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January 22, 2012

Red wine researcher charged with falsifying data


A University of Connecticut researcher known for hyping the health benefits of red wine has been accused of at least 145 instances of fabricating and falsifying data with image-editing software, according to a three-year investigation made public by the university Jan. 11.

The researcher, Dr. Dipak K. Das, is director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut and a professor in the department of surgery.

Some of Das' articles, as many as 26 in 11 journals, have reported positive effects from resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine thought to increase longevity in laboratory animals.

The university said in a press release that it has frozen all externally funded research in the Indian American researcher's lab and will return a total of $890,000 in two new federal grants awarded to Das by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

The university also said it has initiated proceedings to fire Das, who has tenure.

A special review board set up by the University of Connecticut allegedly found evidence of fraud in published papers dating from 2002 and in three grant applications. The findings of a 60,000-page report have been sent to 11 journals that originally published the articles for possible retractions.

The probe of Das began in January 2009, two weeks after the university received an anonymous allegation about irregularities in his lab. The U.S. Office of Research Integrity also told the university in 2008 about alleged fraud in a 2007 article in Free Radical Biology and Medicine and co-authored by Das.

The ORI is now conducting its own probe of Das' research, the university said. Other members of the CRC research team are also under investigation by the university.

"We have a responsibility to correct the scientific record and inform peer researchers across the country," Philip Austin, interim vice president of health affairs at the University of Connecticut, said in a statement.

Das had not been reached for comment at his university e-mail by press deadline. Several reports said that he is in India. Das said in a letter to the university after being made aware of the report last May that he believes he is being singled out for blame because he is Indian American.

Das alleged in the letter that the accusations against him are part of an effort to rid the university of the "Indian community," since most of those being investigated are Indian American researchers.

"I became the Devil for the Health Center, and so did all the Indians working for me," he wrote. "The evidence for conspiracy and racial hatred is overwhelming."

Das also indicated serious health problems that he attributed to the investigation.

"If you remember, you handed me a report in an envelope [May 10] at 4:12 p.m. in your office," Das wrote to one university official. "As I was extremely sick and I had to undergo treatments until this week. Only yesterday, I got chance to open it, and found a 60,000 pages of electronic documents that need to be addressed within four days."

"As you can realize it is humanly impossible, and totally impossible for a man in my condition. As you know, because of the development of tremendous amount of stress in my work environment in recent months, I became a victim of stroke for which I am undergoing treatment. My right side is affected that restricts my mobility, I suffered several hemorrhages within my brain, and I have brain ischemia/scar, epilepsy and many other complications that prevent me working continuously."

"I consulted my physicians and lawyers and according to them just to read the document may need more than a year. Analysis of the document from the computer results in tremendous stress and likely to cause hemorrhage. The major problem is I don't even remember what happened approximately 10 years ago and who did what, as most of our original documents since 1970 [last 40 years] were confiscated/destroyed by the vice president of the Health Center..."

NutraIngredients.com reported Jan. 17 that they had reached Das in India, where he said he is hospitalized after suffering another stroke. He reiterated his accusations of racial bias and added that "six more Indians" are on the university's "hit list." The accusations, he added, "are all a bunch of lies and Indians are being framed. I happen to be the chief."

University of Connecticut spokesman Chris De Francisco said the university was aware of the racial accusations, but had no comment while dismissal proceedings against Das are underway. He confirmed that the investigation of other researchers in the lab is ongoing.

The review board in its report cited "a pervasive attitude of disregard within CRC for commonly accepted scientific practices in the publication and reporting of research data...Given the large number of irregularities discovered in this investigation...the (review board) can only conclude that they were the result of intentional acts of data falsification and fabrication, designed to deceive."

The alleged fraud involved images of "blots" obtained through gel electrophoresis featured in article figures, Medscape Medical News said. Most figures showed Western blots, designed to study proteins.

Using Photoshop software as a forensic tool, the review board determined dozens of images showed evidence of inappropriate manipulation by "photo imaging software."

The most egregious examples were pasted-up "artificial blots" that "bear no resemblance to any legitimate experiment" and represent total fabrications, the report said.

The report said there were also background erasures, image duplications and images spliced together. Splicing blot images is allowed, but researchers must detail such manipulations, a practice not followed by Das in his articles, Medscape News said.

The report said that as head of the lab and senior author of all but one of the articles, Das "bears principal responsibility for the fabrication and/or falsification that occurred."

The report quoted Das' response saying that he doesn't know who prepared the figures that appeared in the journal articles. It also said he has provided "no substantive information" that could explain the research irregularities.

Resveratrol Partners, a company marketing a resveratrol-based dietary supplement called Longevinex, said in a press release that Das "is attending a scientific conference in India and has not been able to respond to the allegations," Medscape News reported.

Resveratrol Partners' Web site highlights some of Das's studies on the cardiovascular benefits of resveratrol. The company's managing partner Bill Sardi said Das doesn't have any business dealings with the firm and other researchers have confirmed the value of Longevinex, Medscape News added.

The New York Times said last week that the charges, if verified, are unlikely to affect the field of resveratrol research, because Das' work was peripheral to its central claims, several of which are in contention.

"Today I had to look up who he is," David Sinclair, a leading resveratrol expert at the Harvard Medical School, told the Times. "His papers are mostly in specialty journals."

The development, however, could influence research grants. Das was able to get large awards despite the low visibility and lack of rigorousness of his research.

Renate Myles, a spokeswoman for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, told the Times that scientific misconduct "can go undetected for a length of time even under the most rigorous systems of research oversight and review."

The Times said that Das appears in 588 articles listed in Google Scholar, "though some may be by other researchers with the same name and initials."
Courtesy: Richard Springer

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