Somewhere else a good research opportunity went begging

Professor admits faking AIDS vaccine to get $19M in grants

An Iowa State University professor resigned after admitting he falsely claimed rabbit blood could be turned into a vaccine for the AIDS virus.

Dr. Dong-Pyou Han spiked a clinical test sample with healthy human blood to make it appear that the rabbit serum produced disease-fighting antibodies, officials said.

The bogus findings helped Han’s team obtain $19 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health, said James Bradac, who oversees the institutes’ AIDS research.

The remarkable findings were reported in scientific journals but raised suspicions when other researchers could not duplicate Han’s results.

The NIH uncovered the scam when it checked the rabbit serum at a lab and found the human antibodies.

Han resigned from his university post as an assistant professor of biomedical studies  in October. His case came to light this week when it was reported in the Federal Register.

Han agreed last month not to seek government contracts for three years, the register said.