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Sydney Morning Herald
28 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Follow the mice': How whistleblowers, secret lab videos brought down top scientist
The white lab mouse struggles and fights, hanging on to the side of the cage, before lying face-up in the scientist's gloved hands. According to a card on the box, the mouse was injected with a large dose of breast cancer cells into its belly before undergoing surgery. This mouse, though, looks perfectly healthy. So do its litter-mates. So do the mice in other boxes. 'There's no sign of any tumour,' said a researcher who reviewed the footage. Nor are there obvious signs of injection or surgery. The cages are labelled with a researcher's name: Mark Smyth. The video was one of several captured covertly in QIMR Berghofer's animal house by his colleagues, as it started to dawn on them something was deeply amiss. 'I never saw him injecting anything, or measuring tumour growth, or anything like that,' said Casey*, a researcher in Smyth's lab at the time who captured some of the videos. 'He had a vial that contained tumour cells. He just took the tube and threw it in the trash bin.' After an independent external investigation, QIMR Berghofer, a leading government-funded research institute, concluded Casey and other whistleblowers were right. In 2021, QIMR announced it had found substantial research misconduct by Smyth, and he left the facility. QIMR did not, and will not, discuss the details of that investigation, despite the millions of dollars in taxpayer money involved. But based on a leaked cache of documents and videos, and interviews with more than 20 former colleagues and investigators, this masthead can reveal what went on in Smyth's lab at QIMR, tracking how whistleblowers and investigators finally brought him down. Jordan*, a researcher who helped film the videos, refused to believe such large-scale scientific misconduct was going on until they lifted the mice out of the cages themselves. 'I was like: 'Oh no. We have to get out',' they said. Their videos were later handed to corruption investigators as part of a package of evidence from 10 whistleblowers who alleged that Smyth – at the time one of Australia's top cancer researchers, who received more than $42 million in taxpayer funding – was making up much of his data. 'Many people knew, and nobody said. And that's what went wrong for 20 years: everybody knew, but nobody said,' said Alex*, a staff member in Smyth's QIMR lab, who spoke anonymously over fears of damaging their career. 'Mark was bringing money to the institute, so the institute protected Mark.' In part one of this investigation, this masthead charted Smyth's rise to 'godlike' status as one of Australia's most important cancer researchers at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, despite ultimately unproven allegations of misconduct against him. Smyth was hired by QIMR in 2012, but left Peter MacCallum in 2013 – months after his PhD student had reported him for allegedly providing falsified mouse data. His new labs at QIMR were a far cry from the cramped spaces at Peter Mac. The Brisbane-based research centre had just received what was then reportedly the largest charitable donation in Australia's history: $50 million from a local philanthropist. In 2013, it opened a cutting-edge 13-storey research building, wrapped in glass and with views of the Brisbane river; Smyth would take up residence here. 'I'm sure Mark would have been approached by a lot of different places to move. QIMR was new and had a pile of money,' said Brett*, a colleague from Smyth's Peter Mac days who spoke anonymously to protect his career. Loading Smyth was made head of QIMR's Immunology in Cancer and Infection Laboratory. In 2015, QIMR gave its new hire the QIMR Berghofer Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Research; by 2019 he sat at the top of the institute's '500 Club' for researchers with publications cited more than 500 times. 'He was like a publishing machine, basically,' said Brett*. 'Science is based on the publications you get, and the grants that flow from that. He published a hell of a lot of papers, basically. 'He seemed to produce work that was surprisingly fast. He must be working 20 hours a day.' Smyth was so fast, colleagues at QIMR felt ashamed of their own lab skills and work ethic. 'I know many other people had the same feeling – they were really feeling they were not good at their work, because Mark was so fast,' said Alex*. While Smyth's institute gave him awards, his lab was going off the rails. 'The vibe was quite toxic. It was the worst place I've ever worked,' said Jordan*. Science is a cutthroat industry, but Smyth seemed to deliberately pit his lab team against each other. This claim was echoed in QIMR's abridged public report of its investigation, which found Smyth bullied staff. As the realisation that something was badly amiss dawned on his team, they did not know who to talk to – or who was aware of Smyth's secret. 