Posts
 |
| Photo: Yuen Sin |
 |
| Ms Sabeera Bonala lost her job at A*Star's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences last year after NTU's probe. Photo: The Straits Times |
Ms Sabeera Bonala, who received her PhD at NTU in 2013 for work on myostatin, had been investigated for academic malpractice along with other researchers in one of the biggest cases of scientific fraud in Singapore.
Ms Bonala, whose age is unknown, also had her employment at A*Star's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) terminated in August last year after NTU's investigation.
The withdrawal of her qualification was reported on Tuesday in Retraction Watch, a website that monitors retractions of scientific publications, and which first revealed the academic scandal in July last year.
Six research papers were retracted, including three that had listed Ms Bonala as the first author.
As an immediate result of the fraud, NTU professor Ravi Kambadur was sacked from both his post at the university and his role as senior principal investigator at SICS. Dr Mridula Sharma, who was associate professor at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, also left her job. Former NTU researcher Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy had his PhD revoked by NTU.
Mr Lokireddy, who previously held a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School's department of cell biology, has also left Harvard.
In consultation with A*Star and NUS, NTU took the lead in a wide-ranging investigation conducted by a committee of inquiry. In total, 23 authors were involved in the six retracted papers, but these were the four who were punished.
The researchers' work had focused on myostatin - a protein that regulates muscle growth in humans and animals, whose suppression the researchers claimed could keep people in "fat-burning mode" and let them shed kilos. The research had been hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against killers such as obesity and diabetes.
Read more...
Source: The Straits Times
