The President of Stanford University has resigned under fire as it turns out several research papers upon which he was principal author have been found to contain non-random, intentional errors. In other words, someone on the team faked or "improved" the data.
"He should have supervised better. As a senior author in scientific papers, you're not the person standing in the lab, but you're ultimately responsible for the integrity of the work," reports NBC News.
"As a result of the review, Tessier-Lavigne said he was going to retract three papers and correct another two," reports Reuters.
It's a black eye for arguably the most prestigious university in California, often mentioned in the same breath with the Ivies.
Tessier-Lavigne's ability to win grant funding for future projects, and thus his career as a researcher is probably over. He was doing medical research, where faked data can result in people dying.
I'm a retired academic with 20+ research papers to my credit. Believe me when I tell you what he did is a major no-no in the profession.
