50 pI was added to
     950 W.1 of fresh media with vehicle, 173-estradiol,
     endosulfan, dieldrin, or endosulfan and dieldrin and
     grown overnight at 300C. The environmental chemicals
     and estradiol were dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide
     (DMSO), and the concentration of DMSO in the
     media did not exceed 1 %. After treatment, the yeast cells
     were collected by centrifugation and permeabilized
     by the addition of 700 pI of Z-buffer (60 mM
     Na2HPO4, 40 mM NaH2PO4, 10 mM KCI, 1 mM
     MgSO4, 35 mM 1-mercaptoethanol), 4 ,ul of 0.1%
     SDS, 6 p.1 of CHCI3 and mixed for 25 s. The reactions
     were then placed at 30°C with the addition of 160 p.I
     of o-nitrophenyl ,-D-galactopyranoside (4 mg/ml in
     Z-buffer). The reactions were terminated by the addition
     of 400 p.1 of 1 M NaCO3, and the absorbance
     at 420 nm (A420) was measured.

     ======

     I don’t know much about biology, but that procedure sounds a lot more complicated. I understand that for the Arnold procedure, a lot more data points are involved as well. But when the procedures are a lot simpler, it might be worth checking out.

109. eugene Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm Sounds a lot simpler to me too. Too bad I don’t have any indole. How useful is functionalization of indole anyways? Has the indole core ever gotten anyone to their target yet? Does anyone have a target that has an indole core?I realize that some people might, but that was more of a rhetorical question. Boo Earns to the people that review ‘indole functionalization’ papers for JACS. Now of course, Sames has some very nice work on unprotected imine directing group intramolecular CH activation and ring closure (as far as I can remember) from the early 2000s, where Sezen wasn’t an author. Now that’s great chemistry. Although, I’ve never tried to reproduce it personally… but at least I have some passable substrates. The Palladium loadings are a bit high, but that’s expected when it decomposes during the course of reaction.
110. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm To answer your question about what do about outright falsification, I am not sure. But when questions are popping up about irreproduciblity internally and externally, my antennae would be twitching.Part of this difficulty is the difference in paradigms that we work in. If a coworker discovers a reaction, I am inclined not to fully trust the results until one of my coworkers can reproduce the results. That’s simply not feasible with work like Arnold’s, I’m guessing.I think that’s part of why chemists are so irritated by this case. We’re pretty rigorous because we can be; therefore, we should be.
111. Wolfie Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 9:56 pm Sure there are little (or no) synthetic chemists we know that had to retract 8 papers. Bengu may just have been the trigger in this case. But it’s the same thing always : as long as noone tries to reproduce your stuff in science, you can write mainly what you want, as long as it is self-consistent (for the referees).So the lesson may be : Whenever you try to state that five is an even number (that’s a German proverb, I am sorry, no equivalent available), please do so without competitors, and you may get through.
112. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 9:59 pm Eugene: It’s N-methylindole, actually. I got lazy, since I couldn’t cut and paste out of the pdf.
113. K Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 10:08 pm Double crap: That procedure was actually taken from the Lane/Sames Org. Lett. (2004, 2897), just like Eugene said.
     Dr. Lane, if you’re reading this, I apologize.Nevertheless, the magnesium oxide procedure that WAS from the JACS (2003, 5274) was equally simple.
114. joel Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 11:53 pm I nominate K for today’s Homo-Lumo prize for the most frenetic sequence of posts in the course of an hour.
115. joel Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 12:06 am Not many synthetic chemists get written up in the NYTimes, let alone named in a case of fraud in -all that’s fit to print-. To find a similar case of
     retractions we’d have to have the same starting conditions (ie. high profile Prof., high profile news article, new burgeoning media blogs). For this
     reason, I don’t think there are any similar cases because no one has ever received this much attention.But, I guarantee you there will be more. In all disciples—especially those where the payoff is high.Stay on the right side of the law girls and boys.
116. Paul Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 1:12 am I’ll have a post on Monday (I promised something happy first) about a guy from my high school who is now in the news for being on the wrong side of the law in a criminal case. What the media doesn’t know is that he was taken down a notch in high school for a serious case of academic misconduct that cost him admission to a top 5 university and a full scholarship at another well known school.
117. Shrug Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 10:13 am FWIW, Wolfie’s last comment should be commended for its relevance and coherence (A bit of a backhanded compliment, I know, but may we consider it a bit of positive reinforcement?)
