CRIME & COURTS

Former ISU scientist who faked AIDS research indicted

Grant Rodgers
grodgers@dmreg.com
Dong-Pyou Han, right front, resigned from Iowa State University last fall after admitting he committed research fraud. Officials have said his supervisor, Michael Cho, front left, was not at fault.

A former Iowa State University scientist who admitted faking lab results used to obtain millions of dollars in grant money for AIDS research has been charged with four felony counts of making false statements, an indictment filed in federal court shows.

Dr. Dong Pyou Han left a job as a laboratory manager at the university last year after admitting that he spiked rabbit blood with human antibodies that made it appear the animals' immune systems were reacting to an AIDS vaccine being tested. In reality, the vaccine was having little affect, according to the indictment of Han.

Before the fraud was detected, the research was hailed as "groundbreaking," according to the federal indictment.

The federal charges filed by Nicholas Klinefeldt, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, each carry a sentence of up to five years in prison. Han was arrested Monday and appeared before a magistrate judge in Ohio before being released. Han is scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse in Des Moines on Tuesday.

"These cases are important for the integrity of the system," Klinefeldt told The Des Moines Register today. "This is important research; there's a lot of research money at stake here."

Han managed the laboratory and conducted research at ISU under Dr. Michael Cho as part of a team working to find a vaccine for the HIV/AIDS virus. The pair had previously researched at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio before moving to ISU in 2009. Their research had been awarded $19 million in grants from the federal National Institutes of Health.

The case prompted U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley to question whether the government would ever be able to recoup any grant money awarded as the result of Han's fraud. In a May 9 letter to Grassley, a director with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wrote that ISU would have to repay $496,832, which was the amount of federal grant money that went toward paying Han's salary.

A federal administrator has said $10 million in grant money was given to the research team based on promising reports that were the result of Han's manipulations.

Han's prosecution should send a message to university officials and researchers nationwide that fraud in research activities can be a criminal offense, said Arthur Caplan, a medical ethics professor at New York University. Caplan called for Han to be prosecuted in a January interview with The Des Moines Register.

Caplan today said he was "surprised" but pleased to hear that Han will face prosecution. Too often, serious ethical and legal violations by researchers can end up being settled privately without the public's knowledge, he said.

"I think it sends an appropriate message about research misconduct and misuse of taxpayer funds and the dangers that misconduct can cause to vulnerable patients," he said. "If you lie about research you can wind up really harming people because other people rely on your claims."

Caplan called Han's faked research one of the most "blatant" ethical lapses he's seen from a researcher.