'It was a lab of secrets, and none of us could talk about it. If you'd been there long enough, you twigged that things weren't right, but then you did not know who you could talk to about it. You did not know who you could trust,' said Jordan*. Typically, a laboratory head, particularly one as famous as Smyth, would delegate nearly all their experimental work to junior researchers. But Smyth wanted to do nearly all his mouse experiments himself. In 2019, Smyth claimed to personally use 5000 mice, about five times the lab's other researchers, according to a brief of evidence compiled by a lawyer from accounts from 10 whistleblowers and submitted to QIMR and Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission (QCCC). 'I was like, wow, he's still doing experiments, and he has this big lab,' said Casey*. 'Then I started to wonder: when does he do those experiments? Because I was in the lab long hours. And I never saw Mark doing an experiment.' Casey* brought up their concerns with other lab members. 'They started laughing. 'He's probably not doing the experiments at all.' I was shocked. So everyone knows about this, but no one does anything about it? He's just openly fabricating data?' Smyth's experiments were always conducted in isolation, according to the whistleblower brief, even those typically requiring multiple scientists. He often claimed to be working improbably early in the morning or late at night, alone in the lab. He also managed to publish 238 papers in his seven years at QIMR, while speaking at international conferences, writing grant applications, and managing a large team of junior scientists. 'It seems physically impossible,' the whistleblower brief reads. 'Even if Smyth were to spend all night, every night in the animal house … it would still be impossible for him to do all the experimental work he alleges he is doing.' Alex*, one of the whistleblowers, told this masthead that Smyth's alleged conduct that was investigated at Peter Mac – where he was accused of making up mice before being cleared – was different to that at QIMR. This time, the mice existed – the whistleblowers claimed he just wasn't injecting them. 'He was very cautious about covering his bases,' they said. 'He's not a stupid guy – he's very, very smart.' The whistleblower brief alleges Smyth would sometimes throw away cancerous cells meant to be injected into mice. In other cases, he would inject cells after they had spent hours warming on the bench, rendering them useless. Many mice showed no signs of experimentation while the data always seemed to produce 'suspiciously 'perfect' results', the brief alleges. And Smyth's staff often seemed unable to reproduce his perfect results. 'Mark could get it to work all the time, and nobody else could get it to work,' said Jordan*. 'We were just like: Mark was a stealthy science genius, how is he doing this? But that looks so dumb now.' One researcher, worried Smyth might tamper with their experiments, asked for additional mouse testing. Smyth refused, and emailed a sharp response: 'If you are implying we might not be trusted and break the rules, it is insulting to all of us. Please show a bit more tact writing emails, if you want people to keep helping you.' 'You have to show some judgement or research science will be a very difficult place for you to be long term.' Smyth himself has refused to publicly address the allegations, including when this masthead approached him at a house in Brisbane recently, but he still has defenders. 'I never saw any evidence of research misconduct,' says one co-author. Smyth 'was usually the first into work and the last to leave,' and worked most weekends, they said. Smyth always stressed the importance of good record-keeping. 'QIMR has failed to show me any substantive evidence of his accusations,' they said. 'It felt like the investigation was out to get Mark.' Smyth has published hundreds of papers, many of which have multiple, sometimes dozens, of co-authors. This masthead does not suggest they were party to, or knew of, his research misconduct. The co-author said several of their papers with Smyth were investigated by QIMR. All Smyth's work on the papers were verified, they said. Much of the evidence against Smyth seemed to come from data about where Smyth was at QIMR when experiments were apparently being run, they said. Smyth could have forgotten his access card or used someone else's, the co-author said. He may have been able to perform experiments much quicker than other scientists because of his seniority and experience, they said. 'If you asked any researcher in the world to 'prove' they did an experiment, they couldn't,' they said. 'Can you prove you had cells in your needle? No. That kind of 'proof' doesn't exist in day-to-day science.' One of Smyth's key research focuses at QIMR, as it had been at Peter Mac, was CD96 – the receptor on immune cells he hoped to turn into a cancer-buster. When Casey* joined the lab, they could not seem to replicate Smyth's work. 'I do not see CD96 as a potent target for cancer immunotherapy,' Casey* told this masthead. 'My personal opinion is that it does not do much.' It was the CD96 work that finally triggered Jordan* to try to blow the whistle. 