Title: Inconsistent Findings Between Trainee and Researcher

Author: Adapted from a case written by Anji Wall

Description: A graduate student felt that discrepancies between her and her mentor’s findings were due to inadequate testing on the mentor’s part; the mentor contends that the student’s inexperience is the issue.

Keyword(s): Data Integrity, Falsification, Mentor-trainee Relationship

Based On: (Shamoo & Resnick, 2003, p. 116)

Case: A graduate student has just begun working in a new laboratory. She conducts experiments testing the modification of telomerase activity. The student did all the experiments three times for each variable, but discovered no effect on telomerase activity. The student’s mentor took over the experiment to check the student’s work. The mentor conducted similar experiments with some slight modifications, but only did each experiment twice for each variable. The mentor’s experiments found that the compound did in fact inhibit telomerase activity and presents the data at a conference.

The graduate student has since moved on to another research area of interest, but suspects that their mentor falsified data in the telomerase experiments. The student feels that their mentor should have done the experiments in triplicate. The student brings her concern to university officials, and there is an investigation into the claims. During the investigation, the mentor states that she did not alter any of the data. She told investigators that she did not use the student’s data because she did not have confidence in the student’s ability to conduct the experiments properly. The university then decided that there was no credible evidence of misconduct and dropped its investigation.

  1. What are the key ethical issues in this case?
  2. Were the student’s actions appropriate? Why or why not?
  3. What could the student have done differently in responding to the mentor’s conduct?
  4. What could the mentor have done differently?
  5. Should the student’s mentor have accepted the student’s data without conducting her own experiments? Why or why not?
  6. Should the university have continued with the investigation? Why or why not?
  7. At this point, does the university have any obligations to either the mentor or the student?
  8. Because the university has closed the case, could the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reopen the investigation if notified of the situation?

Source: Shamoo, A., & Resnik, D. (2003). Responsible Conduct of Research. New York: Oxford University Press.