5 ms·

German university finds misconduct by researcher who promoted cancer blood test

• dindresto 7y ago
  Yay, that's my university!
• orbifold 7y ago
  The story is even worse than what is publicly reported. The test was actually not developed by this professor but by one of his postdocs. She happened to be Chinese and her contract was up for renewal, when he saw the potential for commercialization, he did not renew her contract. She only had a work visa and therefore was forced to go back to china. There was more shady stuff and nepotism going on, but I don't remember. This guy 100% deserves everything that is coming for him.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • yorwba 7y ago
    https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003806/chinese-scientist-says-german-university-stole-her-project https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003806/chinese-scientist-say... has more details on that part of the story. FWIW it says that she resigned herself after she was transferred to another project and got hassled in other ways.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • respinal 7y ago
    Thanks for the addition! That’s a big problem in academia.
• perspective1 7y ago
  That's terrible specificity, but with a very high sensitivity the test may still have value as a "rule-out" type test. That is, you do this and if it's positive, you do a mammogram. Mammograms are generally very uncomfortable and read by specialized (more expensive) radiologists, so even preventing 1 mammogram for every 2 women getting the test has some value. Similar thing works with people getting Tb tests, or HIV tests. You have a cheap rule out high sensitivity test with low specificity, and follow the positives up with the more expensive sensitive and specific "gold standard" test. I don't see the misconduct based on this article alone.