Dive Brief:
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revoked $1.38 million in grant money previously awarded to the team of Dr. Dong-Pyou Han, an Iowa State University researcher.
- Dr. Han resigned last year in light of news that his HIV vaccine results were falsified.
- He faces a Sept. 2 trial in federal court on four counts of making false statements in research reports.
Dive Insight:
In addition to not receiving the remainder of the grant, ISU is expected to reimburse the NIH $496,000 for costs related to Dr. Han’s employment. While working with rabbits to test an HIV vaccine, Han tainted results with human antibodies to make it look as if the rabbits had developed antibodies in response to vaccination. His reasoning: He wanted the results to look better.
Dr. Han’s team will suffer in the short term, but there I hope for the future. The NIH is the leading source of federal money for medical research and NIH will allow research team members -- who were unaware of the manipulation -- to apply for future grant funding based on new proposals.