Days after Stanford University announced it would investigate concerns about the integrity of his scientific research, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne on Monday sent an email to Stanford’s biosciences community, saying he’d never knowingly submitted false or misleading data.
“I want to be clear that I have never submitted a paper without firmly believing that the data were correct and accurately presented,” Tessier-Lavigne wrote in an email obtained by The Chronicle. “I also want to be clear that I take responsibility for any concerns that arise with respect to any work with which I have been involved. I trust that a thorough examination will fully address the concerns that have been raised and will affirm my commitment to the highest standards of scientific integrity.”
He emphasized that he was not writing, as he usually did, in his capacity as university president, but as a scientist. “As a scientist, I am dedicated to the rigorous pursuit of the truth,” the decorated neuroscientist, who became Stanford’s president in 2016, wrote. “The integrity of my work is of paramount importance to me, and I take any concerns that are expressed very seriously.”
The message was Tessier-Lavigne’s longest public statement since The Stanford Daily first reported on concerns raised by independent scientific-misconduct experts about several papers that he has worked on over the past two decades-plus. Experts have identified at least seven papers with allegedly suspect images, three of which list Tessier-Lavigne as the senior author. Stanford’s board of trustees announced late last week that it would appoint a special committee to investigate the concerns.
The Daily first reported last week that a major bioscience journal was reviewing a 2008 paper of which Tessier-Lavigne was a co-author. That publication, the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal, told the Daily that it was “currently engaged in a full due diligence screen” of the paper. Meanwhile, the independent scientific-misconduct investigator Elisabeth Bik and other watchdogs have raised concerns with a number of other papers Tessier-Lavigne published in high-profile journals such as Cell, Nature, Current Biology, and Science. The editor of Science said last week that Tessier-Lavigne had submitted two corrections for two articles in 2015, but the journal was looking into why they had not been published at that time.
On Monday, Cell said in a statement to The Chronicle that new concerns about a 1999 paper of which Tessier-Lavigne was a senior author “warrant a closer look.” Tessier-Lavigne had contacted the journal in 2015 with concerns about the paper. At the time, Cell editors “evaluated the issues” and told Tessier-Lavigne “they did not think that further action was warranted,” the statement read.
The special committee appointed by the trustees to investigate the claims against Tessier-Lavigne would seek assistance from outside advisors, make recommendations to the full board, and conduct its work “with all deliberate speed,” board chair Jerry Yang said in a statement on Friday.
“I also want to note that since President Tessier-Lavigne’s appointment in 2016, he has effectively led this university with integrity and honor. I am confident he will continue to do so while we undertake this review,” Yang wrote.
Both the university and Tessier-Lavigne have emphasized that the president, who is a member of the board of trustees, would not be involved in the investigation (“other than my full cooperation,” Tessier-Lavigne wrote in his Monday message). But as of Monday, one of the committee’s five members had already stepped aside after the Daily raised concerns about a conflict of interest. The trustee, Felix Baker, co-founded an investment firm which holds an $18 million stake in a biotechnology company co-founded by Tessier-Lavigne, who serves on the company’s board of directors and as a scientific advisor, the Daily reported.
