Thereza Imanishi-Kari

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Thereza Imanishi-Kari (born 1943 in Brazil) is an Associate Professor of Pathology at Tufts University.

[edit] Biography

Imanishi-Kari is best known for her role in an affair of alleged scientific misconduct. In 1986, Imanishi-Kari had co-authored a scientific paper on immunology with David Baltimore. The paper, published in the scientific journal Cell, showed unexpected results on how the immune system rearranges its genes to produce antibodies against antigens it encounters for the first time. Margot O'Toole, a researcher in Imanishi-Kari's lab, claimed she could not reproduce some of the experiments in the paper and accused Imanishi-Kari of fabricating the data. Since the research had been funded by the U.S. federal government through the National Institutes of Health, the matter was taken up by the United States Congress, where it was aggressively pursued by, among others, Representative John Dingell. Largely on the basis of these findings, NIH's fraud unit, then called the Office of Scientific Integrity, accused Dr. Imanishi-Kari in 1991 of falsifying data and recommended she be barred from receiving research grants for 10 years. In 1996, a newly-constituted HHS appeals panel, appointed by the federal government reviewed the case again and dismissed all charges against Imanishi-Kari. She continues as a scientist and publishes successfully. "The Baltimore Case" (1998), by Daniel Kevles, the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University details the case. The mathematician Serge Lang, presented a different view in an article published in the journal Ethics and Behaviour in January 1993 [1].