Lancet investigates claims of shoddy research by Potti, Duke colleagues
Friday, July 23, 2010, 2:25 pm 1 Comment | Post a CommentNow, the scandal that’s been brewing at Duke University over a researcher and his research methods has expanded to the Lancet Oncology investigating potential errors in a report the medical journal published in December 2007.
Dr. Anil Potti, a Duke cancer researcher, was suspended last week after his claim to have been a Rhodes scholar could not be confirmed. Duke also halted enrollment in three clinical trials that Potti lead. The trials used gene-based test results of drug sensitivity to predict cancer patients’ responses to chemotherapy drugs.
Potti and colleagues at Duke also did the statistical analysis for a report published in the Lancet Oncology three years ago. The report was based on results from a clinical trial involving breast cancer patients. The published report was titled, “Validation of gene signatures that predict the response of breast cancer to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.”
The report, which had 19 co-authors, was an important step toward personalized medicine.
But the Lancet Oncology today expressed concern over errors that two of the report’s authors detected in the statistical analysis by Potti and his Duke colleagues.
Here it is: S0140673610701856
The Lancet investigation goes way beyond potentially false claims of one Duke researcher being a Rhodes scholar. Questions of research methods and errors reach beyond one possibly rogue researcher and potentially put patients’ lives at risk.
This story won't go away… for good reason.
The bio released by the American Cancer Society clams that Potti was a “1995 Rhodes Scholar (Australia).” There is no such thing as a “Rhodes Scholar (Australia).” Also, the bio submitted to ACS includes the claim that Potti had a “research fellowship” at the Queensland Research Institute” in Australia under mentorship of Gordon McLaren. Here, too, problems are transparent; no such institution exists. The place that comes closest to that name, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, says Potti had never worked there. A call by The Cancer Letter to McLaren revealed that he had spent a brief sabbatical at QIMR, but didn’t know Potti at the time (The Cancer Letter, June 16, 2010).