Judge: Scripps scientist told lies
By JEFF OSTROWSKI
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2011
JUPITER — A Scripps Florida cancer researcher has been barred from receiving federal research grants for three years because, investigators say, he published bogus data in scientific journals before he joined Scripps.
Philippe Bois, 40, an assistant professor in the department of cancer biology at Scripps Florida, "knowingly and intentionally falsified data" that appeared in articles in 2005 in The Journal of Cell Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Research Integrity said last week .
Bois disputes the finding and intends to appeal, The Scripps Research Institute said in a prepared statement. Bois declined to comment.
Bois was a postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis when he conducted the research cited by federal investigators. He joined Scripps Florida in 2007.
"In publishing incomplete and inaccurate articles, Respondent Bois committed serious scientific misconduct," Administrative Law Judge Carolyn Cozad Hughes wrote in a May decision.
A National Institutes of Health spokeswoman said it's unclear how last week's finding will affect federal funding for two projects Bois is working on at Scripps Florida. Bois is the principal investigator on two projects funded by NIH - one a $291,750 grant that ends in August, the other a $320,760 grant for work through 2015.
NIH grants are the lifeblood of scientific research in the United States, and they're one of the performance measures that a state oversight board tracks as it monitors taxpayers' investment in Scripps Florida. The institute won $35 million in NIH grants in 2010.
The article in the Journal of Cell Biology was co-authored by Bois and five other scientists, including John Cleveland, now chairman of Scripps Florida's department of cancer biology.
For that article, Bois conducted two 2003 experiments into a protein's effect on certain types of childhood tumors. Only one of the two experiments supported Bois' hypothesis that a malfunction of the FOXO1a gene led to soft-tissue cancer, and he didn't report the experiment that didn't favor his theory, Cozad Hughes wrote.
Bois said a second experiment supported his theory, but there are no lab records to document the findings and the lab couldn't reproduce the results, the judge wrote.
The Journal of Cell Biology retracted the article in 2007, but not before it was cited seven times by other scientists.
"His colleagues in the scientific world studied and were ultimately misled by its contents, causing further waste of time and resources," Cozad Hughes wrote.
The article in Molecular and Cellular Biology was written by Bois and three other scientists, including Tina Izard, Bois' wife and now an associate professor in Scripps Florida's department of cancer biology.
For that article, Bois altered an image that appeared in the journal, then blamed a graduate student, the Office of Research Integrity said. Molecular and Cellular Biology issued a correction in 2007.
Cozad Hughes wrote that Bois described his mistakes as "honest errors" rather than intentional lies but rejected his argument.
A finding of research misconduct can lead to disciplinary action by a scientist's employer and suspension of federal grants, NIH said. Scripps wouldn't say whether any action has been taken against Bois.
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