An example of research misconduct - Ethics

This case involves a postdoctoral fellow, Andrew R. Cullinane PhD, who was accused and found guilty of research misconduct. He formerly worked for the National Institute of Health (NIH) within the Medical Genetics Branch of the National Human Genome Research institute. There were three instances of falsified and/or fabricated data between two publications and a manuscript. Within these papers and manuscript, Dr. Cullinane or the “Respondent”, altered, reused, and relabeled images and figures. As a result of the investigation, the respondent agreed to enter into a Voluntary Settle Agreement. This included having his research supervised for three years, with any institution he works for having to vouch for both the supervision and the trustworthiness of the experimental data, not serving on any Public Health Service committees, and retracting his publications.

This case illustrates an example of consistent research misconduct that continued for at least 5 years. While the respondent willingly entered into the Voluntary Settle Agreement, there is proof that there was not inherently regret about the behavior since it was repeated. It seems from the agreement that the doctor is still able to participate in and conduct research. However, the repercussions not only fall on Dr. Cullinane but his future employers who would have to spend extra time and resources to ensure that his work does not lapse into misconduct again. As well, the Respondent must retract or correct the previous publications. Regardless of the misconduct, there was substantial time that had been spent on this research, but instead of publishing the lack of results or the result disproving an hypothesis, the doctor now has to spend more time to correct or just completely rescind the work he published. In the case summary, we don’t see any indication of motive or reasoning for the research misconduct. So while the respondent admitted guilt and agreed to correct his actions, we don’t know if it was job stress or pressure to perform that led him to fabricate/falsify the data. The case summary can found at https://ori.hhs.gov/case-summary-cullinane-andrew-r .