Duke Scandal

On Jan. 9, 2015, The Cancer Letter reported that Duke University received information in early 2008 that called into question the validity of the methodology and results published by the Anil Potti research group. Potti, along with his mentor and co-author Joseph Nevins, had galvanized the world of cancer research in 2006 and 2007 with their reports of successful gene expression tests for directing cancer therapy, the “holy grail” of cancer research. The 2008 information came in the form of a letter from a third-year medical student, Brad Perez, who was working in Potti's lab. The letter, which does not seem to have been given any credence at the time, described with precision the problems that eventually resulted in the termination of clinical trials and the subsequent retractions, beginning in 2011, of at least ten (and counting) papers from major scientific journals.

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