BIOTECHNOLOGY IN CHINA:
Doubts Over New Antibiotic Land Co-Authors in Court

Gong Yidong^* and Eliot Marshall

BEIJING--A bioengineering triumph at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, has been dismissed as a "scientific fabrication" by six of the 18 authors who worked on it. But the project chief at Sichuan has hit back: Last week, Qiu Xiao-Qing sued two of his co-authors-cum-critics, charging that they have injured his and his employer's reputations.

After the Sichuan team described a specific antibacterial protein called pheromonicin in the November 2003 issue of Nature Biotechnology, Chinese media anointed the discovery as a "major breakthrough in human antibiotics." However, simmering concerns about the high-profile work escalated into a public brawl last month after a critique appeared on a popular Chinese Web site dedicated to exposing academic misconduct.

The fracas centers on an 18 December letter to Nature Biotechnology in which the critics--some of whom also have a business dispute with Qiu--allege that the pheromonicin findings were contradicted by data known to Qiu before the article announcing the discovery went into print. They also claim that "some of us" were included as co-authors without their knowledge. In the letter, posted 1 January on the fraud-busting Web site New Threads (www.xys.org), the six say that they were slow to air the charges because they became aware of the paper's defects only after reading a recent Chinese ***.

The authors sent their explosive letter to Nature Biotechnology at the urging of Prophet Biopharmaceuticals, says company president Jonathan Shao. Prophet, registered in Wilmington, Delaware, bought rights to develop Qiu's discovery outside China but now feels it was "fooled," says Shao. He adds that he helped translate the critics' letter and that a colleague in China subsequently released the text to New Threads. Since then, three reviews have been launched: at Nature Biotechnology; at Sichuan University, which employs Qiu; and at the University of Connecticut Medical Center in Farmington, which employs the second corresponding author, George Wu.

At a press conference last month, Qiu dismissed the charges as part of a commercial disagreement. Four of the letter signers are employed by Chengdu Yanghui Biotechnology, a subsidiary of Sichuan NTC Holdings Limited, which licensed the discovery from Qiu in 2002. But two of them--Zhang Shuhua and Ou Zhen-rong--are government researchers at the National Sichuan Antibiotic Industrial Institute, Laboratory of Pharmacology, with no known financial stake in the case. At the request of investors, Qiu provided sample material for an analysis by Zhang and Ou, and he received a copy of their private report after it was completed in March 2003, according to Shao. The report found that the sample had broad antibacterial effects. Critics cite this as evidence that pheromonicin was not "targeted … against specific bacteria," as the subsequent Nature Biotechnology paper claimed.

Counterattack. Qui Xiao-Qing dismisses charges by co-authors challenging a report of a new antibiotic published in Nature Biotechnology in 2003. CREDIT: YAO YUAN/CHENGDU ECONOMIC DAILY

Last week, Qiu sued the two Sichuan Institute scientists in Chengdu's Wuhou District Court, seeking an apology and about $1200 in compensation. Qiu's attorney was quoted in the Chengdu Economic Daily as saying the suit singled out the pair because their report on pheromonicin's lack of specificity is being cited by the critics--and it is wrong. In a telephone interview, Qiu told Science that the March 2003 report was largely "irrelevant" to his paper, but that he had included its authors "to show respect for their work on the original data," part of which he used in the paper.

The second corresponding author on the Nature Biotechnology paper, Wu, a gastroenterologist, says that in retrospect he cannot tell whether the data are sound. The paper's topic--bioengineered antibacterial proteins--is "totally out of my field," he told Science. He says he helped translate the report into English and suggested ways to "beef up the experiments with some controls" and "put this together in a presentable way." "Qiu is a friend of mine," he added, but "I have not seen the original data."

At Prophet's request, Zhao Lijun, a biochemist now at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, says that in 2004 he reexamined the Nature Biotechnology paper and the technical analysis of pheromonicin by the National Sichuan Antibiotic Industrial Institute. Zhao says he immediately realized that the claim of specificity in the Nature Biotechnology paper could not be right. He adds that Tibet West Pharmaceuticals, a partner of NTC Holdings, tried to replicate the work but failed to do so, concluding instead that the material provided by Qiu was contaminated with streptomycin. Qiu regards this finding as "ridiculous" because the same company had earlier produced a 50-gram quantity of pheromonicin.

Zhao, who says he has no financial stake in this project, charged in a May 2005 letter to Nature Biotechnology that Qiu's material was contaminated with streptomycin; the letter is still in review. The journal's editor Andrew Marshall contacted Zhao on 18 January saying he is gathering more information before making a decision. Marshall was traveling and unavailable to comment before Science went to press.

Two other reviews are under way. The University of Connecticut Health Center will decide "within days" whether a preliminary inquiry is warranted, says spokesperson James Walter. Sichuan University announced on 16 January that it had set up an investigation committee composed of university and outside experts, as yet unnamed, but set no timetable.

"Sichuan University regards the safeguarding of academic purity and scientific dignity as being as important as its own life," says university vice-president Li Guangxian. "We will clarify the controversy." Qiu is confident the reviews will vindicate him. "I have nothing to be afraid of," he says, because facts will speak the truth.