A postdoc at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine who the U.S. Office of Research Integrity found engaged in research misconduct while a postdoc at another institution has been awarded an NIH grant just months after being sanctioned.
The postdoc, Shuo Chen, didn’t admit or deny the ORI’s findings, but agreed to one year of supervision for any research funded by the U.S. Public Health Service, which includes the NIH, as we’ve previously reported.
That year began on Feb. 28, 2022, and less than four months later Chen was awarded a coveted and competitive K99 “pathway to independence” grant for “Elucidating circuit mechanisms of brain rhythms in the aging brain” on June 15, according to NIH RePORTER. The $135,945 grant is from the National Institute on Aging.
Chen is listed as a postdoc on the lab website of NYU School of Medicine neuroscientist Zhe Sage Chen (no relation), and also appears in a 2021 photo of members of György Buzsáki’s NYU lab. The grant abstract mentions training in the labs of Zhe Sage Chen, Buzsáki, and Thomas Wisniewski, director of NYU Langone’s Pearl I. Barlow Center for Memory Evaluation and Treatment and its Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
We emailed Shuo Chen for comment but have not heard back. NYU Langone Health media relations sent us this statement after we reached out to Zhe Sage Chen for comment:
In compliance with ORI requirements, NYU Langone Health has instituted a robust, multi-level supervision plan to ensure the scientific integrity of the research activities conducted by Dr. Shuo Chen. He is currently working under the direct supervision of faculty mentors overseeing the work on his K99 award as well as under the oversight of a separate monitoring committee responsible for reviewing his work overall.
The ORI case summary includes this description of the supervision plan:
A committee of 2-3 senior faculty members at the institution who are familiar with Respondent’s field of research, but not including Respondent’s supervisor or collaborators, will provide oversight and guidance during the Supervision Period. The committee will review primary data from Respondent’s laboratory on a quarterly basis and submit a report to ORI at six (6) month intervals setting forth the committee meeting dates and Respondent’s compliance with appropriate research standards and confirming the integrity of Respondent’s research.
The committee will conduct an advance review of each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS-supported research in which Respondent is involved. The review will include a discussion with Respondent of the primary data represented in those documents and will include a certification to ORI that the data presented in the proposed application, report, manuscript, or abstract is supported by the research record.
In 2019, Shuo Chen, formerly a postdoc in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, received the Science & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation, and was also included on MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35” list.
In March of this year, the ORI published its findings of its investigation of Chen:
ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, and/or recklessly falsifying data and methods by altering, reusing, and relabeling source two-photon microscopy and electrophysiological data to represent images of mouse hippocampal neurons in the following grant application: K99 NS116562-01, “Investigation into network dynamics of hippocampal replay sequences by ultrafast voltage imaging,” submitted to NINDS, NIH, on June 25, 2019
It is not unprecedented for researchers sanctioned by ORI go on to win new NIH funding, research has shown. A 2017 study of 284 researchers who ORI had sanctioned in various ways between 1992 and 2016 found that 17 had won more than $100 million in NIH grants for new projects. Nearly half of the total number of sanctioned researchers continued to publish or work in research in some way.
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“A committee of 2-3 senior faculty members at the institution who are familiar with Respondent’s field of research, but not including Respondent’s supervisor or collaborators, will provide oversight and guidance during the Supervision Period. ”
I wonder if this senior faculty member will be on that committee?
https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/michele-pagano
Pubpeer record: https://pubpeer.com/search?q=michele+pagano
Second retraction here:
http://retractionwatch.com/2016/11/14/two-harvard-led-groups-pull-well-cited-cancer-papers-for-duplication/
I’d rather give junior researchers a second chance. K99 is a grant for trainees, supposed to be submitted by a postdoc under mentors’ supervision. Once a postdoc with K99 has his independent research group, he often becomes a competitor of the mentor as K99 would allow him to bring the project to his own lab. A public secret is that many lab heads are not supportive of a postdoc’s K99 application, especially those who are in the middle of their careers. See a recent article recommended by RW (“Over-possessive scholars may resort to foul play to protect their research domains, say postdocs.”) Not sure what happened at UC Berkeley. Doubtlessly, our community needs to improve postdoc mentoring to promote both scientific integrity and postdocs’ careers, as suggested by ORI (https://ori.hhs.gov/mentorship).
