Last updated at 2:58 p.m. ET.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne is stepping down as president of Stanford University, after months of intensifying allegations of past research misconduct in his labs and just as the university released the much-anticipated results of an investigation commissioned by the Board of Trustees.
That investigation found that while Tessier-Lavigne hadn’t personally engaged in misconduct, he had “failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record.”
In a written statement, Tessier-Lavigne emphasized the investigation’s finding that he hadn’t personally engaged in scientific wrongdoing. “Although the report clearly refutes the allegations of fraud and misconduct that were made against me, for the good of the university, I have made the decision to step down as president, effective August 31,” he wrote. Public discussions about his work would probably continue and distract from his leadership of Stanford, he wrote.
Richard Saller, a professor of classics and former dean of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, will serve as interim president starting September 1. Tessier-Lavigne will remain on the faculty.
The sudden resignation follows months of reporting by The Stanford Daily that first drew attention to image manipulation on papers Tessier-Lavigne had co-written, then raised questions about the president’s response to the allegations. The student journalist who led the reporting, a rising sophomore named Theo Baker, won a prestigious Polk Award for his reporting.
Tessier-Lavigne "failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record."
— report commissioned by Stanford's board
A report on the investigation’s results, published on Wednesday and written by a lawyer for the board and five scientists who had been enlisted for the effort, found an “unusual frequency of manipulation of research data and/or substandard scientific practices” by junior scientists in Tessier-Lavigne’s labs, spanning decades. The report suggests he could have provided better oversight. At the same time, the report repeatedly says that Tessier-Lavigne did not know about data manipulation or sloppy research practices in his labs, and that he “was not reckless in failing to identify” those issues.
In an interview, Mark Filip, the board’s lawyer, reconciled those two conclusions by saying that while a reasonable scientist might not have caught, in real time, the data massaging that was later apparent in some of Tessier-Lavigne’s papers, it might be good for Tessier-Lavigne to be mindful in the future and to do even more than what’s reasonable, to attempt to catch problems.
Months and Years of Research Questions
Questions about the integrity of photos of the results of experiments, in papers on which Tessier-Lavigne was an author, first began appearing online in 2015. At the time, Tessier-Lavigne was president of Rockefeller University. He became president of Stanford in 2016. A spokesperson for the Stanford board didn’t answer an inquiry about whether the board was aware of questions about some of Tessier-Lavigne’s papers at the time it hired him as president. The board followed standard search and vetting processes at the time of the hiring, the spokesperson said.
When Tessier-Lavigne learned about problems in his papers, he didn’t always seek to correct them quickly and persistently, the board’s investigative panel wrote. In one instance, he forgot to do so, he told investigators. In another, he did write corrections and sent them to the journal that had published the paper, Science, but when Science erroneously didn’t publish the corrections, Tessier-Lavigne didn’t follow up. He wrote a draft email but didn’t send it. He “did not have an explanation” for why he had not, the report says.
Senior scientists need to “demonstrate an appropriate appetite” for correcting the scientific record, the report says. Otherwise, the self-correcting function of science won’t work.
In his statement, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he agrees with the scientific panel’s recommendations for improvement and that he plans to retract three of his questioned papers and to seek corrections on two others.
Despite years of simmering in online forums for scientists, the debate over Tessier-Lavigne’s work didn’t gain widespread public traction until The Stanford Daily began publishing stories on the topic in late 2022.
After the Daily’s first article, the Board of Trustees promised to open an investigation. That led to more controversy, however, when the Daily reported that one trustee on the investigative committee, Felix Baker, had a significant conflict of interest. (Baker is not related to Theo, the journalist on the Daily stories.) An investment firm cofounded by Felix Baker had an $18-million stake in a biotech company that Tessier-Lavigne had cofounded. Baker stepped aside, and eventually the board came up with the final structure for its review of the president’s questioned papers: a scientific panel, made up of five members, who analyzed 12 controversial papers on which Tessier-Lavigne was an author.
Of the Daily’s reporting, the most explosive article concerned anonymous sources who alleged that Tessier-Lavigne had covered up falsified data in a paper he oversaw while working as an executive at Genentech, the pharmaceutical company. Those allegations “appear to be mistaken,” the board’s report says.
As a condition of receiving an advance copy of the report to prepare stories, the board required journalists to not seek outside comment. Tessier-Lavigne has denied any fraud on his part. The Daily has previously stood by its reporting.
Tessier-Lavigne is well known in the neuroscience community for seminal work, particularly on how brain cells grow and connect. He has won numerous awards, including membership in the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. To understand how data manipulation could arise in labs he led, the board’s science panel asked junior scientists he had hired and mentored about their experiences working for him. Many talked about a positive culture of excellence on his teams, the panel wrote. But others said there were “winners” and “losers” and an atmosphere that rewarded those “who could generate favorable results” and that “diminished” those who couldn’t. In any large organization, some people will be happier than others, and Tessier-Lavigne didn’t appear to want the winners-losers dynamic, the panel wrote.
While the board’s investigation was limited to Tessier-Lavigne’s conduct as a scientist, there was a natural parallel and relevance to his ability as a university president.
“If it is found that he did not oversee his researchers in his lab in a way that upholds research and academic integrity, then I think there should be a moment to pause and ask how his leadership as the principal investigator compares to his leadership as a president,” said Teresa Valerio Parrot, principal of TVP Communications, a higher-education consultancy, in an interview before the report’s release.
At a major research university like Stanford, said Valerio Parrot, the credibility of a researcher-president “plays into the credibility of the institution itself.”
