Authorship, plagiarism, preventing and resolving conflicts: Ethical issues in the research arena Jay Heinecke

Resolving Conflict Identify Issues before they arise Clear understanding of arrangements Collaborative studies and establishing an independent research program An ounce of prevention...

Plagiarism?

Rosalind Franklin's 1952 X-ray crystallography picture of B-DNA. Watson was shown this picture by Wilkins in early From the picture it was possible to calculate: 1) the distance between bases (3.4A) 2) the length of the period (34A) 3) the rise of the helix (36 degrees)

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA: James D. Watson

Why are issues related to authorship, plagiarism and preventing and resolving conflicts critical to the scientific enterprise? Myths Science is driven by the quest for knowledge self-less cooperative truth Realities Science is driven by scientists ego credit cultural relativism

Papers = Currency of Science –Grants –Promotions –Peer recognition Major Credit = First and Last Author –First = Person who did the work –Last = Person who paid for the work Biological Science is Becoming Big Science

Scenario: Ethics of Resource Sharing Transgenic mouse project Graduate student 2 years of work Interesting phenotype Major competitor requests mouse How long do you wait? Until publication of initial paper? 2 years?

Scenario: Authorship Issues Transgenic mouse project graduate student project initial description of model published PI shares mouse with other investigators PI listed as author on paper graduate student is not acknowledged

Scenario: Authorship Issues Project Complex translational study Requires major effort: Clinician Basic Scientist Exciting results with major findings Authorship?

Scenario: Authorship Issues Project Post-doc 1 begins project Makes initial key observations Follow-up Post-doc 1 leaves to become faculty Post-doc 2 spends two years finishing paper Authorship?

Scenario: Authorship Issues Paper Post-doc 1 makes significant contribution Data included in original submission of paper Review Reviewer hates data of Post-doc 1 Results removed from revised paper Authorship?

Resolving Conflict Identify Issues Design Options Cooperative Response Manage Emotions Willingness to Resolve Negotiate Mediation Broaden Perspectives THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION NETWORK crnhq.org/

Fraud? Two different figures Lab meeting: note wide range of data points Results convincing Paper: less convincing points removed from figure Conclusion not changed What do you do?

Fraud? the “Representative Micrograph” in other words – the best result you got

Fraud? Issues Cultural relativism Be prepared to defend your stand in public When in doubt, consult a colleague Approaches Cut and run Defend the truth Consequences Destruction of scientific careers Maintain your perspective Science is self correcting

Data Manipulation Immunoblot analysis “Photoshop” manipulation Enhance bands Edit out smears Combine lanes from different regions of gel Combine lanes from different gels Fraud or part of scientific process?

Rockefeller University Journals Routinely check images for manipulation All images must be: –Originals –Non-manipulated –Dates of image acquisition must match date of experiment Ushma SN. Stop misbehaving! J. Clin. Invest., Jul 2006; 116:

Who Owns the Idea? Laboratory Long history of interest in DNA repair Post-doc Discovers a new repair enzyme Publishes seminal article Post-doc becomes a junior faculty member at another institution Who owns the project?

Conflict of Interest? Drug company talks Financial interest in product diagnostic test therapeutic intervention Want to crush the senior author of the paper

Resolving Conflict Identify Issues before they arise Clear understanding of arrangements Collaborative studies and establishing an independent research program An ounce of prevention... Maintain your perspective Science is a marathon, not a sprint