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”
Is that true? It sounds like he’s still at the University of Maryland, in the Cancer Center.
It sounds like he should be charged criminally
Yep!
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!
I resemble that remark…..
40 published papers but couldn’t break through the wall of them that has gits!
> 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…
If it was a regular person, they would already be in jail. He’s just a normal person that broke the law and should be serving jail time and be made to pay the grants back!
Seems he owes University of Maryland a refund of the salary he received while doing the fraudulent work. He knowingly played games with tax payer’s money to advance his standing in the cancer field. Doctors and other researchers used his false information to make decisions which certainly damaged cancer patients. THAT and TAX FRAUD DEMANDS PUNISHMENT.
Not surprised that why our human beings still haven’t solved the cancer.
There’s no money in “solving”cancer; only in producing and administering countless agony-prolonging toxic treatments. “solving” or curing cancer has never been the goal, but prolonging the lives of patients who pay for treatment thereby enriching the Medical-Industrial complex.
I agree. They also put microchips in covid vaccines to control us with 5G, use chemtrails and water fluoride to dumb us down, and hide the fact that the earth is flat.
Nailed it💯
Is comment by Jim Cactus allowed by RW rules? It is propagating false, uneducated anti-science conspiracy theories about malevolent intentions of the scientific community.
I know academics would especially find this hard to believe…but, yes…it’s still a FREE country…
@George McGrow, what you said is irrelevant. You confuse a free country and a MODERATED online forum.
This is a MODERATED forum with its own RULES and Terms of Service for posting comments. When someone comments here, he agrees with the forum laws in advance.
For example, insult and even hate speech are allowed by freedom of speech and The First Amendment, but are Not allowed on RW. Retraction Watch rejects comments including even the slightest and mildest forms of insults or hate speech. I know this from experience since many of my comments have been denied publication just for one insult int them. RW sometimes even censures sarcastic remarks.
Surprised?!
———————————–
ps. It is possible that the LAW of this moderated forum (RW) allows anti-science comments. In that case, the anti-science comment of Jim Cactus would be in accordance with RW’s laws. But that is RW’s own law and has nothing to do with the ‘free country’ you said. Apples and Oranges.
touche.
This “old wives tale” of conspiracy behind our “inability” to cure cancer so that we can prop up the medical and big pharma industries is just that, a conspiracy theory. Please provide me and any of the thoughtful readers on this site any data with any real background to justify this idiotic comment. I suspect the 2020 presidential election was stolen too, right?
So much progress has been made in cancer despite the complex nature of the disease.
Unfortunately, not nearly enough progress has been made, hindered by charlatans like this guy Eckert who fake data to push incorrect hypothese and pharma companies that push ineffective drugs for $ (e g., Avastin)
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.
You “nailed it!”
Eight years just long enough for the infamy to dissipate? Why would someone be allowed to participate in ANY research in ANY capacity after this kind of gross misconduct.
Dishonest faculty should not be in academia where they could penalize a student who cheats while they are doing the same…we should not tolerate cheating in any form by any one.
You are so very correct! This taints the integritiy of my favorite health care Provider…UMMS. I wonder how Len Stoler feels about this; he and his wife just donated millions for a new Cancer Wing for UMMS!
People like him should be criminally charged and never allowed to work again. What about the people who used his data and passed away? Our world has no remorse. Let criminals be criminals and keep going.
Many people mistakenly believe that research fraud is a crime without victims, but this is clearly not the case. Among the victims are: 1. The institution suffers a blow to its reputation. 2. The credibility of the NIH peer review process is compromised. 3. Taxpayers are cheated out of $19 million in funding. 4. Stories of fraud undermine public trust and fuel anti-science movements. 5. Researchers who embarked on new projects based on this fraudulent work have wasted both time and resources. 6. Administrators wasted time and effort on processing fraudulent applications. 7. Many deserving researchers may have missed out on grants or even lost their jobs because fraudulent projects were prioritized.
You left out the most important victim: 8. Patients.
The fraudulent results find their way into clinicians’ practices, killing or harming millions of people.
The harm can have 2 forms: Either the fraudulent recommendations are dangerous: following them will directly harm the patient. Or, as the least invasive scenario, the fraudulent recommendation is a useless but harmless sham; patients will still be harmed by losing precious golden time and opportunity to treat while they are busy trying a useless sham.
Must be nice to screw the taxpayers I think he should pay it back and plus 2 times that amount in interest
No credible physician is treating patients based on basic science research ie microscopy and western blots let alone animal studies.
@MD/PhD: They actually do. All credible physicians treat their patients based on their books. And their books are written based on clinical and basic science.
Pre-clinical research like microscopy and western blots are not how medical decisions are made. You’re just wrong about this one.
Desmond, Thanks for your wisdom. FYI, preclinical research is the very foundation of medicine and pharmacology, including how medical decisions should be made. Read about:
Diagnostic biomarkers
Prognostic biomarkers
Transnational research
Drug discovery
Drug interactions and metabolism
Drug/treatment efficacy
Drug/treatment safety
Disease pathology and mechanisms
Human physiology
etc.
Retraction watch is wasting their efforts. Nowadays, you need to look for papers/grants, where the data are NOT falsified not the other way around 🙂
At an oncologist convention a journal editor heard an oncologist bragging about a powerful drug he was developing that would earn him millions of $$$$ only it wasn’t proven to work! The editor asked him how could he call the drug ‘powerful’? The doctor said ‘if you’re paying for your son’s tuition at Stamford and buying a house in Malibu, that’s powerful’ True story,
Wow! How can someone who gained so much in life, and is in a trusted position, do something so irrational knowing that the science to it don’t equal up and that it will be brought to light. We are all human but certain actions are just greed.
Please investigate him for potential Mail Fraud charges.
As a retired nurse, with a Masters from the University of Maryland and a current cancer patient fighting for her life, this doctor should be banned from medicine and research. He should lose his license to practice medicine as he has betrayed his Hippocrates Oath. He should also be charged criminally. His research could lead to a patient like me living or dying.
How could anyone now trust his departmental research from The University of Maryland?
I would like to coin a phrase, we will call this the Robin Cole and Shelly Cooper syndrome. This is where a full on out of body remote viewer talks you into cheating. Cheating on a test or at a sports event or on research papers etc…….