Former UCLA Pathology Researcher Agrees to Supervision for Misconduct
According to the HHS Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Janina Jiang, M.D., Ph.D., a former assistant researcher in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, agreed to a three-year supervisory plan for committing research misconduct in three funded and eight unfunded NIH awards. Jiang “knowingly and recklessly falsif[ied] and/or fabricate[d] flow cytometry data” in the awards, ORI said. The announcement does not mention any publications resulting from the research that need to be retracted. Retraction Watch reported the three awards totaled $58.7 million, with the “vast majority” used to fund the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute. “The extent of Jiang’s part in that application and the extent to which they led to the success of the grant is unclear, but it seems likely they were a minor contribution,” Retraction Watch reported.
For three years, beginning July 22, Jiang must follow a plan for supervision prior to submitting any funding application to Public Health Service (PHS) agencies; the plan “must be designed to ensure the integrity” of her research, and include a “committee of two senior faculty members at the institution who are familiar with [Jiang’s] field of research.” Additionally, her primary data must be submitted to ORI on a quarterly basis, and, at six-month intervals, she must submit information about “committee meeting dates and [Jiang’s] compliance with appropriate research standards and confirming the integrity of [her] research.” The committee also must review any funding application before submission and submit a certification to ORI that any data she provides “are based on actual experiments or are otherwise legitimately derived and that the data, procedures, and methodology are accurately reported and not plagiarized in the application, report, manuscript, or abstract.” During the three years, she also will not serve as an advisor or consultant to any PHS agency.