She was a lab tech in the Duke pulmonology lab under W. Michael Foster, so not a principal researcher (but listed as a middle author on several papers); the whi

She was a lab tech in the Duke pulmonology lab under W. Michael Foster, so not a principal researcher (but listed as a middle author on several papers); the whistleblower was a colleague of hers. In regards to the settlement, a successful FCA case can result in treble damages (which, given that the plaintiff was alleging, aggressively, that some $200mm in grants were poisoned, was ... a lot). I suspect that the settlement was arrived at by negotiating down the set of problematic grants (probably those awarded or applied for after Duke became aware of the scientific malfeasance) and then adding a penalty on top of it, but the DOJ release doesn’t have detail on the specifics.