Mark Tesierrabeen was highly regarded in academia for his brilliant research achievements.
The Rhodes Scholar turned neuroscientist is known for his groundbreaking research into the causes of Alzheimer’s disease. Due to his achievements, he became the president of Stanford University in the United States and made a great contribution to collecting donations from Silicon Valley.
An issue Tesierrabeen had avoided for decades came to light when an article about 18-year-old Theo Baker, a student at Stanford University, appeared in the Stanford Daily newspaper.
A series of articles, first published last November, questioned the integrity of Tesierrabeen’s research and his failure to address his mistakes.
Ultimately, it was his “steadfast refusal” to correct the errors in the scientific record for more than two decades that ultimately brought down the president of the world’s premier university.
Mr. Mark Tessierabine
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Tesierra Been announced his resignation abruptly on the 19th. This was after the Stanford University Board of Trustees released a report confirming some of the Stanford Daily’s allegations. However, the report did not agree with the paper’s earlier reports of possible research misconduct.
“This shows the contribution of student reporting to correcting the scientific record of five widely cited papers, and I think it underscores the power of independent student media to bring concerns to light,” Baker wrote on Twitter.
After decades of leadership in brain and spinal cord research, Tesierra Bene was appointed president of Stanford University in California in 2016. Previously, he was president of Rockefeller University in New York.
Stanford University President to Resign After Research Misconduct Investigation
His research focused on the causes and treatments of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, and the development of treatments for spinal cord injuries. Before becoming president of Rockefeller University, he was chief scientific officer at Genentech.
praise
Tesierra Bene excels at fundraising from Silicon Valley, and in some years even outperformed Harvard University.
It also contributed to the increase in the endowment fund of Stanford University by more than 36 billion dollars (about 5 trillion yen). Just last year, it received a $1.1 billion donation from venture capitalist John Dowell to help found the Stanford Dowell School of Sustainability.
The Stanford Daily has published a series of articles detailing allegations of research misconduct against Tesierra Been. One of them was a study to understand the involvement of proteins in Alzheimer’s disease, which he co-authored and published in 2009 in the British scientific journal Nature.
Initially, the findings of the study were widely acclaimed. But attempts to achieve the same results through experimental replication, a critical step in validating important research, have failed. In the end, the research results turned out to be wrong.
The Stanford Daily reported that the study data had been manipulated, but Tesierrabeen resisted correcting it.
At the time of the paper’s publication, he was working at Genentech. The company declined to comment, but referred to a report on Tesierrabeen’s research published in April.
Genentech said at the time that the commission’s review found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct,” but acknowledged that “our current record may not be complete given that these events occurred many years ago.”
regret
A special committee on the university’s board of directors, led by Stanford alumnus and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, launched an investigation into the allegations last December.
The resulting report noted that Tesierrabeen had not responded to unpublished corrections to the two papers.
In a message to school officials, he said he had tried to publish corrections in two publications containing his work, but the publishers either refused or did not publish them. “I should have been more serious when asking for a correction and I regret not having done so,” he said.
“The investigation also identified instances of research data manipulation by others in my lab. I was unaware of these issues, but I would like to clarify that I am responsible for the research of members of my lab,” he said.
Stanford’s board of trustees said Tesierra Been will step down as president at the end of August, but will remain on as a professor.
Original title:Stanford Student Uncovered Scandal That Took Down a President (excerpt)
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2023-07-21 06:58:43
