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I get a daily message from Retraction Watch about retractions. It's a sad situation when scientists feel the need to cheat.


ORI sanctions Oregon eye stem cell researcher for faking data in grant applications

Retraction Watch
Peter Francis

Peter Francis, a former Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) eye researcher, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for claiming, in grant applications, to have performed experiments that he hadn’t actually done.

According to ORI’s case summary, Francis engaged in research misconduct in research reported in two grant applications, R01 EY021214-01 and resubmitted as R01 EY021214-01A1, that he submitted to the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Specifically, ORI finds that the Respondent fabricated results of a pilot experiment in which he claimed to have injected retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells obtained from Rhesus monkey embryonic stem cells (ECS) into a strain of rats (RCS) that develops retinal degeneration.

Respondent claimed that after the injection of ECS-derived RPE cells 21 days postnatal, the rats were tested at day 60 postnatal for optomotor acuity, and that the retinal histology of eyes receiving ECS-derived RPE cells, compared to mock-injected controls, showed enhanced photoreceptor preservation and no adverse effects. Respondent admitted that this experiment had not been conducted either by the time the original grant application had been submitted or by the time the later R01 EY021214-01A1 application was submitted.

For two years, Francis will need to have his research supervised, and “any institution employing him shall provide assurance that each application for PHS funds, or report, manuscript, or abstract involving PHS supported research in which Respondent was involved was based on actual experiments or was otherwise legitimately derived.” He also can’t serve on any NIH peer review or other committees during that time.

He was at Oregon Health Sciences University’s Casey Eye Institute at the time he submitted the fraudulent grant applications, but decided to leave OHSU at the conclusion of the investigation, a university spokesperson tells Retraction Watch.

There are no retractions involved, because there haven’t been any papers, but Francis is reasonably well-published, including in JAMA. He has also worked with Advanced Cell Technologies on stem cell treatments for retinal disease, but an ACT spokesperson tells us:

Peter Francis was not involved in any meaningful way with the work/research related to ACT.

Francis also won Career Development Awards from the Foundation Fighting Blindness and Research to Prevent Blindness.

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