118. per Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 10:47 am “… but that procedure sounds a lot more complicated.”
     yes, it does look awful; but it is actually very simple. Note that you are starting off with a yeast clone, and you are adding two plasmids. Both of these reagents are defined to a much higher degree than a chemical of 99% purity. You make freezer stocks of the transformed yeast, so you have an infinite supply of the reagent that you used, which you can use for replication. All the stuff at the end is just measuring the LacZ you made. Doing an experiment would take you maybe an hour setup max, and the lacZ measurements at the end would take the same amount of manipulation time.WRT to reproducing experiments, I understand that there are several labs where two different postdocs/PhDs are given the exact same project; that ensures competition to get it done quick, and reproducibility of results. Some people view this as a particularly tough management style for the people involved. But I struggle to see how you can get the PI to perform ad hoc duplications of data on a sensible basis. The number of experiments that “don’t work”, or do, but are never repeated, is simply gargantuan. When would you repeat ?per
119. Anoymouse Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am Per
     Not to belabor the point. But one of the uncorroborated(so far)accusations was that a student was sacked because he could not reproduce the experiments. I do not believe that a professor should ever sack a student without some serious exploration of the circumstances. Most PhD students in Organic Chemistry essentially give up a large portion of their lives (for 4-6 years) for a professor in order to get their doctorates. The sacrifices they endure should compel a professor to make sober decisions when he or she decides to fire one of them. Students are just consumable goods for too many professors. I don’t know if Sames is one of those guys, but the accusation of sacking has been repeated several times now.
120. tinkerbolt Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 1:43 pm Correction, three students, not one.
121. per Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 7:46 pm “one of the uncorroborated(so far)accusations…”
     that phrase says it all. I don’t have evidence that enables me to evaluate that, and unsubstantiated gossip doesn’t seem a sensible basis to proceed.I share your concerns about exploitation of students; though I understand that it is quite common for advisors to have thoroughly abusive relationships with their PhDs. I don’t even know that Sames is under investigation for this, or if it were even possible to discipline a Professor if what you allege is true.yours
     per
122. luna Says:
     January 28th, 2007 at 9:15 pm Although it’s probably not possible to find hard evidence that three people were fired/threatened to be fired, it’s atleast possible to find hard evidence that three people in his group changed leadership later in their time at Columbia if you’re willing to put the time in(and if you’re posting on this blog regularly, then you probably should be). If you get that far you can find a very interesting tidbit regarding the research projects those individuals worked on.
123. Wolfie Says:
     January 28th, 2007 at 9:59 pm Shrug, I know quite some people in chemistry who do and publish things that noone else does, and they live quite well with them. There is at least little risk of getting caught.In biology, I think it is a different issue: that dirty biological soup is sometimes so complicated and chaotic that noone can be even able to reproduce your personal results, even if they had good will. So again, you can publish more or less what you wish, as long as it seems to fit into some large picture. That’s certainly what many people do, and I am quite sure that only a tip of the iceberg stands out.
124. Gazoo Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 2:10 pm are there ‘new’ retractions, these ‘without the girl’ on them?
125. Columbia Chemist Says:
     February 6th, 2007 at 5:11 pm OK guys, enough arguing. I was there at columbia. I know all the details you are missing. Daliis very much responsible for this. He didn’t know what was going on at first but he knew that Bengu was fabricating results LOOOONG before she graduated. He was warned many many times that her results couldn’t be repeated. He didn’t do anything then because he was screwing her at the time. She basically did everything and made everything up to make him happy because she was in love with him. From my personal interaction with the man, I have to say honestly that he strikes me as one with psychopathic tendencies. I say this with all honesty and it is not meant as a cheap shot. I don’t believe the man has human emotions. He’s diabolical.
126. Anonymouse Says:
     February 6th, 2007 at 9:21 pm #125 Since you were there:What happened with Bengu’s post-doc with Khosla and how did she end up in Heidelberg?
127. Shrug Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 7:13 am The plot thickens…
128. Gazoo Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 9:44 am Diabolical, emotion-less Dali?
     Like father (mentor) like son?
     Note the (appropriate?) K[h]O[sla]SN connection!
     Coke strewn paper publishing parties?
     Next thing you know there’ll be a diaper-stalker, this time from CU, as opposed to NASA!
     Time for one of the chemists to auto-nominate themselves for some scientific door-prize, n’est pas?
