MUNICH

A former professor of developmental biology at the University of Geneva, where he was accused of fraud in the early 1980s, has complained that the university has for years refused to acknowledge his exoneration (see Nature 307, 673; 1985).

The University of Geneva set up an international commission of experts to investigate allegations made by his younger co-workers that Karl Illmensee fabricated (unpublished) data in nuclear-transfer experiments; such experiments are important in the development of mammalian cloning technology. The commission found no evidence in his research protocols to support or refute the accusation, and suggested that the experiments be repeated in an international collaboration.

This suggestion was followed through by Illmensee and results were published in the peer-reviewed journals Naturwissenschaft (1989) and Development (1990). Two members of the commission, Richard Gardner, a professor at Oxford University, and Anne McLaren, a principal scientist at the Wellcome Research Institute in Cambridge, wrote to the University of Geneva in 1991 explaining that the papers reproduced the “essential findings” in Illmensee's earlier experiments, despite the use in later experiments of a different cell line for practical reasons. “We consider it appropriate that the University of Geneva should inform the scientific community that these controversial findings have now been confirmed under the conditions specified by the commission,” they wrote. They received no answer.

Illmensee says he left Geneva because of the bad feeling generated by the affair and now works at the University of Salzburg.

The current rector of the University of Geneva, Bernard Fulpius, says that as he has been in office for only two years, he is not familiar with the details of the affair. But he says that he plans to reply to Illmensee's most recent letter, which was sent in May, later this month.