Bhatnagar awardee's cancer research dubious: new evidence

New Delhi, May 6 (UNI) The controversial Kundu papers on cancer research, which were cleared by a government committee, have now been found to be dubious by a body of eminent scientists.

The Society for Scientific Values (SSV), a watchdog of ethics and values in Indian Science, has found clinching evidence that the 2004 Bhatnagar awardee Gopal Chandra Kundu and his coworkers are prima facie quilty of misconduct for falsification and fabrication of data in their research papers.

Through its independent investigation, the results of which have come out this week, the SSV has found that Dr Kundu and his coworkers from the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune fraudulently reused the same data within Paper 1 and Paper II once, and from Paper I and Paper II five times.

''Our own consultations with independent experts, including a digital image analyst, indicate that the similarities between the figures are too substantial to be dismissed as superficial,'' SSV President K L Chopra, a former director of IIT, Karagpur, told UNI today.

The prestigious American Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), which published the two research papers-- on interaction of proteins in a particular cancer-- also found the reuse of data from one paper to another, and withdrew Paper II from its publication in February this year.

The two independent parallel investigations by the JBC and the SSV have, thus, come to the same conclusion about misconduct by the authors of the two papers, bringing into question the reliability of the government inquiry committee, headed by Prof G Padmanabhan, which exonerated Dr Kundu and his coworkers of all the charges.

''In the light of these findings, Dr Kundu must take most of the blame for the misconduct as head of the group, and the authorities concerned should seriously reconsider their position in this case and take exemplary action against all the authors,'' Dr Chopra said.

''Any disproportionate punishment of the students/post-doctors while shielding the senior scientists will open up new issues of injustice,'' he added.

In fact, an internal inquiry conducted by NCCS, on the e-mail complaints of its two students in May June last year, had found Dr Kundu and his coworkers guilty and sought withdrawal of the JBC papers. Dr Kundu confessed in writing about the problems in the papers and agreed to their withdrawal.

It was only after he retracted his confession and accused the committee of extracting a confession from him under duress that the Padmanabhan inquiry committee was appointed.

The SSV came to know of the two inquiries after Prof Sonan P Modak, a former member of the Governing Council of NCCS, made a signed complaint to it.

''The SSV then made several requests for the official record of the internal inquiry, but the requests were never answered,'' Dr Chopra said.

It was during his e-mail interaction with the Society that Dr Kundu accepted that he had confessed in writing but said the confession was made under duress.

''We regret the lack of response of the Secretary, Department of Biotechnology to our queries for six months, and the failure of the NCCS Director to provide information to us regarding the findings of the first committee appointed by him, even though he readily sent the report of the second committee,'' the SSV President said.

''It is extremely important for the NCCS and the Department of Biotechnology to repair the damage done to the reputation of Indian science and prove their commitment to research integrity and scientific values through exemplary action,'' he said.

The Society also requested the scientific community to develop a rigorous, analytical and quantitative scientific method for detection of image manipulation beyond any doubt and make it widely available.

UNI