Luk Van Parijs

Luk Van Parijs was an associate professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Cancer Research. After investigating for a year, MIT fired Van Parijs for research misconduct. In a press release, MIT claimed Van Parijs admitted to fabricating and falsifying research data in a paper, several unpublished manuscripts, and grant applications.

Van Parijs' area of research was in the use of short-interference RNA in studying disease mechanisms, especially in autoimmune diseases. He was studying normal immune cell function and defects in these cells during disease development.

Timeline

* About 1970: Born in Belgium.
* Before 1997: Receives undergraduate education at Cambridge University in England.
* About 1993 - 1997: Works in the laboratory of Dr. Abul Abbas at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
* 1997: Earns doctorate in immunology from Harvard.
* 1998 - 2000: Postdoctoral student in the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at MIT and California Institute of Technology.
* 2000: Joins the biology department at MIT.
* 2001: MIT names him the Ivan R. Cottrell Career Development Assistant Professor of Immunology for a three-year term.
* July 2004: MIT promotes him to the rank of associate professor, without tenure.
* August 2004: MIT begins a confidential investigation when a group of researchers in Van Parijs' laboratory alleges research misconduct.
* September 2004: MIT places him on paid administrative leave and revokes his lab access.
* 6 October 2005: At David Baltimore's suggestion, Caltech initiates inquiry. [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626314.400-scientific-misconduct-report-still-under-wraps.html New Scientist]
* 27 October 2005: MIT fires Van Parijs.
* 26 January 2006: Data in 2 Caltech patent applications having inventors van Parijs & others questioned in press (News media #15, below).
* March 2007: Caltech investigation concludes: van Parijs committed research misconduct; four(4) published papers require correction.

Literature corrections

(Original paper, correction; Chronological by correction - w/in institution of origin.)

Harvard papers

Caltech papers

MIT papers

(Each correction retracts data.)
*Nencioni A, Sandy P, Dillon C, Kissler S, Blume-Jensen P, and van Parijs L (2004) RNA interference for the identification of disease-associated genes. "Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics" 6(2): 136-40 (April). PMID 15195924
** (2005) Erratum: [Nencioni A, Sandy P, Dillon C, Kissler S, Blume-Jensen P, and van Parijs L (2004) RNA interference for the identification of disease-associated genes. ["Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics" 6(2): 136-40] "Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics" 7(3): 282 (June). Pdf available [http://www.biomedcentral.com/1464-8431/7?issue=3 here] .
*Rubinson DA, Dillon CP, Kwiatkowski AV, Sievers C, Yang L, Kopinja J, Zhang M, McManus MT, Gertler FB, Scott ML, and van Parijs L (2003) A lentivirus-based system to functionally silence genes in primary mammalian cells, stem cells and transgenic mice by RNA interference. "Nature Genetics" 33(3): 401-6 (March). PMID 12590264 Figures & tables open access. Authors list subsequently changed twice by "corrigenda": June 2003 (34(2): 231) (Open [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v34/n2/full/ng0603-231a.html access] ) & June 2007 (following ref.).
**Rubinson DA, Dillon CP, Kwiatkowski AV, Sievers C, Yang L, Kopinja J, Zhang M, McManus MT, Gertler FB, Scott ML, and van Parijs L (2007) Corrigendum: A lentivirus-based system... "Nature Genetics" 39(6): 803 (June). Open [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v39/n6/full/ng0607-803.html access] . Data in original paper "actually removed" from [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v33/n3/fig_tab/ng1117_ft.html site] .
*Kelly E, Won A, Refaeli Y, and van Parijs L (2002) IL-2 and related cytokines can promote T cell survival by activating AKT. "J. Immunology" 168(2): 597-603 (15 January). PMID 11777951 Open access.
**Kelly E, Won A, Refaeli Y, and van Parijs L (2007) Erratum: IL-2 and related cytokines... "J. Immunology" 179(12): 8569 (15 December). "Retraction" of Figure 5"B".

News media

(Chronological)

# MIT New Office, "MIT professor dismissed for research misconduct," 27 Oct. 2005
# "Boston Globe," "MIT professor is fired over fabricated data," 28 Oct. 2005
# Reich, Eugenie Samuel (2005) MIT professor sacked for fabricating data. "NewScientist.com" (28 Oct.) [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8230]
# "New York Times," "M.I.T. Dismisses a Researcher, Saying He Fabricated Some Data," 28 Oct. 2005
# "The Tech" (MIT student paper), "MIT Fires Professor Van Parijs for Using Fake Data in Papers," 28 Oct. 2005
# "Boston Globe," "More doubts raised on fired MIT professor," 29 Oct. 2005
# "Harvard Crimson," "MIT Professor Fired for Faking Data," 31 Oct. 2005
# "The Tech," "Van Parijs’ Research at Caltech, Brigham Drawing New Scrutiny," 1 Nov. 2005
# "TheScientist.com," "Immunologists prepare for fraud fallout," 3 Nov. 2005
# Dalton, R. (2005) Universities scramble to assess scope of falsified results. "Nature" 438(7064): 7 (3 Nov.) PMID 16267515
# Couzin, J. (2005) MIT terminates researcher over data fabrication. "Science" 310(5749): 758 (4 Nov.) PMID 16272088
# "New Scientist," "One bad apple..." (unsigned editorial), 5 Nov. 2005
# "Chronicle of Higher Education," "MIT Fires Biology Professor Who Admitted Faking Data," 11 Nov. 2005
# unsigned editorial (2006) Scientific blues. "Nature Immunology" 7(1): 1 (1 Jan.) PMID 16357846
# Reich, E.S. (2006) Bad data fail to halt patents. "Nature" 439(7075): 379 (26 Jan.) PMID 16437075
# Odling-Smee, L., Giles, J., Fuyuno, I., Cyranoski, D., & Marris, E. (2007) Misconduct Special: Where are they now? "Nature" 445(7125): 244-5 (18 Jan.) PMID 17230161 Open access.
# Reich, E.S. (2007) Scientific misconduct report still under wraps. "New Scientist" ?(2361): 16 (24 Nov.) [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626314.400-scientific-misconduct-report-still-under-wraps.html]

External links

* [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/misconduct.html MIT News Office: MIT professor dismissed for research misconduct]
* [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Search&db=Pubmed&term=%22van+parijs+l%22+%5bAU%5d PubMed search] : "van parijs l" [AU]
* [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=L+Van+Parijs Google Scholar search: L Van Parijs]
* [http://web.mit.edu/ccr/ MIT Center for Cancer Research]
* [http://spectrum.mit.edu/category/issue/2003-winter/ Photo of Van Parijs]