Turmoil Besets Wistar In Wake Of Koprowski's Ouster

The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia marks its 100th anniversary this year, but the mood at the nation's oldest independent biomedical research facility is hardly jubilant. The institute has been in turmoil for the last year, after the abrupt ouster of longtime director Hilary Koprowski, the famed virologist and immunologist who transformed Wistar from a dilapidated museum into a world-renowned research center. The commotion recently was stirred up further, when the 75-year-old Koprowski filed a lawsuit alleging, among other things, that Wistar had retired him from the directorship because of his age. "I am in perfect shape," says Koprowski, who remains active at the institute, where he has lifelong tenure as an Institute Professor. "I can run the institute, and there was absolutely no reason to remove me because of age." Koprowski's successor as Wistar's director is oncologist Giovanni Rovera, 51, who concedes that the current upheaval may be painful for many at the institute. However, he blames the turmoil not on Koprowski's removal but on the sizable budget deficit that arose during his predecessor's tenure. Rovera, formerly the associate director and a cancer researcher at the institute, says he took his new job because he "wanted to keep this place together.... I have no major interest [in being director] except to see that this place survives." But some observers, both inside and outside the institute, question whether Wistar can hang onto its status as a world-class research center (see story on page 4). "The institute was a magnificent place known throughout the entire world, and Hilary was the person responsible for that," says National Institutes of Health immunologist Abner Louis Notkins, who has served on an advisory board at Wistar. "Now, with the changes that have taken place, it's unclear what the future of the institute will be." This much, however, is clear: As Wistar begins its second century, it is going through the biggest shakeup in its modern history. In the last year, about 100 scientists and other employees--about one-sixth of its work force--have left the institute, either voluntarily or through dismissal. The new director does not mince words about his mandate from the board of managers to balance the budget by cut-ting expenses and pruning scientific programs that do not fit his long-range plans for the institute. "I've definitely committed to phasing out a number of labs that have no funding," he says. Rovera forced three labs to close last year (in the areas of developmental biology, immunology, and neuroscience); another three are slated to be shut this year. Staff morale is at an all-time low, according to several senior scientists, including lipid researcher David Kritchevsky, who was demoted last summer from his long-time position as Koprowski's associate director in the aftermath of the shakeup. "The fact is, it seems as if everybody in the institute is looking for a job," says Kritchevsky, also an Institute Professor at Wistar. "The treatment of Koprowski [was] really shabby," he adds. "It's like the Edgar Allan Poe school of management around here." Staff loyalties at the traditionally collegial institute have been torn apart by the recent change in leadership. Some researchers support Koprowski and oppose Rovera; others are solidly behind Rovera. And then there are those sympathetic to both sides. Well- known human aging expert Vincent J. Cristofalo, who worked at Wistar for many years before moving to the Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP), says he feels for both men. "Hilary really was the institute," says Cristofalo, who is director of MCP's Center for Gerontological Research. "He made the institute, and they [the institute's board] damn well could have found a better way of moving him along." On the other hand, he says: "Although Wistar has lost a lot of momentum, what Rovera is doing will, in concept, ultimately benefit the institute--it's just that it's having a temporarily bad effect on people." Rovera is the first to admit that not everyone at the institute supports him: "The three [research] groups who worked with Hilary obviously are backing him up, and they represent about 30 percent of the institute." As for the rest, he says, they "are happy to see more fiscal sanity in this operation." Under Rovera's leadership, many who work in Koprowski's areas of research reportedly are looking to leave the institute. The rabies group, for example, which has engineered an oral vaccine that prevents the disease in wild animals, is moving to better-equipped quarters at Phila- delphia's Thomas Jefferson University. Another recent blow to Wistar was the loss of star researcher E. Premkumar Reddy, who is working on the development of drugs and gene therapy to combat AIDS. Rovera points out that Reddy left for a job that would be hard to turn down--directorship of Temple University's prestigious Fels Institute. But Reddy himself says that the Wistar board's handling of the institute's fiscal problems was one of several factors in his decision to move. "What I did not see at Wistar was a commitment by the board to raise money in hard times," he says. Koprowski and Rovera, who once enjoyed a cordial professional relationship, are barely on speaking terms. Rovera describes their relationship as "cold"; Koprowski calls it "nasty, to say the least--hostile, even." Koprowski is particularly incensed that his three personal secretaries were recently dismissed by Rovera. The new director says Wistar could no longer support the salaries of these longtime employees. Koprowski counters that he had made plans to obtain outside funds to pay their salaries. However, when the funds were not received as quickly as Koprowski had planned, Rovera took the employees off Wistar's payroll. Amid this atmosphere of tumult and financial constraint, the institute has put its plans for a big centennial bash this spring on hold. Lisa E. Dominici, Wistar's director of public affairs, says the main celebration will take place in 1994--the centennial not of the institute's founding, but of