Luk Van Parijs

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Luk Van Parijs was an associate professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Cancer Research. After investigating for a year, MIT fired Van Parijs for research misconduct. In a press release, MIT claimed Van Parijs admitted to fabricating and falsifying research data in a paper, several unpublished manuscripts, and grant applications.

Van Parijs' area of research was in the use of short-interference RNA in studying disease mechanisms, especially in autoimmune diseases. He was studying normal immune cell function and defects in these cells during disease development.

Contents

[edit] Timeline

  • About 1970: Born in Belgium.
  • Before 1997: Receives undergraduate education at Cambridge University in England.
  • About 1993 - 1997: Works in the laboratory of Dr. Abul Abbas at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
  • 1997: Earns doctorate in immunology from Harvard.
  • 1998 - 2000: Postdoctoral student in the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at MIT and California Institute of Technology.
  • 2000: Joins the biology department at MIT.
  • 2001: MIT names him the Ivan R. Cottrell Career Development Assistant Professor of Immunology for a three-year term.
  • July 2004: MIT promotes him to the rank of associate professor, without tenure.
  • August 2004: MIT begins a confidential investigation when a group of researchers in Van Parijs' laboratory alleges research misconduct.
  • September 2004: MIT places him on paid administrative leave and revokes his lab access.
  • 3 October 2005: Baltimore resigns Caltech office of the President.
  • 6 October 2005: Caltech initiates inquiry (prompted by free-lance reporter's queries).
  • 27 October 2005: MIT fires Van Parijs.
  • 26 January 2006: Data in 2 Caltech patent applications having inventors van Parijs & others questioned in press (News media #15, below).
  • March 2007: Caltech investigation concludes: van Parijs committed research misconduct; four(4) published papers require correction.

[edit] Literature corrections

(Original paper, correction; Chronological by correction - w/in institution of origin.)

[edit] Harvard papers

[edit] Caltech papers

[edit] MIT papers

(Each correction retracts data.)

  • Nencioni A, Sandy P, Dillon C, Kissler S, Blume-Jensen P, and van Parijs L (2004) RNA interference for the identification of disease-associated genes. Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics 6(2): 136-40 (April). PMID 15195924
    • (2005) Erratum: [Nencioni A, Sandy P, Dillon C, Kissler S, Blume-Jensen P, and van Parijs L (2004) RNA interference for the identification of disease-associated genes. [Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics 6(2): 136-40]] Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics 7(3): 282 (June). Pdf available here.
  • Rubinson DA, Dillon CP, Kwiatkowski AV, Sievers C, Yang L, Kopinja J, Zhang M, McManus MT, Gertler FB, Scott ML, and van Parijs L (2003) A lentivirus-based system to functionally silence genes in primary mammalian cells, stem cells and transgenic mice by RNA interference. Nature Genetics 33(3): 401-6 (March). PMID 12590264 Figures & tables open access. Authors list subsequently changed twice by "corrigenda": June 2003 (34(2): 231) (Open access) & June 2007 (following ref.).
    • Rubinson DA, Dillon CP, Kwiatkowski AV, Sievers C, Yang L, Kopinja J, Zhang M, McManus MT, Gertler FB, Scott ML, and van Parijs L (2007) Corrigendum: A lentivirus-based system... Nature Genetics 39(6): 803 (June). Open access. Data in original paper actually removed from site.
  • Kelly E, Won A, Refaeli Y, and van Parijs L (2002) IL-2 and related cytokines can promote T cell survival by activating AKT. J. Immunology 168(2): 597-603 (15 January). PMID 11777951 Open access.
    • Kelly E, Won A, Refaeli Y, and van Parijs L (2007) Erratum: IL-2 and related cytokines... J. Immunology 179(12): 8569 (15 December). "Retraction" of Figure 5B.

[edit] News media

(Chronological)

  1. MIT New Office, "MIT professor dismissed for research misconduct," 27 Oct. 2005
  2. Boston Globe, "MIT professor is fired over fabricated data," 28 Oct. 2005
  3. Reich, Eugenie Samuel (2005) MIT professor sacked for fabricating data. NewScientist.com (28 Oct.) [1]
  4. New York Times, "M.I.T. Dismisses a Researcher, Saying He Fabricated Some Data," 28 Oct. 2005
  5. The Tech (MIT student paper), "MIT Fires Professor Van Parijs for Using Fake Data in Papers," 28 Oct. 2005
  6. Boston Globe, "More doubts raised on fired MIT professor," 29 Oct. 2005
  7. Harvard Crimson, "MIT Professor Fired for Faking Data," 31 Oct. 2005
  8. The Tech, "Van Parijs’ Research at Caltech, Brigham Drawing New Scrutiny," 1 Nov. 2005
  9. TheScientist.com, "Immunologists prepare for fraud fallout," 3 Nov. 2005
  10. Dalton, R. (2005) Universities scramble to assess scope of falsified results. Nature 438(7064): 7 (3 Nov.) PMID 16267515
  11. Couzin, J. (2005) MIT terminates researcher over data fabrication. Science 310(5749): 758 (4 Nov.) PMID 16272088
  12. New Scientist, "One bad apple..." (unsigned editorial), 5 Nov. 2005
  13. Chronicle of Higher Education, "MIT Fires Biology Professor Who Admitted Faking Data," 11 Nov. 2005
  14. unsigned editorial (2006) Scientific blues. Nature Immunology 7(1): 1 (1 Jan.) PMID 16357846
  15. Reich, E.S. (2006) Bad data fail to halt patents. Nature 439(7075): 379 (26 Jan.) PMID 16437075
  16. Odling-Smee, L., Giles, J., Fuyuno, I., Cyranoski, D., & Marris, E. (2007) Misconduct Special: Where are they now? Nature 445(7125): 244-5 (18 Jan.) PMID 17230161 Open access.
  17. Reich, E.S. (2007) Scientific misconduct report still under wraps. New Scientist ?(2361): 16 (24 Nov.) [2]

[edit] External links

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