Baltimore Case - In Brief

What is this about?

In 1986, Thereza Imanishi-Kari co-authored a scientific paper on immunology with five other authors including Nobel laureate David Baltimore ^[1]. Margot O'Toole, who was a postdoc in Imanishi-Kari's laboratory and also acknowledged in the paper “for critical reading of the manuscript”, reported Imanishi-Kari for fabrication after discovering laboratory notebook pages with conflicting data. Baltimore refused to retract the paper and Imanishi-Kari dismisses O'Toole from the laboratory. After a series of published statements in Nature and a bitter debate within the biomedical community ^[2], Baltimore and three co-authors then retracted the paper. Baltimore publicly apologized for defense of fabricated data and not taking a whistle-blower's accusations seriously ^[3]. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found Imanishi-Kari guilty for data fabrication and attempts of covering up those fabrications with additional frauds. However, the appeals panel of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ruled that the ORI had failed to prove misconduct by Imanishi-Kari and dismissed all charges against her ^[4]. This is a factual case.

↑ Weaver D, Reis MH, Albanese C, Costantini F, Baltimore D, Imanishi-Kari T. Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged mu heavy chain gene [retracted in: Weaver D, Albanese C, Costantini F, Baltimore D. Cell. 1991 May 17;65(4):536]. Cell. 1986;45(2):247-259. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(86)90389-2.
↑ Hamilton D. Baltimore case--in brief. Science. 1991;253(5015):24-5.
↑ Shim K. Baltimore regrets fraud: Apologizes for defense of fabricated data. The Tech. 1991;111(25):1-13.
↑ Kaiser J, Marshall E. Imanishi-Kari Ruling Slams ORI. Science. 1996;272(5270):1864-6.

Why is this important?

When an article is published, all authors are responsible for what is written in the paper. If the paper contains fabricated data, all the authors are deemed to be responsible.