the original Victorian research building that still houses labs. "It just seems like the wrong time to launch into a big celebration," she says, particularly because of the budget crisis. However, some small events are planned for this year, she adds. And now, the bitter clash between Koprowski and Wistar's top management is about to spill into the courts. In mid- February, Koprow-ski's lawyers filed a lawsuit in the Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia, charging that the former director was prematurely and wrongfully retired from his position because of age discrimination. The lawsuit replaces an earlier legal complaint of age discrimination that Koprowski's lawyers filed last fall with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit also alleges that Koprowski has been the target of harassment by Wistar's new management. One example is the recent firing of his secretaries, says Ko-prowski's attorney, Hugh Bracken, of the law firm Sprague, Higgins, Creamer & Sprague in Philadelphia. But that's not all. Two more of Koprowski's legal complaints--one filed last fall, alleging age discrimination, and one filed in February, alleging harassment--are pending before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. As a legal remedy, Koprowski seeks to be reinstated as director, so he can oversee a search committee composed of peer scientists--as opposed to the board of managers, who appointed Rovera--who would choose his successor in an orderly fashion. His lawyers are also seeking an end to what they see as "harassment and retaliation," says Bracken. "I'm after justice," says Koprowski. "I'm not after being eternal director. I'm interested in securing the future of the institute--and not in the present hands of management." Wistar officials dismiss claims that age discrimination played any role in Koprowski's removal as director. "The fundamental reason the board did not reappoint him as director was because the institute was having very serious financial problems," says Warren Cheston, Wistar's director of external affairs. "In a few years, at the rate we were operating, we'd have exhausted all the funds available to the board, and we'd have had to shut down." Allegations of age discrimination are "ludicrous," says Robert A. Fox, the businessman who heads Wistar's board of managers, which has ultimate authority over the institute's financial affairs. "The financial restraints and controls to balance the budget were not in place," says Fox, who is president of his investment company, RAF Industries, in Elkins Park, Pa. "He [Koprowski] didn't leave us much choice but to do what we had to do to protect the long-term viability of the institute." Although Wistar has not yet had time to respond to the lawsuit, its attorney has filed a motion to dismiss the age- discrimination complaint before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The motion to dismiss is based on several legal grounds, including that it was filed too late, past the statute of limitations, says John Harkins, Wistar's attorney. Resolution of the complaint before the state Human Relations Commission is likely to take eight months or longer, says Sandra Holman-Bacote, the commission's regional director in Philadelphia. A timetable for the recent lawsuit has not yet emerged, says Koprowski attorney Bracken. The "coup," as some employees refer to the events surrounding Koprowski's replacement, took place in the spring of 1991. By then, it had become clear to the board of managers that the institute, which has an annual operating budget of around $30 million, was headed for its biggest deficit ever--a projected loss in 1991 of at least $3 million and perhaps as much as $5 million, say Rovera and finance director Larry Keinath. In large part, the deficit was caused by the loss of royalties from patents Wistar held for its development of vaccines for German measles and rabies, agree Koprowski, Rovera, and Keinath. Those patents, which generated royalty revenues in excess of $3 million annually, expired recently, says Keinath. Although everyone agreed something needed to be done, what to do was a matter of long-simmering debate between Koprowski and key board members. Board president Fox and some other board members wanted Koprowski to balance the budget by reducing expenses and making cuts in research programs that were "not in the mainstream of Wistar science," Fox says. Instead, Koprowski argued that the institute should increase its revenue by raising endowments, primarily through fund- raising on the part of board managers. Wistar's total endowment--about $22 million, according to Keinath--is considered small for an institute its size. Says Koprowski: "My vociferous plea for the last nine years was to increase the endowment. That's the job of the board of managers, and there was no attempt to do that." Koprowski notes that he offered to donate $450,000 of his own money, in the form of stocks he owns, if board members would collectively match his contribution. Although the board turned him down, Koprowski says, he signed over the stocks to Wistar, anyway, in the form of a trust fund to support its scientists. Koprowski's supporters, many of whom work in his principal research areas of rabies, multiple sclerosis, and cancer biology, contend that the former director should not have been replaced, at least not without a formal, thorough search for a successor of equivalent stature. "The fact that a successor was selected without a search committee was extraordinary," says one disgruntled scientist who plans to leave and asks not to be identified. "It was completely inappropriate--bizarre even." "What scientists on the outside are concerned about is the way all of this was handled," adds Notkins of NIH. "It was almost a Wall Street-style boardroom takeover." Although the board of managers had begun to make plans last year to organize a formal search committee, it never materialized. Instead, in late 1990 or early 1991, as the board began to study Wistar's gloomy financial outlook, board president Fox and other key members began to look within the institute for an immediate successor to Koprowski. "The