A Saga of Destruction: Financial Misconduct Leads to Destroyed Careers, Research Data, and Cell Lines

One lab’s research destroyed and staff punished for speaking out about financial misconduct.

Cell lines killed, supercomputer damaged, data access denied. Credit: (left) Matylda Sękpl.wiki: Cygaretkacommons: Cygaretka [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]; (middle) Argonne National Laboratory's Flickr page [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]. Compilation: Nancy R. Gough, BioSerendipity

Financial misconduct, a hostile work environment, destruction of research output, and theft of materials and equipment….

What has been going on at the University of Copenhagen (KU) in Denmark?

On 30 October 2017, four members from the lab of Dr. Rune Linding filed a lawsuit against KU for financial losses. A year later, the police turned over a case to the Danish Public Prosecutor regarding the theft of laboratory equipment and loss of research materials, data, and samples from the lab of Dr. Rune Linding. KU is charged with these crimes! In documents and interviews with persons knowledgeable about the events who wish to remain anonymous, I have uncovered a terrible case of administrative bullying, financial misconduct, and irreplaceable loss of research. At the time of publication, KU had not responded to requests for comments.

The Linding lab’s research focuses on using “big data” to explore and predict the behavior of biological systems. A goal is to “forecast cell behavior with an accuracy similar to that of weather or aircraft models.” This…