'This is going to affect people's health and the direction of clinical trials. People shouldn't get an unproven and pointless treatment.' A treatment developed by global pharmaceutical giant GSK, at least partly based on Smyth's work, is going through clinical trials. The company insists it has robust scientific evidence behind those trials. If so many people suspected Smyth's misconduct, why did it take so long to bring him down? Smyth was enormously valuable to the institute. An external review ordered by QIMR found it treated him like a 'star' and required everyone to support him. 'Reputation is everything, everything, at QIMR,' said one former colleague, speaking under condition of anonymity to protect relationships. 'If you can bring money into an institute, a lot of things get overlooked,' said Jordan*. 'We did not feel like anyone at QIMR would believe us.' The review also found Smyth was 'a bully who used his reputation, status and power to intimidate'. The review noted that these problems started as soon as Smyth walked into the building in 2013; only one year later, a whistleblower resigned. The way Smyth treated them – and caused QIMR's HR department to treat them – was 'disgraceful'. Smyth accused them of forging their job application and faking their CV, and called them an 'idiot'. Smyth bullied researchers who raised research integrity concerns; they worried they would be sacked if they reported him. 'I've never met a research misconduct case that doesn't involve bullying,' said Elizabeth Lacey, a lawyer specialising in the field. 'The ones who are so hell-bent on getting away with it. It's all about how good you can make yourself look. 'And anything is a slight. So then anyone who might question you has to be taken down.' QIMR had no formal research integrity office until 2018, leaving researchers with HR. 'It was perceived that [human resources] would do nothing if a report were made,' the review found. 'That perception reflected the fact HR did not do anything in relation to complaints about Professor Smyth.' One whistleblower did make a report to HR, but was told 'they can't do anything about it because Mark just brings so much money to the institute'. The first part of this masthead's investigation revealed Smyth had been secretly investigated for research misconduct by Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre before he moved to QIMR. He was cleared, but the secret got out. News of the investigation soon did the rounds at QIMR. That, too, kept people from reporting. Feeling blocked, one young researcher confided in 2017 to a third party – Roberta*, a research manager at a charity that funds medical research at QIMR. The researcher opted to leave QIMR quietly rather than push the complaint. Six months later, another researcher approached Roberta* with the same story. 'They did not have a safe space internally. It just wasn't available. They did not feel if they went to their institution they could get the support they wanted. They came to me because I was independent,' Roberta* said, speaking under condition of anonymity to protect the charity. 'It is very hard as a young researcher to bring forward concerns about a multimillion-dollar grant winner. The institution has a vested interest. This man had brought them in a fortune.' Roberta* connected them with Professor David Vaux, one of Australia's most important cancer researchers, who was already suspicious of Smyth. Vaux brought Lacey on board. The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research picked up the legal tab, meaning one of Australia's leading research institutes was now paying to investigate another leading research hub. 'I had three, and then four, and then five. After a very short time I had 12 people who were impacted by him,' said Lacey. Her core investigative strategy was simple: follow the mice. 'The mice records, the animal records in the animal house, the CCTV footage will show when [Smyth] came in. Even if you're skilled, it would take, say, 45 minutes per mouse to inject this tumour. So he needs to be in the lab for at least 3 hours. But actually he was there for 25 minutes.' Lacey interviewed the whistleblowers individually. Their stories all matched, she said. 'The evidence was overwhelming and compelling.' In April 2020, she put together a brief of evidence and submitted it initially to the QCCC. The process shows the challenges of calling out scientific misconduct. The QCCC declined to investigate, arguing it 'did not have jurisdiction,' Lacey said. It asked Lacey's team to inform QIMR instead. Lacey's team declined, thinking QIMR already knew about the allegations. They were also concerned about revealing the whistleblowers' identities. In July, one of the whistleblowers separately submitted a complaint about Smyth, headed 'scientific fraud', to the National Health and Medical Research Council. The Office of Australia's Chief Scientist received a similar set of complaints. Both referred the complainant to QIMR, noting that it was not their remit to independently investigate allegations of research misconduct. The investigation seemed stuck. Then, in 2020, QIMR appointed a new chief executive, Professor Fabienne Mackay. Vaux and Lacey put together a fresh complaint that was met with a 'textbook response'. 