HIV Vaccine Researcher Gets 57 Months in Prison for Fraud

A federal judge last week made Dong Pyou Han, PhD, a former researcher at Iowa State University, an example to anyone tempted to cook data for the sake of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr Han was sentenced to 57 months in prison for systematically falsifying data for several years to make an experimental HIV vaccine look effective when, in fact, it was not. His attorney argued that his crime did not necessarily warrant time behind bars, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) countered that a prison sentence would warn others that "the manipulation of data to receive grant funds is unacceptable, and if caught, they will be punished."

"The agency relies on the honesty of those applying, and trusts that the scientists are presenting accurate data," DOJ prosecutors said in a court filing. "The defendant violated that trust, damaging the credibility of others in the process."

The 58-year-old Dr Han worked at Iowa State University, in the laboratory of Michael Cho, PhD, who began to receive NIH funding for his HIV vaccine research in 2008. Dr Cho was looking to see whether a protein in the shell of HIV called glycoprotein 41 (gp41) could trigger an immune response in rabbits. Gp41 helps bind HIV to helper T cells, allowing the virus to penetrate and replicate, killing the cells in the process.

As Dr Cho's long-time laboratory manager, Dr Han injected rabbits with the gp41 vaccine and then drew their blood and tested their sera for HIV antibodies, according to court records. In addition to reporting his findings to Dr Cho, Dr Han sent samples of rabbit sera to a laboratory at Duke University for verification.

In 2009, Dr Cho thought he had achieved a breakthrough: the vaccinated rabbits apparently were developing antibodies that could neutralize HIV. On the strength of these preliminary results, the NIH awarded Dr Cho more money in December 2009. In all, he received $13 million from the federal agency for the vaccine work. Part of Dr Han's salary was dependent on the grants, DOJ prosecutors noted.

Research Was Presented at Academic Conferences

Dr Cho's vaccine research, presented at three academic conferences, stirred hope in the HIV/AIDS scientific community. However, Dr Han was feeding him falsified test results, making it appear that the gp41 vaccine was inducing HIV antibodies, according to prosecutors. At the same time, Dr Han was injecting rabbit sera with human antibodies before he sent them off to the Duke laboratory, fooling scientists there as well.

The ruse began to fall apart in early 2013, when a collaborating researcher at Harvard University tested the rabbit sera from Dr Cho's laboratory and identified the antibodies present as human. Dr Cho reported the spiked rabbit sera to Iowa State University and then helped engineer a "sting" operation to identify which person in his laboratory was responsible.

The sleuthing narrowed down the suspects to one person: Dr Han. Saying he was "very ashamed," he confessed to the scientific misconduct in writing in October 2013 and resigned from the university.

In February 2015, Dr Han pleaded guilty in a federal district court in Des Moines, Iowa, to making false statements to the NIH, a charge based on how Dr Cho unwittingly submitted his assistant's bogus data to the federal agency.

A Fear of Disappointing Others?

The attorney for Dr Han said in a court filing that the fraud stemmed from an innocent mistake, which is what his client claimed in his signed confession. The first rabbit sera thought to have HIV antibodies had been contaminated accidentally with human sera, but Dr Han did not discover that until after he had reported the flawed data to Dr Cho and sent off the rabbit sera for confirmatory testing.

"Dr Han, however, could not bring himself to reveal that knowledge to Dr Cho," his attorney wrote. "He could not bring himself to dash the hopes of the research team and all the others interested in the perceived potential and progress of their efforts."

At the same time, Dr Han also hoped that the research would eventually yield a genuinely effective vaccine. So he kept it going by intentionally spiking rabbit sera with human antibodies and reporting falsified test results to Dr Cho from that point on, his attorney said. "Dr Han allowed an accident to turn into a lie." His crime reflected "a human failing and the fear of disappointing others."

This appeal to sympathy did not soften the hearts of DOJ prosecutors. They pointed to all the hard work it took to perpetuate the fraud for several years, as well as its consequences.

"Because of Dr Han's conduct, a lot of time, effort, and money was spent going down a research path that was not the breakthrough that everyone had hoped," prosecutors said. His behavior, they added, "reflected poorly on the integrity of the NIH grant process, Iowa State University, Dr Cho, and others associated with this research.

"To demonstrate the seriousness of this crime and the damage it has done to the scientific community, a prison sentence is warranted."

In addition to receiving a 57-month sentence last week, Dr Han was ordered to pay $7.2 million in restitution to the NIH.