129. TheCurtain Says:
     February 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm What about the mentor’s mentor? Notwithstanding important science, is there craven self-servitude, coupled with shameless self promotion, even for Big-Pharma awards by companies whose drug candidates compete with those of said self-promoter .. coupled with (but not CH activated by) a modicum of coi/bioethics issues … of lovely Mrs self-promoter? Get (or has the SEC investigated) any good (bio tech) stock tip[ee]s lately? Waddabout all those infrastructure problems in that research building that sort of needed … replacement because of all those design, building/construction and facilities management flaws ….. w/couldn’t those impeach the efficacy of reaction conditions?
130. FooFighter Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 5:18 pm Did the mentor win the ACS RA award?
     Did the mentor arrange his own nomination for award?
131. ethics-and-safety-concerns Says:
     August 10th, 2007 at 4:26 am TO: Human Resources, Employee Relations, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) RE: Sloan Policy on Conflict of Interest [COI]/clinical trials FROM: Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering InstitutePlease clarify Sloan’s policies relative to the following Conflict of Interest [COI]/ethics issues: On occasion an intuitive (and persistent cancer) patient (or their proxy) accesses the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory via phone, seeking information about (and participation in) epothilone clinical trials conducted at MSKCC. In the past the non-clinician Ph.D. Administrative Manager [AM] (the spouse of the Principal Investigator [PI]) of the high profile Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory has instructed me (a junior, but not direct report) to keep secret (withhold/embargo) known information relative to the availability of clinical trials conducted at MSKCC on a (Bristol Myers Squibb [and/or possibly Novartis’] – developed epothilone derivative) drug candidate(s) that compete(s) directly with an epothilone analogue candidate that emanates from the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory, in variance with the above-mentioned queries and the fact that the AM had actually apprised me that a clinical trial on the competitor’s drug candidate(s) was or were commencing (or had commenced) at Sloan and then instructed me to embargo this information. The AM subsequently attempted to cloak her motives by stating “ours are better than theirs,” invoking early, at that point unverified comparative in-vitro and/or in-vivo data points (supplied by a colleague whose scientific methodology had been questioned on more than one occasion by disparate, mutually exclusive researchers, administrators and/or industrial courtship candidates who did not know of each other’s concerns about the Sloan colleague researcher). At that point in time the Bioorganic’s candidate was ~ an estimated 1 year from the start of a proposed and hoped for clinical trial (which has apparently since begun [off site, and possibly at Sloan]). Germane is a financially significant, development /rights purchase of a Bioorganic Laboratory epothilone drug candidate by Roche via Kosan (its licensee). Although one can understand the premise of not promoting a competitor’s product, that business tenet would clearly not be applicable in this situation at Sloan. Though I have been warned on more than one occasion to not report these problems by Sloan employees I’ve felt uncomfortable misleading (seemingly desperate cancer) patients and I have always referred these queries to either the MSKCC Physician Referral help line or to administrators or nurse clinicians affiliated with the clinician under whose aegis the BMS [and/or possibly the Novartis] trial (and possibly, now, the Bioorganic candidate’s study) is apparently conducted at Sloan) for proper vetting. That the Administrative Manager would place her own potential financial successes and results above the content of the character of the Sloan-Kettering Institute does not surprise me. That she instructed (and expected me) to abet this initiative was out of line and evidence of a lack of respect for the Institute and for myself. I did not think that the AM would go so low as to expect me to do her dirty work or to drop her guard to the point that she’d expose herself, the lab and Sloan to this type of ethics liability, considering that the Bioorganic Compounds might very well prove to be the best of the epothilone class, after proper clinical trial vetting. Such a tack, if followed would be in variance with that espoused by [Varmus, Nurse, Mendelsohn and/or Abeloff] on the ‘Titans of Cancer’ television special. My parent’s first child died of complications from childhood leukemia at Memorial Hospital two years before I was born. A child with this affliction today stands a good chance of survival due in no small part to the therapeutic advances fomented at Sloan and other like-minded Institutions, yet if the above-mentioned bio-ethically challenged tack were allowed to continue unchecked, it would tarnish the otherwise important science and medicine that emanates from MSKCC and instead of properly steeling hope, Sloan Kettering would merely be stealing hope, one clinical trial enrollee at a time. There is a difference between proudly standing behind one’s brilliant work product and bending the rules when convenient for oneself, especially when lives may be in the balance and when the professionals bending rules are