Fraud in Science, part two
How Columbia University failed to deal with fraud
‘I don’t care how ‘robust’ your quality assurance systems are… I can fool you any time I want. Because I have a secret weapon.
It’s called liquid paper.’
As I have written elsewhere, the vast majority of fraudsters are male, but women can dissemble with the best of them, especially in the field of scientific fraud. Take Bengü Sezen, a Turkish chemistry student who spent five years at Columbia University in New York City faking and altering data, and inventing fictitious individuals and organisations to validate her fraudulent research. Even her PhD, carried out at Columbia while she was a graduate student, was ultimately found to be falsified.
Sezen, cute and dark-haired, with a charming smile, arrived at Columbia in 2000 and began to work in the lab of chemist Dalibor Sames. Sames, a Czech who did his original degree in Prague, was a young, up and coming member of the faculty, on tenure track. Sezen and Sames developed a close working relationship and together their names rapidly appeared on six research papers. But within two years of her arrival, fellow graduate students in Sames’ lab found it impossible to reproduce the results of Sezen’s experiments, no matter how hard and how often they tried. Eventually, a few of them went with their concerns to Sames. Instead of listening to them, looking at their arguments, investigating the data and challenging Sezen about her work, Sames promptly fired two of the complaining graduates (the third left of her own accord shortly afterwards). Now, why do you think Sames did that?
In 2005, Sezen was awarded her PhD, with Sames (who had received his tenure in 2003) as her supervisor. By this time, her fraud was rampant. She used other students’ log-ins to access the lab’s spectroscopy equipment (for some reason she was never given her own log-in), and she then altered the results so they matched what she wanted to prove. In spite of the increasing amount of fraud she perpetrated, Sezen was beyond criticism in the lab. This was ensured by Sames, who seemed to regard her as some sort of ‘golden child’. She was clearly his favourite; it was believed he regarded her as a genius whose laboratory work was beyond reproach. When other students questioned or criticised Sezen’s work, he put it down to jealousy, and dug his heels in more firmly in defense of her.
On the surface, a disinterested observer, or amateur chemist, might have thought Sames’ view of Sezen’s work was justified. Her work was apparently ground breaking. She was exploring the catalytic activation of carbon-hydrogen chemical bonds, which are normally highly unreactive. But Sezen’s research seemed to show she had found a cheap, fast way to enable the molecules to bond. There was much excitement at this, since the process would have widespread use in that Cinderella backwater of scientific research, the pharmaceutical industry (their motto? we never make money, we do it for love). But the fact that nobody else inside, or outside, of the university, no chemist anywhere, came near to replicating her experiments should have raised major suspicions in Sames’ mind; and he was neither disinterested nor an amateur. But he didn’t appear to question anything. Quite the opposite, in fact.
One member of Sames’ lab did have his doubts though. He noticed that the chemical bonding of the molecules only took place when Sezen was in the lab, or knew the experiment was being attempted. Smelling a molecular rat, he began, in 2005, to set Sezen up. He prepared two sets of reactive materials — one using the correct substances Sezen claimed enabled her process to work, and one that merely looked like the correct substances. Letting Sezen know that both experiments were trying to replicate her work, he waited to see what would happen. Amazingly, both sets of materials produced the required bonding. No doubt her next step would be the old water into wine thing.
The following day he tried the same device again, but this time asked a lab assistant to make sure the materials were not left unobserved. No bonding took place in either set of substances. Satisfied that he had uncovered unethical behavior, the student made a formal complaint, which the university finally started to investigate.
At this point Sezen conveniently relocated to the University of Heidelberg, where she pursued another PhD, in molecular biology. The investigating committee reached the conclusion that there was evidence of fraud and plagiarism in Sezen’s experiments and published papers, but it was unable to make contact with her. Letters and emails went unanswered. Later it was discovered she had returned to Turkey. Even there she proved almost impossible to get hold of. It was May 2007 before the investigation concluded that Sezen was guilty of scientific misconduct. There was little in her notebooks relating to the experiments she claimed to have conducted. There was also little evidence she had even researched the subject, though oddly her published papers went into great detail about the experiments. Additionally, major breaches of research protocol had clearly taken place in the lab.
Once she knew she had been accused of fraud, Sezen finally broke cover and appealed against the university’s findings. She blamed other students for placing fake materials amongst her papers, and she invented a chemical company and its director who she said had easily reproduced her experiments. The fact that this company and its director sent emails from the same IP address Sezen used at the University of Heidelberg was noted by the investigating committee. Her appeal was, therefore, dismissed.
Columbia withdrew Sezen’s PhD, and the papers she co-authored or authored were either withdrawn or corrected, including those produced with Sames.
The investigating committee painted a picture of her as a determined, calculating mistress of deception, skillful in the art of trickery. She had, they suggested, blinded everyone who might have questioned her research with a dazzling display of sophisticated subterfuge. This blustering excuse for how she got away with her frauds is somewhat undermined by the fact that much of her faking of spectrometry results was effected with that highly technical substance known as…. white-out. She simply painted out parts of the images with liquid paper. Of course, because you aren’t a high ranking scientist, you would never have spotted this. So, what is the excuse of the expert scientists at Columbia?
As a result of the investigations by the Ad Hoc Committee investigating Sezen, Columbia University issued, in 2007, a 167-page report (later heavily redacted when it was required to be made public). Mention in the report is made, in passing, of the university’s new processes for dealing with research misconduct, which were adopted in 2006. The report goes into great detail about the whole Sezen case, with one exception. No mention is made of Sames, nor does he appear to have been interviewed by the committee. This is quite remarkable, given his role as Sezen’s supervisor for her PhD, and her role in the lab he oversaw. And remember, he dismissed two graduate students (possibly ruining their careers) who correctly identified Sezen’s fraud, while he continued to defend her. Surely his judgment was extremely suspect, if not totally inadequate? How could he be trusted to supervise other graduate students, and be responsible for the work of a laboratory in receipt of Federal funds?
Within the scientific community there is a belief by some that Sames has been protected by Columbia University. Referring to the university’s new standards on research misconduct, Rudy Baum (then editor of Chemical & Engineering News) wrote that a close reading of them would seem to absolve Sames of any responsibility. Columbia’s new standards stated that complaints about alleged misconduct must be made to the “appropriate Responsible Academic Officer,” who is a “Chair, Dean, or Director.” While Sames was the Principal Investigator in the research, he held none of the listed positions, so he was off the hook. Baum was dismissive of the entire policy on research misconduct, describing it as “14 pages of legalistic, process-oriented gobbledygook” and noted that it makes no mention anywhere of the role of Principal Investigators.
After Columbia University’s investigation was completed, Bengü Sezen disappeared for a while, but is, as far as I can gather, on the faculty of Yeditepe University in Turkey, where she is no doubt performing her standard miracles. Glass of wine anyone? Yes, I know it looks like water, but just wait a moment…
We will never know what Sames thinks about the whole case, as he is conveniently bound by a confidentiality agreement, courtesy of Columbia University, which also refuses to comment on the case. But Columbia must like little Dali (as he is known), because after the investigation into Sezen’s fraud, they promoted him. Upwards. He now works on research into… neuroscience. You know, that scientific field that has the most cases of fraud.
Well, clearly, nothing is going to go wrong there, is it?
