Stanford president resigns over manipulated research, will retract at least three papers

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign effective August 31 according to communications released by the University Wednesday morning. He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.”

According to Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Tessier-Lavigne will step down “in light of the report and its impact on his ability to lead Stanford.” Former Dean of Humanities Richard Saller will serve as interim president. In a separate statement, Tessier-Lavigne defended his reputation but acknowledged that issues with his research, first raised in a Daily investigation last autumn, meant that Stanford requires a president “whose leadership is not hampered by such discussions.”

“At various times when concerns with Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged—in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-2016, and March 2021—Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record,”  Stanford’s report said, identifying a number of apparent manipulations in Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscientific research.

The report concluded that the fudging of results under Tessier-Lavigne’s purview “spanned labs at three separate institutions.” It identified a culture where Tessier-Lavigne “tended to reward the ‘winners’ (that is, postdocs who could generate favorable results) and marginalize or diminish the ‘losers’ (that is, postdocs who were unable or struggled to generate such data).”

There was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data in the papers reviewed, the report concluded, nor that he knew about manipulation at the time, but he “has not been able to provide an adequate explanation” for why he did not correct the scientific record when presented the opportunity on multiple occasions. In his statement, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he was “gratified that the Panel concluded I did not engage in any fraud or falsification of scientific data.”

He also acknowledged that “the report identified some areas where I should have done better, and I accept the report’s conclusions.” For its part, the report identified “repeated instances of manipulation of research data and/or subpar scientific practices from different people and in labs run by Dr. Tessier-Lavigne at different institutions.”

Retracting a paper is a rare act, especially for a scientist of Tessier-Lavigne’s stature. A database of retractions shows that only four in every 10,000 papers are retracted. The move is saved for when there is “clear evidence that the findings are unreliable,” according to guidelines from the nonprofit Committee on Publication Ethics. Tessier-Lavigne had claimed repeatedly last autumn that the issues in his studies “do not affect the data, results or interpretation of the papers.”

For several papers worthy of retraction to have been principally authored by the same scientist represents “unusual frequency of manipulation of research data and/or substandard scientific practices,” the investigation concluded. Tessier-Lavigne is expected to retract or issue robust corrections to at least five papers with concerns he had not addressed for years, including a widely publicized study that he once claimed “turn[s] our current understanding of Alzheimer’s on its head.”

Stanford’s report, released in a 95-page document Wednesday morning, is the work of Mark Filip, a former deputy attorney general contracted by a special committee of the Stanford Board of Trustees to review allegations first identified in Daily reporting last November. Filip drafted several high-profile scientists, including Nobel laureate Randy Schekman, former Princeton president Shirley Tilghman, former Harvard provost Steve Hyman and two other members of the National Academies.

The investigation took eight months, with one member stepping off after The Daily revealed that he maintained an $18 million investment in a biotech company Tessier-Lavigne cofounded. Reporting by The Daily this week shows that some witnesses to an alleged incident of fraud during Tessier-Lavigne’s time at the biotechnology company Genentech refused to cooperate because investigators would not guarantee them anonymity, even though they were bound by nondisclosure agreements.

The Daily has also reported that another incident was omitted altogether.

Not guaranteeing anonymity in an investigation of this importance is an “extremely unusual move,” said Jeffrey Flier, who ran a number of research misconduct inquiries in his time as Dean of Harvard Medical School. He and other outside observers wondered whether the decision hampered the investigation’s access.

With the access that it did have, the investigation concluded that the accounts of five high-level Genentech executives and scientists over one of the two incidents of reported fraud in Tessier-Lavigne’s laboratory “are not accurate.” Tessier-Lavigne’s statement said “the report clearly refutes the allegations of fraud and misconduct that were made against me.”

Despite spending nearly eight months on this investigation, none of the high-profile scientists would answer questions about their work or the decision not to guarantee anonymity. Filip and Aidan Ryan, an Edelman senior vice president for crisis communications serving as the spokesperson for the investigation, answered questions on background.

While the report said it had not found evidence of fraud in the 2009 paper, the panel concluded that the research that went into it “fell below accepted scientific practices, let alone Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s self-described standard of scientific excellence” and that the paper ought to be retracted or face “a comprehensive and robust set of corrections.”

This statement was a rebuke of Tessier-Lavigne’s public defense. His lawyer Stephen Neal, chair emeritus of Cooley, had written on Tessier-Lavigne’s behalf in a letter to The Daily last February that “a correction or retraction of those findings would have been unwarranted and inappropriate.”

The report broke new ground in other areas, while confirming many details previously reported.

“Within weeks after the publication of” a 2001 article in the journal Science now thought to contain doctored imagery, the report said, a colleague in the field identified an error. “Dr. Tessier-Lavigne stated to the colleague in writing that he would take corrective action, including both contacting the journal and attempting to issue a correction…He did not contact the journal and he did not attempt to issue an erratum, which is inadequate.”

The report noted that Tessier-Lavigne had not followed up for seven years on unpublished corrections to two of his papers in Science, concluding that “Dr. Tessier-Lavigne did not have an explanation for deciding to not follow up on the corrections beyond that he has a practice of drafting many emails to see how they read but only sends a portion of them and that he concluded the communication was unnecessary,” the report said. “To date, the scientific record remains uncorrected.”

The report noted that explanations made by Tessier-Lavigne in correspondence with editors at the journal Nature over manipulated research data in a 2004 paper were “not fully responsive to the range of publicly expressed concerns given the available forensic evidence.” Since then, Tessier-Lavigne “has acknowledged the presence of manipulation of research data,” and assented to a correction after the panel concluded it was “required and appropriate for the paper.”

Mark Filip, who led the review, said in an interview that more investigations could come out of the board’s report.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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