people and/or Institutions who clearly know better and who claim to be standard bearers of higher ethical practice. A US Army General (possibly a War-College dean/affiliate) has stated (I paraphrase) that Harvard MBA candidates learn to overcome ethics while pursuing a profit. Such an MO may be in variance with the COI and ethics policies of MSKCC. The above mentioned instance of craven self-servitude is coupled with other episodes of intermittently palpable disingenuousness at Sloan (e.g. that the AM is considered a “full time” employee, yet is often on campus perhaps 50% time and has had the temerity to complain during work hours via phone from off-campus that she could not check her stocks), peculiar acts of self promotion (e.g.: arranging for one’s own nomination for scientific accolades and acting surprised and naïve when awarded them), a protégé professor who fellowshipped in the Bioorganic Lab involved in his own hubris inspired imbroglio (retraction of multiple tenure facilitating papers and allegations of having an affair with a student and of her irreproducible data) and the egregious physical plant shortcomings at the Institute (design, building/construction and facilities management flaws in the RRL laboratory building [whose cover-up (and the ruse invoked while duping the rightfully concerned local community, the community board and the city relative to systemic infrastructure problems in the RRL and safety issues at MSKCC prior to obtaining zoning variances) that allowed for the construction of the new/replacement Sloan research tower has resulted in the conjuring and synchronizing of cover stories (as well as threats against employees who appropriately report environmental health and safety (EH&S) problems at Sloan) by MSKCC (facilities management and other Sloan administrators). Sloan had to previously abandon a building due to facilities/infrastructure problems that allowed for its employees to be exposed to unsafe levels of carbon monoxide]; these infrastructure problems stands to impeach the credibility of the research conducted at Sloan (e.g.: cross contamination between supposedly mutually exclusive fume hoods and ductwork whose controls were knowingly not installed properly by MSK). It has also been reported that the PI of the Bioorganic Laboratory has attempted to leverage (to the point of irritating) the clinician overseeing clinical trials at Sloan to continue and/or increase enrollment in a trial of the above-mentioned bioorganic drug candidate in variance with the clinician’s concerns about the bioorganic drug candidate’s efficacy and patient safety. This is significant because very large milestone dependent royalty payments are contingent upon continued enrollment of patients and/or completion of a clinical trial’s ‘Phase.’ A high profile researcher/clinician (a deputy physician in chief) at Sloan has been arrested following an SEC investigation for insider (Imclone) stock trading while off-scale windfall profits have been available to biotech company insiders at Sloan and perhaps their fortunate tipees (e.g.: Ariad [stock ticker: Aria] whose stock price jumped one hundred (100) times or ten thousand (10,000) percent during a relatively short ~ five (5) month period (10/99-3/00) following removal of a “buy” impediment [the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, pardoned by President Clinton, has sat on the Board of Ariad]). Although the honest application of the forces of commerce (monetary reward for brilliant and properly vetted hard work) are appropriate, inappropriate leverage by a powerful non-clinician possibly resulting in someone being a pawn so that the non-clinician or the Institute could receive a royalty payment that lay in the balance, or the embargoing of known information about the availability of competitor’s clinical trial drug candidates are likely not. For the protection of the Institute, in these times of heightened corporate, medical and pharmaceutical industry scrutiny and accountability, given that the research conducted in the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory is funded in part by government (eg: NIH RO1 [discovery] and RAID [scale-up for industrial development (the NIH researcher/administrator who vetted the Sloan epothilone candidate prior to award of an NIH RAID grant has since sat on the Board of Kosan)]) grants and philanthropic (eg: MSKCC Major Donor) sources and that MSKCC is reviewed (and accredited) by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO), please clarify Sloan’s policy relative to the ethics/conflict of interest awkwardness discussed in this note. Is Sloan a leader in the fight against cancer or merely a cog in the “cancer racket”?
132. Anonymous Says:
     August 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm ?
133. Herman Blume Says:
     August 10th, 2007 at 8:25 pm Nice. I think I know this person…
134. Herman Blume Says:
     August 10th, 2007 at 8:28 pm #131: I think you could have made your point better by focusing on your real issue and skip all the crap. It has the tone of a rant, that usually doesn’t bode well…
135. … concerns Says:
     August 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am skipping all the cr*p, bottom line: real ethics and safety issues at MSKCC.

This entry was posted by Paul on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 1:08 AM and is filed under ChemBark 1.x, ChemBark Investigations, Chemistry Blogs, Chemmys, Sames-Sezen, Science Media, Scientific Misconduct. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.