Duke Sued for Cancer Trial

Cancer patients and families of deceased patients filed a lawsuit against Duke University for clinical trials based on flawed data.

Written byJef Akst
| 1 min read

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Duke Chapel at Duke UniversityWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, BJOERTVEDT

Last year, Duke oncologist Anil Potti admitted to having posed as a Rhodes Scholar and fabricating statistical analyses on how breast cancer responds to chemotherapy. Now, participants of clinical trials based partly on his research and families of participants who have died are suing the university and some Duke employees for "fraudulent and negligent behavior" for enrolling cancer patients in the trials, ScienceInsider reports.

The plaintiffs accuse Duke officials of knowing that Potti's work, as well as the research of cancer geneticist Joseph Nevins, former director of Duke's Center for Applied Genomics & Technology, was problematic when they began initiating the trials. According to the lawsuit, "In May 2007, after being placed on notice of the flawed science underlying its cancer studies as referenced above, ...

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  • Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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