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A former star student of the director of the Center for Human Genome Research at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been barred from federally funded research for four years and denied his doctorate after one of the United States' biggest cases of scientific misconduct.

Amitov Hajra, a doctoral candidate who worked with the NIH genome chief Francis S. Collins in both Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Bethesda, Maryland, agreed to the penalty after an investigation by the NIH's Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Hajra was also studying for a medical degree at the University of Michigan.

Probes by Michigan and ORI established that Hajra had fabricated 75 to 90 per cent of the data in his doctoral thesis on a possible genetic cause of a leukaemia.

He then used fabricated data to produce five articles published in 1995 and 1996, included falsified data in two review articles, and entered a bogus nucleotide sequence in GenBank, a computer database. All the fake research has been retracted or corrected. Neither Collins nor other co-authors were found to have had any involvement in the misconduct (see Nature 384, 6 6; 1996).

In their report delivered in March, Michigan officials referred to the “severe impact” the case had on “the public's confidence in science”. They wrote: “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe, the committee concludes that the academic misconduct here rates 10.”

Hajra, who is now in Wisconsin, could not be reached for comment.

Michigan officials found the fabrications began when Hajra “suddenly blurted out” fake experimental results at a laboratory meeting. Afterwards, the report says, “he states he was so ashamed and confused by his behavior that he was unable to consider confessing to his wrongdoing.”

Collins, who had brought Hajra with him when he was recruited in 1993 to the NIH, says: “He was very motivated, determined and clever. I still don't know how he produced some of the primary data he brought to lab meetings. I find myself now being more vigilant, viewing data with more scepticism, which I'm not sure is a good thing.”

Chris B. Pascal, acting director of ORI, commended Collins for the forthright way he handled the misconduct, which Collins first disclosed in a widely distributed letter after a reviewer found possible fabrication in a Hajra paper submitted to the journal Oncogene. The paper was withdrawn.

“He [Collins] reacted as best he could, confronted the individual and got an admission,” says Pascal. “His reaction was more positive than we get from a lot of big shots, who engage in denial and in some cases cover-up.”

Michigan will not grant Hajra his doctorate in human genetics. But Hajra continues to fight to secure his medical degree. A Michigan spokeswoman said the university had not decided whether to award Hajra this qualification.