[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 132 (Tuesday, July 11, 1995)]
[Notices]
[Page 35749]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-16961]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Office of the Secretary
Findings of Scientific Misconduct
AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity
has made final findings of scientific misconduct in the following case:
James Urban, M.D., Ph.D., California Institute of Technology: The
Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has found that James L. Urban, M.D.,
Ph.D., engaged in scientific misconduct. This finding is based on an
investigation by the California Institute of Technology (CIT) which
concluded that Dr. Urban committed serious errors in judgment and
serious scientific misconduct in connection with fabricating certain
research data in two scientific papers that were published in the
journal Cell. The first paper is J. Urban, V. Kumar, D. Kono, C. Gomez,
S. Horvath, J. Clayton, D. Ando, E. Sercarz, and L. Hood, ``Restricted
Use of T Cell Receptor V Genes on Murine Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis
Raises Possibilities for Antibody Therapy,'' Cell. 54: 577-592 (1988).
The second paper at issue is J.L. Urban, S.J. Horvath and L. Hood,
``Autoimmune T Cells: Immune Recognition of Normal and Variant Peptide
Epitopes and Peptide-based Therapy,'' Cell. 59: 257-271 (1989).
Specifically, the CIT Report states that Dr. Urban admitted that he
fabricated two control lanes reported in Figure 5 of the Cell. 54
paper. With respect to the Cell. 59 paper, the CIT Report states that
Dr. Urban admitted that he circulated draft copies of the manuscript
that contained fabricated data in order to circumvent both the internal
and external review processes.
Dr. Urban has accepted the ORI findings and agreed to exclude
himself voluntarily, for a period of three years beginning June 2,
1995, from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the
United States Government and from eligibility for, or involvement in,
nonprocurement transactions (e.g., grants and cooperative agreements)
of the United States Government as defined in 45 CFR part 76 and 48 CFR
subparts 9.4 and 309.4 (Debarment Regulations). This voluntary
exclusion does not apply to Dr. Urban's current or future practice of
clinical medicine or training, whether as a resident, fellow, or
licensed practitioner, unless that practice involves the proposing,
conducting, or reporting of biomedical or behavioral research or
research training. Dr. Urban also agreed to exclude himself voluntarily
from serving on any Public Health Service Advisory Committees, Boards,
and/or peer review committees for the same three-year period.
ORI acknowledges that Dr. Urban cooperated with the CIT
Investigation Committee during its investigation of allegations of
scientific misconduct and with ORI in its resolution of this matter.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Director, Division of Research
Investigations, Office of Research Integrity, 301-443-5330.
Chris B. Pascal,
Acting Director, Office of Research Integrity.
[FR Doc. 95-16961 Filed 7-10-95; 8:45 am]
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