Some of the only records of Scott Doree remaining on MSU's Web site are past congratulations - spring 1997, presented with the Sayer Award for academic excellence; October 2001, the Berttina Wentworth Fellowship; spring 2002, recipient of a CNS Dissertation Completion Fellowship. But nothing points to what happened a year later.

On September 13, 2002 - microbiology graduate student Doree's last day at MSU before leaving for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan - Doree reported a break-in at the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building lab where he worked, claiming his research notes and two vials of a deadly bacteria were stolen, The State News reported.

The alleged theft set in motion an MSU police and FBI investigation that eventually determined the break-in never occurred - and the missing data never existed.

Doree later confessed to staging the incident, in part to cover up his "pure laziness," he said. He served seven months in federal prison and was released in April 2004.

MSU's interim University Intellectual Integrity Officer, or UIIO, and Professor Emeritus Loran Bieber said he remembers investigating the case soon after he took the position in August of 2004. Doree had already done prison time, but the case had sparked an investigation into his supervising professor.

Bieber's job is to investigate claims of misconduct by university researchers. Doree's case was just one of several high-profile instances of misconduct across the nation in recent years. The issue has generated interest in the academic community, and new federal regulations drafted this May defining research misconduct as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism" are impacting the way research institutions investigate claims.

The university had legitimate reason to question Doree's professor's diligence, Bieber said, but an investigative panel eventually cleared her of any wrongdoing.

"She was simply duped," Bieber said. Experts on research misconduct agreed instances of serious misconduct are almost impossible to predict or prevent.

"I suppose it's one of the things that almost all mentors or faculty members fear," Bieber said. "Unfortunately, it could happen to almost any of us."

Underreported problem

While findings of research misconduct are rare, it is at least a slightly larger problem than people have previously presumed, said Professor David Wright, who served as MSU's UIIO for a little more than 11 years.

Wright said during his tenure as UIIO, there were, on average, one or two findings of misconduct each year at MSU.

"People who have been in research for a number of years should be aware of the fact that it's underreported," said Chris Pascal, director of the federal Office of Research Integrity.

Pascal said his office has seen the number of allegations rise in recent years, but findings of misconduct have not increased.

About 1 percent of scientists admitted to the plagiarism, falsifications and fabrications that officially meet the standard of misconduct, according to an anonymous survey of thousands of scientists published by a Minnesota researcher in the June 9 issue of Nature magazine.

But for Brian Martinson, the HealthPartners Research Foundation researcher who authored the study, the more telling statistic is that one in three scientists surveyed admitted to some less serious form of misbehavior.

"Part of the argument, at least in our study, is the range of behaviors that are concerning may be broader than (misconduct)," he said.

Martinson said more serious behavior is probably underreported, and he sees commercialization and rising competition in the scientific community as the motivation for it.

"The pressure on researchers to get money has really intensified in recent years," Martinson said. "There's been an exponential growth in the number of scientists without an exponential growth in the resource base."

Regulations revised

On June 16, new regulations from the United States Public Health Service redefining misconduct and how it is dealt with took effect, requiring all organizations that receive funding from the agency to realign their policies. PHS is the parent body of the National Institutes of Health, one of the largest government funders of scientific research.

MSU will have a period of one year to revise its procedures, Wright said, but the new regulations won't have a major impact on the way integrity is monitored at the university.

"Actually, we're in remarkably good shape; there's nothing major we have to deal with," Bieber said. A committee consisting of himself, university administrators and lawyers was formed about a month ago to begin updating MSU's policy, he said.

In the past, research records had a tendency to "disappear" in allegations of misconduct, making it almost impossible to investigate some instances, Wright said. The new rules make researchers responsible for explaining why records are missing.

"This puts the burden on universities to establish reasonable standards," he said. Standards for data management vary widely, he said, but university officials had been working on a policy before MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon's administration.

Investigating integrity

May was a busier month than Bieber had expected.

"I was told summer was a slack time," he said. "First week after exams, we had five different situations walk in the door."

Bieber counted at least 26 different issues he attended to in the last year. More than half are settled as disputes without a formal allegation ever being made, he said.

The time required to settle each case is different, he said, but it can vary from a few weeks to more than a year. Falsification of data cases can be tricky and time consuming, but plagiarism cases are normally fairly straightforward, Wright and Bieber agreed.

"Plagiarism is an epidemic, at least in the last year," Bieber said.

Wright said the majority of allegations are made by a complainant who works directly with the accused, known as the respondent. Good-faith allegations can be damaging to the relationships and careers of those involved, he said.

Allegations of misconduct go through a three-step process starting with an assessment of the situation, and if necessary, a formal inquiry, then an investigation is conducted.

Inquiries and investigations into allegations of misconduct are performed by panels of the accused researcher's peers. Finding faculty members for the panels, which are usually made up of three people, can be difficult, Bieber said.

Common punishments range from probation to firing, depending on the seriousness of the incident, Wright said.

Once the university finishes its investigation, federal authorities often perform a separate investigation of their own, Wright said. Aside from any criminal charges that might pertain to the case, federal investigators have the ability to bar researchers from receiving grant money.

Bieber said part of his job is attempting to restore researchers' reputations after they have been cleared of wrongdoing, as he did in the case of Doree's mentor. With so much at stake to their careers, he said he feels pressure to get the facts right.

"It's not easy to sit in judgment of people you've worked with," said Bieber, who was a professor of biochemistry at MSU for 35 years. "I consider myself a scientist at heart and a faculty member."