SAN FRANCISCO — The president of Stanford University said Wednesday he would resign, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found “serious flaws” in five scientific papers on topics such as brain development that he was the lead author of.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement to students and staff that he would step down on August 31.
The resignation comes after the board of directors launched a review in December following allegations that it engaged in fraud and other unethical conduct related to research and articles that in some cases date back two decades (1999, 2001, 2001).
Tessier-Lavigne, a neuroscientist, says he “never submitted a scientific paper without strongly believing that the data were correct and presented accurately.” But he says he should have been more diligent about seeking corrections to his work and should have operated labs with tighter controls.
The panelists found multiple instances of manipulated data in the 12 articles they investigated, but concluded that he was not responsible for the misconduct. Still, they found that each of the five articles he was the lead author of “have serious flaws in the presentation of research data” and in at least four of them, there was apparent manipulation of data by others.
Tessier-Lavigne said she was aware of problems with four of the five documents, but acknowledged taking “insufficient” steps to address them. He said he will retract three of the papers and correct two.
The documents were released before Tessier-Lavigne became Stanford’s president.
Allegations of misconduct about the work were first aired on PubPeer, a website where members of the scientific community can discuss research papers, according to the report. Questions resurfaced after The Stanford Daily, the university’s student-run newspaper, published several stories about the integrity of reports published by its labs.
The aggressive reporting earned investigative editor and then-college freshman Theo Baker a special George Polk Journalism Award. Baker told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the retractions and corrections would not have happened otherwise.
“The fact that we can contribute to correcting the scientific record of five widely cited papers is important,” he said.
The panel cleared Tessier-Lavigne of the most serious allegations, that a 2009 paper published in the scientific journal Nature was the subject of a fraud investigation and that fraud was found. There was no investigation and no fraud was discovered, the panel ruled. The paper proposed a model of neurodegeneration, which could have great potential for Alzheimer’s disease research and therapy, the group wrote in their report.
But the panel also concluded that the paper had multiple problems, including a lack of rigor in its development and that the research that went into the paper and its presentation contained “several errors and deficiencies.” The panel found no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne was aware of the lack of rigor.
“People tend to think of scientists as these individuals they’ve heard of like Einstein and Marie Curie,” said H. Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals. “The truth is, researchers run labs full of people, and everything that happens in that lab is a product of a lot of people there.”
Although the report cleared Tessier-Lavigne of investigative misconduct, Thorp said the chief is ultimately responsible for what happens in the lab and should not be distracted by doing other jobs. He pointed to the report’s finding that lab culture played a role.
Tessier-Lavigne says she is resigning because she expects continued debate about her ability to lead the university. He will continue at the faculty as a biology professor. He also said he will continue his research on brain development and neurodegeneration.
The board named Richard Saller, a classics professor, as interim chairman effective Sept. 1, board chairman Jerry Yang said.
In a statement, Yang said Tessier-Lavigne was instrumental in creating the university’s first new school in 70 years, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and in 2019, she unveiled a long-term strategic plan that will continue to guide the university’s growth.
Tessier-Lavigne has been president for almost seven years.
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Associated Press reporter Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report from Washington.
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