Steven Eaton Most likely to set a precedent

In April, a UK court sentenced Steven Eaton, a former employee at Aptuit, a contract research organization in Scotland, to three months in prison for repeatedly tampering with preclinical data. Eaton will be the first person to serve time for falsifying data under the country's good laboratory practice (GLP) regulations of 1999; his case is also the first successful prosecution under that rule and could set a precedent for future cases. After an in-depth investigation, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) found that Eaton produced flawed liquid chromatography calibrations when analyzing blood samples as part of dosage, safety and efficacy work on drug candidates. Aptuit lost significant development time and money fixing the repercussions of Eaton's actions, but according to the MHRA the company will not need to redo any of the clinical trials related to his work.

Henrietta Lacks Most deserving of overdue credit

When Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, she could not know that her biopsied cells would spawn one of the most famous cell lines in biomedicine. Those cells can still be used today without permission or acknowledgement—like they have been for more than six decades—but scientists hoping to study the genome of so-called HeLa cells must now seek authorization from the US National Institutes of Health. They're also being asked to thank the Lacks family in any publications. The new rules, announced in August, stemmed from lengthy discussions with Lacks's relatives, who raised concerns about the privacy of their family's genetic data after scientists published the HeLa genome in the spring. Two members of the Lacks family will also serve on the NIH board charged with approving applications.

Jerry Brown Most likely to veto

Among the 96 bills that Governor Jerry Brown of California vetoed in 2013, at least three had major implications for medical research and drug policy in the state. In August, Brown blocked a bill that would have lifted the state ban on paying women for egg donations to biomedical research programs; he cited unknown long-term risks to the donor in his decision. Then, in September, Brown rejected a bill that would have added $1 to all moving traffic violations to support the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Fund, based at the University of California in Irvine; eight other states use this method to fund spinal cord research. And in October, Brown gave the thumbs down to a bill that would have reduced the availability of generic 'biosimilar' drugs in favor of brand-name biologics.

BBRC hoax authors Most likey to be ghosts

In an unusual twist on scientific fraud, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC), an Elsevier journal, retracted a paper in September because all of its authors appear to be fake. The paper reported that when fat cells overexpress two proteins, metabolism issues related to diabetes and obesity improve. The finding sounded remarkably similar to work cell biologist Bruce Spiegelman of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston had presented at several scientific meetings. Spiegelman raised the alarm with BBRC editors and believes the paper meant to steal his lab's thunder. Though all of the names on the study are similar to actual researchers at the University of Thessaly in Greece, none have any affiliation with the university, and none pop up in PubMed or similar databases. Upon further digging, Elsevier found that all of the names on the paper are indeed false and continues to pursue the case.

Cornelia Bargmann Most likely to have a brainwave

Credit: Security Officer Training HQ, Harvard University, State of California, kkimpel Flickr, Carly Calhoun

Although Cornelia 'Cori' Bargmann currently co-chairs the $100 million Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, or 'BRAIN', Initiative, launched by US president Barack Obama in April, the Rockefeller University neuroscientist did not always have her mind set on the mammoth research endeavor. Earlier in the year, she had expressed doubts about the top-down approach of the BRAIN Initiative to publications such as Nature and Science. However, Bargmann, a renowned expert in the behaviors of model nematode worms who won a $3 million 'Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences' this year, has since become a champion of the project.