Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 18 / Thursday, January 29, 2009 / Notices 5161 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Office of the Secretary 

Findings of Research Misconduct 

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that 

the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) 

and the Assistant Secretary for Health 

have taken final action in the following 

case: 

Nima Afshar, PhD., University of 

California, San Francisco: Based on a 

University of California, San Francisco 

(UCSF) report and Respondent’s own 

admission, the U.S. Public Health 

Service (PHS) found that Dr. Nima 

Afshar, former postdoctoral fellow at 

UCSF engaged in research misconduct 

in research supported by National 

Cancer Institute (NCI), National 

Institutes of Health (NIH), grant T32 

CA108462 and National Institute of 

General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), 

NIH, grant R01 GM59704. 

PHS found that Respondent engaged 

in research misconduct in the 

performance of research on yeast to test 

whether disruption of the tight controls, 

to prevent re-replication, on the 

initiation of DNA replication could 

produce gene amplifications with a 

copy number greater than two (2). 

Specifically, Respondent falsified files 

containing raw scanned microarray 

images from another researcher’s 

experiments to demonstrate that in 

experiments that she claimed to have 

conducted, she successfully observed 

gene amplifications with a copy number 

greater than two (2); there were 36 such 

instances of falsifying data files. 

Dr. Afshar has entered into a 

Voluntary Settlement Agreement in 

which she has voluntarily agreed, for a 

period of three (3) years, beginning on 

December 22, 2008: 

(1) To exclude herself from serving in 

any advisory capacity to PHS, including 

but not limited to service on any PHS 

advisory committee, board, and/or peer 

review committee, or as a consultant; 

and 

(2) that any institution that submits an 

application for PHS support for a 

research project on which the 

Respondent’s participation is proposed 

or that uses the Respondent in any 

capacity on PHS supported research, or 

that submits a report of PHS-funded 

research in which the Respondent is 

involved, must concurrently submit a 

plan for supervision of the Respondent’s 

duties to the funding agency for 

approval. The supervisory plan must be 

designed to ensure the scientific 

integrity of the Respondent’s research 

contribution. Respondent agrees to 

ensure that a copy of the supervisory 

plan also is submitted to ORI by the 

institution for ORI approval. 

Respondent agrees that she will not 

participate in any PHS-supported 

research until such a supervisory plan is 

submitted to ORI. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Director, Division of Investigative 

Oversight, Office of Research Integrity, 

1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite 750, 

Rockville, MD 20852, (240) 453–8800. 

John E. Dahlberg, 

Acting Director, Office of Research Integrity. 

[FR Doc. E9–1819 Filed 1–28–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4150–31–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Office of the Secretary 

Findings of Scientific Misconduct 

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that 

the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) 

and the Assistant Secretary for Health 

have taken final action in the following 

case: 

M. Nguyen, M.D., University of 

California, Los Angeles: Based on a 

University of California, Los Angeles 

(UCLA) report and Respondent’s own 

admission, the U.S. Public Health 

Service (PHS) found that Dr. M. Nguyen, 

former Associate Professor at UCLA, 

engaged in scientific misconduct in 

research supported by National Cancer 

Institute (NCI), National Institutes of 

Health (NIH), grant 1 R01 CA69433, 

National Center for Complementary and 

Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), NIH, 

grant 1 P50 AT00I51–01, and National 

Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and 

Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH, grant 

T32 DK03688. 

Specifically, PHS found that 

Respondent engaged in scientific 

misconduct by: 

1. Dr. Nguyen’s laboratory conducted 

a single experiment on the effect of 

Livistona extract on the growth of 106

mouse fibrosarcoma (FSA) cells injected 

into C3H mice. The drug was 

administered in the drinking water of 

the treated mice and tumor sizes were 

measured twice weekly with calipers. 

Dr. Nguyen falsified and fabricated the 

results of this experiment in Figure 3 of 

Oncology Reports 8:1355–1357, 2001: 

A. The data reported for the control 

group were from an experiment in nude 

mice implanted with human breast 

tumor implants, rather than with mouse 

fibrosarcoma cell implants, as Dr. 

Nguyen reported in the paper. The 

control data for FSA implanted C3H 

mice could not be located in the 

laboratory records. 

2. Dr. Nguyen’s laboratory conducted 

a single experiment on the effect of 

Livistona extract on the growth of 108

MDA–MD–231 cells injected into nude 

mice. The drug was administered in the 

drinking water of the treated mice and 

tumor sizes measured twice weekly 

with calipers. Dr. Nguyen falsified and 

fabricated the results of this experiment 

in Figure 9 of NIH grant application P50 

AT00151–01, dated May 19, 1999, by: 

A. Falsely stating in the associated 

text that there were ten mice per group 

and that the experiments were repeated 

once, while in fact, there were only five 

mice per group with no repetition of 

this experiment 

B. Omitting data on the control curve 

for two of the measurement times (at 2 

and 3.5 weeks) and falsely reporting the 

times at which three other 

measurements were taken. 

3. Dr. Nguyen’s laboratory conducted 

a single experiment (1998–99) testing 

the anti-angiogenic effects of Livistona 

chinensis extract on human umbilical 

vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). HUVEC 

cells were counted from duplicate wells 

when exposed to extract and controls 

were counted from single wells: 

A. Figure 8 of NIH grant application 

P50 AT00I51–01, dated 5/19/99, plots 

the data as a bar graph. However, the 

same data were reported in Figure 1 of 

Oncology Reports 8:1355–1357, 2001, by 

falsely expressing them as the rate of 

growth obtained by measuring the 

uptake of radioactive thymidine into 

cellular DNA and plotting the data as 

normalized to control values. UCLA 

concluded that Figure 1 was falsified by 

claiming the data were obtained by a 

state-of-the-art technique not actually 

employed by the Respondent to obtain 

the data for that figure (Admission). 

This falsification did not bear upon the 

findings of the paper. 

4. Dr. Nguyen’s laboratory tested 

whether the levels of bFGF (basic 

fibroblast growth factor) and VEGF 

(vascular endothelial growth factor) in 

nipple fluid aspirates were significantly 

elevated in breast cancer patients in 

comparison to values from normal 

lactating and non-lactating breasts. Dr. 

Nguyen falsified the number of subjects 

who were lactating in The Lancet 

356:567–569, 2000, by claiming that 

bFGF data were obtained from four 

separate subjects while in fact the data 

were from both breasts of two subjects. 


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