Is there a pattern of research sabotage at Yale?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around allegations of research sabotage at Yale, specifically focusing on a case involving a postdoc named Koziol and her experiences in a developmental biology lab. The conversation explores the implications of such incidents in the scientific community, including competition and the handling of misconduct.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants recount the case of Koziol, whose experiments with transgenic zebrafish failed under suspicious circumstances, suggesting possible sabotage.
  • Others express concern about the competitive nature of science, with anecdotes of tampering and sabotage being shared as common occurrences.
  • A participant questions the actions of Koziol's supervisor, noting the oddity of wanting to keep the incident under wraps despite the need to explain the lack of results to funding agencies.
  • A similar incident involving a graduate student at the University of Michigan is mentioned, where another case of sabotage was documented, leading to a confession from the alleged saboteur.
  • Links to external articles and resources are shared to provide additional context and details about the incidents discussed.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a shared concern about the issue of research sabotage, but there is no consensus on the motivations behind the actions of individuals involved or the appropriate responses from institutions.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights the complexities of addressing misconduct in research environments, including the potential impact on funding and the ethical responsibilities of supervisors.

Greg Bernhardt
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Unfortunately the main story appears to be under a "Science" pay wall. Here is a commentary and short summary on the disturbing event.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/holy-****-this-sabotage-story-is-the-stuff-of-researc-1538150751

Koziol's studies of how the genome switches on after an egg is fertilized had begun failing mysteriously in July 2011, a month after she started her postdoc in the developmental biology lab of Antonio Giraldez. In August, she began producing transgenic zebrafish; they all died, not once, but time after time. A lab technician assured her she was doing everything right, and colleagues' fish were fine. So Koziol produced a new batch of fish and divided them in two groups. One she put in a container labeled with her initials, MK, as she had done before. She left the other half unmarked. Sure enough, the labeled fish died; the others were fine...
 
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Absolutely horrible, especially the way that it was handled. Good thing she moved to another lab. Unfortunately I've heard stories like this before, such as people tampering with chemicals to mess up people's experiments. The hard world of competition in science..
 
I read the entire article last week, and I could not understand why her supervisor turned against her, considering that he and the school were the ones who helped set up the hidden camera to catch the saboteur. All I got was that he wanted her to keep the incident under wraps, which was odd considering he might need to use it to explain to the funding agency on why they were not getting any results.

Zz.
 
A similar case happened in 2010 to a graduate student at the University of Michigan:
At 4:00 a.m. on Sunday 18 April, officers installed two cameras in the lab: one in the cold room where Ames's blots had been contaminated, and one above the refrigerator where she stored her media. Ames came in that day and worked until 5:00 p.m. On Monday morning at around 10:15, she found that her medium had been spiked again. When Ross reviewed the tapes of the intervening hours with Richard Zavala, the officer assigned to the case, she says that her heart sank. Bhrigu entered the lab at 9:00 a.m. on Monday and pulled out the culture media that he would use for the day. He then returned to the fridge with a spray bottle of ethanol, usually used to sterilize lab benches. With his back to the camera, he rummaged through the fridge for 46 seconds. Ross couldn't be sure what he was doing, but it didn't look good.

Zavala escorted Bhrigu to the campus police department for questioning. When he told Bhrigu about the cameras in the lab, the postdoc asked for a drink of water and then confessed. He said that he had been sabotaging Ames's work since February.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html
 
Anyways, here's a photo montage that includes photos of victim plus the two scumbags as well as other individuals.
http://www.yale.edu/giraldezlab/Photos.html
 
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