A neuroscientist who studies alcohol and stress faked data in two published studies and two grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to a U.S. government watchdog.
Lara S. Hwa, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, since January 2021, “engaged in research misconduct by knowingly or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data, methods, results, and conclusions in animal models of alcohol use disorders,” the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) concluded in its findings.
ORI found Hwa, who has not immediately responded to our request for comment, “falsified and/or fabricated experimental timelines, group conditions, sex of animal subjects, mouse strains, and behavioral response data” in the grant applications and papers. The articles were published when she was a postdoc at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
One of the grant applications in which ORI said Hwa submitted fake data, “Long-term Alcohol Drinking Alters Stress Engagement of BNST Circuit Elements,” was funded for $734,145. The other grant application was “administratively withdrawn” last December. Hwa was a principal investigator on another grant, not included in ORI’s findings, that received $84,218 from 2013-2014.
“Alcohol drinking alters stress response to predator odor via BNST kappa opioid receptor signaling in male mice,” one of the papers included in ORI’s findings, appeared in eLife in July 2020. The authors retracted it in November 2021 “based on error [sic] in methods and data reporting, which they identified following publication, that cast doubt on the conclusions.”
The extensive retraction notice stated that five co-authors, not including Hwa, the first author, notified the senior author of an error in the published data. Then, the authors “deeply examined the results and identified several more errors” in the paper, which are detailed in the notice.
For several figures, the authors determined the published data “did not match the raw data values,” and after re-analyzing the raw data, “there were multiple changes in statistical significance, leading to an overall change in the interpretation of the results.”
The notice concluded:
The changes that would be required to correct the paper are sufficiently extensive that its overall conclusions must currently be considered to be in doubt. All of the authors are in agreement that retraction is the appropriate course of action.
The other paper, “Predator odor increases avoidance and glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the prelimbic cortex via corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1 signaling,” published in Neuropsychopharmacology in 2018, has not been flagged. As part of the settlement agreement Hwa agreed to, she must request that the paper – which has been cited 24 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science – be corrected or retracted.
Hwa also agreed to four years of supervision of her research, beginning on August 18 of this year. During the four years of supervision, she also may not serve on any NIH advisory or peer review committee.
Baylor University has not immediately responded to our request for comment on the findings.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
No wonder why people continue to cheat their way to the top, if the worse that can happen is four years of supervision. Strategically, it is indeed a valid option to produce fake science until you get a permanent position, disgusting.
Note that she is an assistant professor and therefore almost certainly still on the tenure track, and that at most universities such a stain essentially guarantees that tenure will be denied.
Who supervises the supervisors. Hehe.
This ‘tab’ has been open for quite a while:
https://retractionwatch.com/2012/02/26/ori-former-suny-upstate-neuroscience-dept-chair-miller-manipulated-data-in-four-grant-applications/#comments
Don’t use [sic] unless there is an actual error in the quote. If you don’t understand the grammar, don’t publish it.
It was used correctly. Read it again. Also, you should understand sic is used to denote awkward phrasing and not just errors.
You go Jesus. I am a duly sworn member of the grammar police (space division) and we would like to offer you membership in our elite grammar police force. On a trial basis, of course.
Once again Jesus saves
There was an error in thr quote.
She an assistant professor. I’m guessing whether she gets tenure or not depends on if she brings in grants, rather than this, at best, pesky ruling. IMO. she should be immediately expelled from the academy and from doing research, and placed in a hard-labor camp.
It sounds that before falsifying data in the grants, data were falsified in 2 papers that she published while she was in training as a postdoc. Aren’t PIs held responsible for training their lab members and for the data they publish with their trainees, especially if their NIH grants funded the trainee’s study?
Maybe the question should be why data was faked. Would the same journal accept this paper with only insignificant results?
Many PIs regard postdocs simply as (disposable) (cheap) labor who can do their job of training their grad students and produce papers they can just sign. The postdocs are on their own, trying to survive and get the next position, which the PI couldn’t care less if they do. This person has gamed a system that is already wrong to begin with. And while that doesn’t mean what she did was ok either, I can also see how the system is driving that kind of behaviour.
Both questions about (a) repeated data fabrication by Dr. Hwa and (b) lack of oversight by her PIs need to be addressed. I agree that focusing on just the individual will only lead to a short-term or small-scale deterrence of fraud. However, we cannot absolve the individual responsibility of Dr. Hwa in this matter.
Fake it until u make it!
This generation of milque toast “professionals,” is the death of America. Enjoy while you can.
Elisabeth Holmes has inspired the motto “FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT OR GET CAUGHT.”
I’m really glad people are using government money to trash talk about other scientists. No wonder academia is broken. Do your job and stop gossiping.
We all know that there is never only one person to blame when misconduct happens.
Well, its usually the experimenter (post doc, grad student) that does it, and her alone, which is Dr. Hwa. Her advisor didn’t catch the error, but he didn’t do the fraud. With lots of waisted money and time, we can only hope Dr. Hwa’s career in scientific research is over.