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Fake findings used to secure $16M grant
Pitt's Gerald Schatten will use the money for an ambitious stem-cell research program that will occupy four of seven floors of Magee-Womens Research Institute's building, now under construction in Oakland, the documents show.
The five-year grant, awarded to Schatten in September by the National Institutes of Health, is based in part on cloning experiments deliberately falsified by Hwang Woo-Suk, the documents show.
Because of Schatten's role in co-authoring the discredited work, Pitt officials should consider whether he remains eligible to lead research projects and receive grants, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
"It's hard for me to imagine it going forward the way it is, given the complete discrediting of a purported partner," Caplan said.
A Pitt research integrity panel appointed by medical school dean Dr. Arthur Levine has recommended the university discipline Schatten in connection with a stem-cell article he published in June in the journal Science, based on Hwang's bogus data. The panel stopped short of accusing Schatten of misconduct.
The paper was considered a major breakthrough because scientists for the first time reported custom-designing embryonic stem cells for individual patients, an important step toward treating incurable diseases.
University spokeswoman Michele Baum confirmed "several floors" of the institute's $31 million, 70,000-square-foot building will be reserved for use by the Pittsburgh Development Center, which Schatten heads under the Pitt-affiliated Magee-Womens Research Institute.
Schatten's newest stem-cell program is not the project's linchpin, Baum said.
"The Magee-Womens Research Institute expansion project has been needed for some time, and it is not dependent on any one researcher," Baum wrote in an e-mail.
She referred to Magee's Oct. 5 announcement about the expansion, six days after the NIH approved Schatten's grant.
"The project is on time, on budget and poised for an occupancy date of February 2007," Baum wrote. "This is all that we are publicly announcing about the building at this time."
Schatten was not available for comment, she said.
Schatten is working with two close friends in his new research program: scientists Peter Donovan, at the University of California, Irvine, and Roger Pederson at the University of Cambridge in England.
They plan to create and test stem cells from cloned monkey embryos and study federally approved human embryonic stem-cell lines. Schatten and his team hope to answer "urgent and important questions in fundamental and translational stem-cell research," according to the grant application.
They describe their research goals as "heroic, demanding, yet feasible and essential."
In their request for money, Schatten and his colleagues based several key budget calculations for necessary lab and animal resources on the purported success of the Korean group in creating stem cells from cloned human embryos.
"Exceptional international collaborations" such as cloning techniques Schatten learned from the Koreans made it possible to launch the long-dreamed-about research project, according to the grant.
Park Jong-Hyuk, who joined Schatten's lab from MizMedi Hospital in Seoul, Korea, also is named as a key person on the grant -- which means the NIH must approve his absence or replacement. Park remains a visiting scholar at Pitt but has returned to Korea, Baum said.
Korean scientist Park Eul-Soon -- the junior researcher who donated her eggs for Hwang's research -- is listed as a predoctoral trainee. She remains at Pitt, Baum said.
Park Eul-Soon generated the cloned human embryos from which Park Jong-Hyuk derived stem cells in Hwang's lab, according to the grant application. A Korean academic panel has declared that these findings, published in Science in 2004, were fraudulent.
The paper -- since retracted by the journal's editors -- is cited many times in the grant application, backed by top university officials.
"I am pleased to provide my personal assurance of support for this important program," Levine wrote to the NIH.
In another letter forwarded to the NIH, Hwang voiced his support for Schatten's work, referring to their "intensively involved" collaboration. He mentioned sending genetic material from the human embryonic stem-cell lines he created to Pederson's Cambridge lab for evaluation.
The letters were among 461 pages of documents obtained by the Trib through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It was unclear whether the NIH will consider withdrawing Schatten's grant because of the connections to fraudulent research.
"NIH is in contact with the University of Pittsburgh as part of the oversight that occurs in connection with any and all grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health," spokesman Don Ralbovsky said.
Earlier this month, Donovan told the Trib he was not concerned about the status of the grant and plans to continue his partnership with Schatten.
"I'm actually not worried about it, although I'm a little worried about the perception of it," Donovan said at the time.
Donovan said Schatten's perseverance helped the group secure NIH money for work he considers even more imperative since the Korean scandal.
"Jerry is doing really, truly groundbreaking work that is difficult to get funded because it's so expensive," Donovan said. "You need someone with his kind of drive and energy to do that."
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