MIT Researcher Allegedly Copied Other Groups’ Drug Designs

Executives at a biotech that develops new antibodies argue that Ram Sasisekharan didn’t come up with the structures for at least two experimental therapies that his group has described.

Written byCatherine Offord

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MIT biological engineer Ram Sasisekharan may have copied other researchers’ designs for antibody therapies and passed them off as his own, according to researchers at Adimab, a New Hampshire–based private firm focused on antibody discovery. Outlining the allegations in a paper published last week (May 20) in mAbs, the company claims that at least two monoclonal antibody drugs in development—one against Zika and the other against influenza—described by Sasisekharan’s lab bear strong resemblances to already published work.

“We assembled the facts, we checked the facts with the leading antibody experts outside of Adimab and they all agreed with us,” paper coauthor Tillman Gerngross, Adimab’s CEO, tells Endpoints News. “If you look at the facts it looks like serious misconduct.”

Sasisekharan’s lab focuses on the use of computer algorithms to discover and develop new drugs—an approach that has helped him launch three biotechs and attract considerable investor ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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