board interviewed all the senior scientists, to find out what their thoughts were on who might be new director," says Cheston. "Rovera was the logical person to turn to. He had very high internal support from his colleagues, and his research fit right with the majority of people here." Cheston says the institute's budget deficit needed fixing fast, and Wistar could not afford to spend the two to three years to find a new director that a formal search would entail. Rovera adds that the institute lacked the money and huge laboratory space required to recruit a big-name outside director. The price tag for such a scientist would have been around $5 million, he says. As Rovera puts it: "Let's face it, the institute was just too poor to do it." The board met twice, in late March and early April 1991. Proposals were voted upon to retire Koprowski from the directorship and appoint Rovera in his place. The board also planned to change Wistar's bylaws so they could appoint Koprowski as institute president--a titular position in which he would serve as a "good-will ambassador." Despite the vociferous objections of most of the board's scientific advisory committee, board members voted to accept these proposals with, Fox says, "an overwhelming consensus." Here again, the matter is in dispute. In his lawsuit, Koprowski alleges that he was replaced with "a vote of less than the majority" of the board, and contends that the vote should therefore should be deemed null and void. In any event, soon after the board decision, the institute's staff was told the news at a meeting. "To most people, it was an enormous shock," recalls Kritchevsky. Although he was removed from the directorship nearly a year ago, Koprowski remains a strong presence at Wistar. He was never appointed to institute president; that plan was not pursued after he filed his first legal complaints last fall. Rovera, says Kritchevsky, now "has the difficult task of becoming the director of what most people in the world see as Koprowski's institute." To say that Koprowski is a hard act to follow would be an understatement. The Polish-born scientist is the author or coauthor of more than 800 papers, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of enough prestigious scientific awards to keep a trophy maker in business for years (see accompanying story). Now, Rovera must shape the institute according to his own vision. A physician trained in oncology, Rovera joined Wistar in 1975 and was named associate director in 1988. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that lead to leukemia and childhood malignancies. In his former position, he oversaw the scientific direction of Wistar's cancer research program and organized its program for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows. Although the budget-cutting measures have exacted a heavy toll on morale, Rovera has stanched much of the flow of red ink. Last year, the deficit shrank from a projected loss of more than $3 million to about $1.7 million. This year, he expects to trim the deficit to $1.4 million or less, he says. Rovera has a different vision of the institute's mission from Koprowski's. For example, the new director wants to move away from traditional vaccine research to prevent viral diseases, toward the cure of these diseases with chemotherapeutic agents. Rovera and Koprowski also have sharply contrasting management styles. A charismatic and strong-willed leader, Koprowski ran the place like "a benevolent monarchy," says Kritchevsky. Says an administrator, who requests anonymity: "He ruled with an iron hand." When he was in power, Koprowski was usually driven in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, which the institute leased for him. Rovera, in contrast, drives himself around in his 1984 Audi. As director, he intends to decentralize authority within the institute, spreading it among the heads of six scientific programs, in which the institute's research will be refocused (molecular genetics, immunology, structural biology, virology, experimental therapeutics, and developmental biology). Leadership of Wistar "will no longer be the responsibility of just one person with charisma," says Rovera. Instead, "we'll be relying on multiple players in helping to shape the future." Although he plans some additional personnel cuts this year, Rovera also intends to hire new scientists in target areas-- primarily in areas of developmental biology, structural biology, and molecular genetics--and to bring in three new laboratories. But some critics wonder if Wistar still has the financial clout and a stellar enough name at the top to continue to attract the best and the brightest. "There were some major achievements at Wistar that are unlikely to be duplicated in the present or the near future, unless they [board members] come to their senses and get a search committee to find a leader who can inspire again," says Michael Katz, a former board member who voted against the proposal to remove Koprowski. "An institute like this deserves someone from the top echelon of world scientists, and I can't imagine its survival without it," says Katz, Carpentier Professor of Pediatrics and chairman of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical School in New York. Katz recently resigned from Wistar's board of managers, partly because "I didn't want to be on the board observing the demise of a world-class research institution." Almost one year after the dramatic reshuffling, with a costly legal battle still to come, many Wistar employees are trying to figure out how their own futures will be affected. Kritchevsky, who came to the institute with Koprowski in 1957, sums up his own attitude this way: "With Koprowski, it was like Big Daddy. You always had the feeling that no matter how bad things were, he'd take care of them--and he did. "Now that's gone. You now have the feeling that if you fall in the water, the chances are no better than 50-50 that anyone would throw you a life preserver." Jean Wallace is a science writer based in Philadelphia.

Turmoil Besets Wistar In Wake Of Koprowski's Ouster

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