John Mendelsohn had reached the pinnacle of his scientific career when he was called before US congressional investigators this autumn to answer questions about his role in ImClone Systems, the Manhattan technology company whose CEO, Sam Waksal, later pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges. The president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Mendelsohn had led the once-ailing research institution through what The Houston Chronicle described as a "turnaround;" he was recognized as the developer of C225 (now Erbitux), a mono-clonal antibody still praised as promising in anticancer research.1 He had even been considered as a candidate for the directorship of the National Institutes of Health, according to the Chronicle.
But that day, Oct. 10, members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce skimmed over the details of Mendelsohn's public service and the decades of research that led to development of C225. Instead, they queried him ...
