The president of the university resigns after being acquitted of research fraud

United States of America

An investigation showed that the research conducted by the president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier Lavigne, had significant flaws, but he was acquitted of research fraud.

Although the report clearly refutes accusations of fraud and misconduct, I have made the decision to resign as President effective August 31st.

This is what Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of the American Stanford University, wrote in a prof Message to staff and students.

The Canadian-American neuroscientist has stormed out in recent months.

In December, an independent group of researchers was appointed to investigate allegations of scientific misconduct in 12 of the Vice Chancellor’s research articles. The review is now complete, and Tessier-Lavigne has been largely acquitted of the most serious charges.

A number of American media including The New York Times.

However, he chose to resign from his job as CEO at the prestigious university. He will continue at the university as a biology professor.

I went through 50,000 documents

Although the investigation cleared him of scientific misconduct, a review of his scientific work revealed significant errors in the studies for which he was responsible over several decades.

The comprehensive 89-page report from the independent research group is based on more than 50 interviews and a review of more than 50,000 documents.

The conclusion is that members of the Tessier-Lavigne research groups had manipulated research data in an “inappropriate way” and had deficient scientific practices, resulting in significant errors in five articles on which Tessier-Lavigne was the lead author.

The most serious accusation involved falsified data sets on an Alzheimer’s disease study from 2009. According to the accusation, Tessier-Lavigne should have known the data was falsified and tried to hide it. The investigation team dismissed this charge, finding no evidence that the datasets were fake.

However, the review found that a 2009 study, conducted while he was an executive at biotechnology company Genentech, had several problems and fell short of what one would expect, especially for such a potentially important paper.

Thanks to the manager

Tessier-Lavigne further wrote in his letter that he was grateful that the investigation team had concluded that he had not falsified the data.

– As I said emphatically, I have never submitted a scientific article without believing that the data was true and accurate. Today’s report supports this, says the director.

Stanford chairman Jerry Yang wrote in a letter that they had accepted Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation, and agreed with him that it would be best for the university to find a successor.

– The Board thanks Tessier Lavigne for his seven years of commitment and service as a Stanford consultant, during which he achieved a number of outstanding accomplishments, Yang writes.