◆ The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHSCH) has paid $2.396 million to settle allegations that its Human Genetics Center misappropriated grant funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said Jan. 31. The government started investigating after it got a tip that the Human Genetics Center misappropriated funds from a grant related to human genome sequencing. “According to the source, the center wanted to draw down a substantial portion of the money remaining on the grant before the end of the grant period so that it would not have to return unused funds to the NIH. To accomplish this, the source claimed the center placed an order for a large quantity of genetic sequencing material from Illumina Inc. just prior to the end of the subject grant. They then allegedly stopped shipment of that material and had Illumina establish a credit for the material, from which the Genetics Center then used to purchase goods and services after the close out of the grant,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The source’s information allegedly was substantiated by the government’s two-year investigation. As a result, UTHSCH allegedly underreported unobligated federal funds remaining on the grant, which weren’t given back to NIH. Visit http://bit.ly/2ShwglA.