Sure but remember that his second chance was at the cost of a first chance for an honest junior researcher.
For every scientist who commits misconduct, we could replace them 10 times over and still not have enough jobs and fellowships for the vast majority of ECRs who want academic or research careers.
wait, how about replacing unqualified mentors first? saved grants from irresponsible established PIs will help MORE ECRs, young, creative, passionate, and at least, responsible.
remember that his mentor’s second chance came at the cost of one or more killed postdocs and the chance for responsible mentors. we could replace them 10 times over and still not have enough jobs and fellowships for the vast majority of ECRs who want academic or research careers.
yup, ending up in industry isn’t really much of a “choice”, for anyone.
Yes to both please. Get rid of bad mentors and cut off the careers of people who fake data before they can become mentors.
Anything less is a waste of taxpayer funds and sends the most talented ECRs straight into industry. It’s great for industry, bad for science.
I worked for 6 different PI’s and not one of them I thought was a good mentor. As my graduate advisor said to me: “the most you can hope for is an advisor who will not stand in your way if your project is working.”
The academic system is publish to get grants or perish. For publication, an exciting narrative supported with results, whether they are or not reproducible, is what is selected for. I don’t think most bad mentors and dishonest data collectors are born, instead, the entire academic PhD / publication system generates crappy mentors and irreproducible data, and at an alarming rate. I am not sure what the solution is.
In case anybody wonders – according to NIH reporter the K99 was likely reviewed at the AGCD 1 study section in late January of 2022 (https://public.era.nih.gov/pubroster/standingCommitteRoster.era?CID=105302), prior to publication of the ORI notice.
Let’s then hope that NIH rescinds this award, in favor of an honestly-reporting young researcher. I am doubtful though. Mysterious networks of NIH grant reviewers tend to eliminate the less-connected.
I am a retired professor in a medical school. I noticed Dr. Chen’s case a couple of months ago. Dr. Chen was found to falsify data in his K99 application at UC Berkeley. K99 is a training grant, including research and training plans (prepared by the trainee) and a mentoring plan (by the mentor). A mentor needs to discuss the proposal with the applicant thoroughly, direct how he/she should write his/her first NIH application, and review/check the application. Did Dr. Chen’s mentor provide adequate supervision? If that’s the case, such an unfortunate incident may be avoided. Throughout my career, I’ve seen many postdocs who turned into excellent PIs, where mentoring is the key to their success, while many talented postdocs, and their scientific passion, are ruined by poor mentorship. The purpose of a K99 grant is, in fact, to help postdocs receive sufficient mentoring and grow in science and professionalism.
Regarding mentoring, a stimulating reading is the memoir written in 2020 by James Ibers (RIP), for the ACA (American Crystallographic Association):
https://history.amercrystalassn.org/jim-ibers
I copy here the 1st paragraph, which is really quite extraordinary. The essential message is in the two last sentences. This sounds like an old-school message, unfortunately
“To start at the beginning, I was born in Los Angeles and lived in California for the first 25 years of my life. Early on I wanted to become an archaeologist, then an astronomer, then a chemist. So I applied to Caltech, my neighborhood school for science and engineering, and was accepted after a grueling three-hour written examination. Before the first quarter of school began I was required, as were all 160-admitted Freshmen [no women in those days], to attend a one-week orientation camp on Santa Catalina Island. The most important message I took away was the Caltech Honor Code for all undergraduates. In its simplest terms: You can’t cheat in Science because you will eventually be found out. I have adhered to that Code as a husband, a father, a scientist, a teacher, a research director, and all others I have dealt with.”
A number of comments here have suggested the mentor as potentially responsible for Chen’s misconduct. In fact, the mentor discovered and reported the falsified data, and was not responsible for the misconduct. It is too bad that Chen was awarded a K99 after falsifying data in a previous K99 application, instead of another brilliant and qualified early-career scientist with a clean conduct record. Yes, people deserve another chance, but perhaps not with one of the most coveted grants in academia. It is also entirely possible that he falsified previous work leading to his publications, so his own track record may be dubious and weaker than advertised.