QUT reputation at risk after grant application and research mistakes
ONE of Brisbane's top universities may have to pay back a large grant after mistakes were revealed in the application - and its vice-chancellor says its reputation may be at stake.
Mark Solomons
4 min read
July 29, 2013 - 12:00AM
Professor Peter
RESEARCHERS at one of Queensland's top universities have admitted to incorrectly filling out a lucrative grant application in a mistake that could cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The "inadvertent" mistake by Queensland University of Technology scientists has put the university's reputation at risk, the Vice-Chancellor says.
The National Health and Medical Research Council is examining the circumstances under which it awarded QUT a $275,000 grant for research, and QUT boss Peter Coaldrake said the university faced having to pay it back.
Whistleblowers have exposed errors in the reporting of embryonic stem cell research, prompting an internal probe into alleged misconduct and the retraction of a key research paper.
The lead researcher has admitted to
The Courier-Mail that an "inadvertent mistake" occurred in the writing of the grant application and an associated scientific paper published in 2010.
The NHMRC awarded the money to fund research into stem cell cultivation at QUT's prestigious Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation.
The scientists were working on developing a "world-first" product to safely grow human cells in the lab without the use of risky animal proteins.
However, university insiders accused the researchers of exaggerating some results.
"It was alleged that some data in the grant application had been falsified," Prof Coaldrake said.
The scientists were subsequently cleared by a QUT inquiry. QUT later told the NHMRC there was no misconduct in the grant application.
The journal involved has since retracted the article, a highly unusual step.
Lead researcher Zee Upton, who responded on behalf of her fellow authors, admitted that errors had occurred in the writing of the paper and the grant application.
"This was an inadvertent mistake," she said.
Prof Coaldrake said QUT had found "a series of errors ... resulted in the final version of the grant not containing the latest data set". But "it was hard to conclude that the error was misconduct".
The inquiry panel found errors the researchers were unable to explain. It rejected the scientists' claim they were "minor". Investigators also found it "very surprising" that such ground-breaking work had later been abandoned.
The panel cleared the researchers of misconduct, concluding the mistakes were "believed to be inadvertent rather than fraudulent". It recommended only that lab practices be tightened up.
The researcher who carried out the original experiments in 2007 and 2008, Dr Sean Richards,
left QUT in 2009 before the research paper was submitted. He did not respond to a request for comment.
A world expert in stem cell cultivation, Netherlands-based Professor Christine Mummery, said the retraction of the paper was "very serious".
"That speaks for itself," she said.
Graham Parker, US-based editor of Stem Cells and Development, which published and then withdrew the scientists' paper, said it would have been rejected immediately if the errors had come to light before publication.
The whistleblowers claim QUT has a potential conflict of interest because it is a major shareholder in a company, Tissue Therapies, which was set up to develop products based on the research.
But Prof Coaldrake said the Crime and Misconduct Commission had told QUT "it was quite satisfied" with the outcome of the internal probe.
However, Prof Coaldrake was concerned that if the NHMRC did not accept QUT's findings, the university might be forced to pay back the grant money and the CMC would be brought back in.
The NHMRC did not comment.
Potential conflicts
AT THE centre of the QUT research is VitroGro, a product developed by ASX-listed company Tissue Therapies, in which the university owns shares worth more than $1 million.
Lead researcher Zee Upton has a paid consulting role as Tissue Therapies' chief scientific adviser. She and her husband and colleague Associate Professor David Leavesley also owned shares in the company when the paper was submitted, although this was not disclosed to the journal. QUT said the potential conflicts "should have been declared''.
The couple still have significant holdings in the company.
Tissue Therapies has repeatedly promoted the cell cultivation properties of VitroGro to investors in presentations, public announcements and capital raisings.
Invitrogen, a multibillion-dollar US company, licensed the VitroGro stem cell media technology in 2007. Tissue Therapies chief executive Stephen Mercer told the stock market at the time that products based on it would be launched later that year and the deal's announcement prompted a 25 per cent rise in the Brisbane-based company's share price. No products were ever sold.
Dr Mercer said the retraction of the QUT researchers' 2010 paper was ``commercially immaterial to the company'' and there had been no need to tell investors or the stock market.
Stem cell cultivation had always been ``a side-show'' for Tissue Therapies, Dr Mercer said. The company was now focusing on wound-healing uses for VitroGro rather than stem cell cultivation, which was too small a market.
``One paper doesn't prove or disprove anything is a general principle in science, certainly clinical science,'' he said.
``At this stage, on the information I have, it just doesn't seem material.
``But we are a conservative company and we do look at this stuff continually.''
Dr Mercer said he was unaware of the allegedly fraudulent application for federal grant money.
He said Invitrogen had shelved the technology because other ingredients for the formula had proved too expensive.
Invitrogen declined to comment other than to say it had moved on to other products.
``Companies like Invitrogen don't spend a year of their R&D staff and sign a contract on something they don't think worked,'' Dr Mercer said.
``The licence remains in place and hopefully that will come to something in the future but we've got more important things to focus on.''
Stock market watchdog ASIC has been informed of the allegations relating to the QUT researchers. It declined to comment.
