Nature Article Feb 2004
NATURE|VOL 427 | 19 FEBRUARY 2004
Misconduct row fuels calls for reform
Carina Dennis,Sydney
A fierce row over misconduct allegations has prompted Australian researchers to call for an office of research integrity to be set up. The issue came to a head on 10 February, when Senator Kim Carr, research spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, released to parliament an unpublished report of an inquiry into allegations made about an immunologist at the University of New South Wales.
The case centres on Bruce Hall, a transplant immunologist working on graft tolerance. In 2001,Hall was accused by four complainants in his laboratory of fabricating and falsifying experimental results in an abstract and paper, providing false data in a grant application, misattributing authorship credit and workplace bullying. The experiments in question involved the use of cells from the immune system � called CD4_ T cells � to transfer graft tolerance to rats with transplanted hearts.Hall emphatically denies the allegations. View More Nature Article Feb 2004