Notebook

LIFE GOES ON: Francis Collins says he won't change his style.

In an October 1 "Dear Colleague" letter to 100 or so leukemia genetics researchers, geneticist Francis Collins explained that he was retracting five research papers on leukemia in leading scientific journals because a junior colleague falsified data. News of the letter was originally reported in the Chicago Tribune on October 29 (J. Crewdson, page 1). Collins, director of the Human Genome Project and the National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR), part of the National Institutes of Health, told the Tribune that the junior scientist confessed to a "stunning series of data misrepresentations and outright fabrications extending over a period of at least two years." Collins found out about the fabrication in mid-August when a journal editor pointed out that an anonymous reviewer had raised questions about a manuscript he and the colleague, later identified by the New...