The indictments of two US professors accused of fraud for their alleged misuse of bacteria provide a lesson to scientists that material transfer agreements (MTAs)—which many researchers consider irksome red tape—can be used against academics in court, especially in today's climate of heightened biosecurity, say attorneys and technology transfer officials.
The indictments charge that Robert Ferrell, a professor of human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, provided Steven Kurtz, an art professor at the State University of New York, Buffalo, with
One of the issues in the case is that...