A former department chair engaged in research misconduct in work funded by 19 grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.
Richard Eckert, formerly the chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and deputy director of the university’s Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, faked data in 13 published papers and two grant applications, ORI found.
The ORI finding stated Eckert “engaged in research misconduct in research supported by” every NIH grant on which he served as principal investigator, totaling more than $19 million. The finding also lists multiple “Center Core Grants” worth hundreds of millions for shared resources and facilities at research centers.
Of the 13 papers in which Eckert faked Western blot and microscopy image data, according to ORI, four have been corrected and one retracted, and Eckert must request corrections or retractions for the remaining eight. The 13 papers have been cited 488 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
“Suppression of AP1 Transcription Factor Function in Keratinocyte Suppresses Differentiation,” originally appeared in PLOS ONE in 2012 and has been cited 20 times. The journal retracted it in 2021, citing the University of Maryland’s investigation.
“The investigation committee recommended retraction of the article and concluded that it is compromised in light of their findings” about two of the figures, the retraction notice states.
According to ORI’s findings, Eckert erased a band in one of the paper’s figures “to falsely show a favorable result.”
In the 13 papers and two grant applications, Eckert used and reused images “representing unrelated experiments, with or without manipulating them, and falsely relabeling them as data representing different proteins and/or experimental results,” ORI found.
Eckert agreed to forgo contracting with the federal government or receiving government funding for eight years, longer than the three-year bans or supervision periods that ORI typically imposes. Eckert also agreed not to serve on any advisory or peer review committees for the U.S. Public Health Service, which includes the NIH, for eight years.
Eckert has not responded to our request for comment sent to his university email address, which did not bounce. The finding is the fourth announced by the ORI this year.
According to the University of Maryland’s 2019 announcement naming him deputy director of the university’s cancer center, Eckert “is internationally-renowned for his pioneering discoveries in the area of surface epithelial biology.” His studies “have led to enhanced understanding of normal skin biology and to insights regarding the mechanisms that drive skin diseases including cancer.”
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All penalties assessed by the ORI are completely ridiculous. “not to serve on any advisory or peer review committees” is something like a Christmas gift. And 8 years are better than 3.
The bottomline is he is out of academia.
“Trust the science”
He was born in 1953, so is now 70 or 71. He can easily retire, and live off his state pension / TIAA-CREF account! Am sure he is laughing all the way to the bank… ORI did not make him personally pay back the funding for the fraudulent grants.
Yes, he has had a good career! He gets to retire comfortably, while the others who did not get his grants were denied tenure and are now high school teachers or unemployed/homeless!
> ORI did not make him personally pay back the funding
> for the fraudulent grants.
>
I’d expect this to be well outside the range of penalties that ORI is even allowed to consider. The contract was almost certainly with UM, not with Eckert, so clawing back the money would need him to be fined for the same amount, and I’d be very surprised if ORI as a non judicial body can inflict fines. They’d need to sue him I suspect…
Not surprised that why our human beings still haven’t solved the cancer.
So much progress has been made in cancer despite the complex nature of the disease.
Why is research conduct involving grants not prosecuted as fraud? Is there some reason it shouldn’t be? Martha Stewart did time for much less.