'It was great. It was like Christmas,' says Lacey. QIMR now accepts it mishandled concerns about Smyth. 'While the institute didn't know about the misconduct, it ought to have known,' a QIMR spokesman said. 'Research integrity and quality is fundamentally important to the Institute. QIMR Berghofer's Council undertook extensive reforms to assure and protect research integrity since being made aware of the allegations, and apologised for past failings.' Smyth published 238 papers while he worked at QIMR. So far, just eight have been formally retracted and seven corrected. This does not surprise Vaux. A single retraction can often take years, and care must be taken in retraction statements to minimise the effects on innocent co-authors. Smyth's former co-author Robert* said catching fraud is very difficult, as individual scientists typically perform and record every step in an experiment. 'Without someone monitoring every step of the process, it would be very easy to fabricate that data. Particularly for someone at Mark's level. How do you monitor a professor?' QIMR conducted two lower-level investigations of Smyth over research integrity concerns before the whistleblower complaint, this masthead can reveal. In both cases, no problems were found. Without more detailed information, executives at QIMR felt they could not pursue an in-depth forensic investigation. 'The material was there, the mice were there, the data was collected,' one said, speaking anonymously to reveal confidential information. 'You can see how you cannot see what's going on, if you're not looking for the forensic evidence – and you cannot really look for that without due cause.' Why did Smyth, already a god, choose to do what he did? Smyth has never spoken about the matter. Approached at a Brisbane home, he refused to answer questions and did not respond to calls or emails. 'Mark is an astonishing person,' said one former colleague-turned-investigator, speaking anonymously to detail confidential information. 'I still struggle to understand how he could have been so dumb.' Everyone has a different theory. 'I think he's sick. His value system is so different from mine. This is something that is too difficult for me to understand, because it's too far away,' said Alex*, who worked closely with him. Co-authors and former lab members, speaking anonymously to protect their careers, think it's about ego and arrogance. 'Maybe he likes the title of most-cited immunologist, and maybe all the fanfare,' said one. Science essentially operates on an honour system – if a scientist says they did an experiment, people believe them – and with few watchdogs. 'I think it got to the point where he maybe realised he could get away with stuff,' says a former colleague, speaking anonymously to protect their career. 'I'd be surprised if he was the only one.' Science is also characterised by a 'publish or perish' mentality, producing pressure to repeat earlier successes. 'I wonder whether Mark got caught up. He pushed it too hard, and he was generating results that got him to a level he wasn't able to sustain, and so he felt that level of pressure,' said Brett*. Taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year supporting what Australians are told is a world-class science system; tin-rattling charities raise hundreds of millions more from our goodwill. To many, the Smyth case exposes the system's rotted foundations. 'Has the system failed everyone who has acted with integrity? Yes,' says Lacey. 'What all these poor whistleblowers found is when you put your head above the parapet, it gets shot off. So few of them have remained in science.' Vaux says research institutes – which rely on their public reputation to solicit grants and donations – have a strong incentive to sweep problems under the carpet. Bruce Lander was the first Independent Commissioner Against Corruption in South Australia and led QIMR's external investigation into the Smyth matter. He was so concerned by what he unearthed he demanded QIMR allow him to write a second report, one advocating for an independent Office of Research Integrity. He argues the current system sees all allegations of research misconduct investigated by the institution where the wrongdoing allegedly occurred. A young researcher would need to be courageous indeed to blow the whistle on their boss to their employer. 'There is a real disincentive for the institution to investigate its own researchers,' Lander wrote.
The Age
28 minutes ago
- The Age
‘Follow the mice': How whistleblowers, secret lab videos brought down top scientist
The white lab mouse struggles and fights, hanging on to the side of the cage, before lying face-up in the scientist's gloved hands. According to a card on the box, the mouse was injected with a large dose of breast cancer cells into its belly before undergoing surgery. This mouse, though, looks perfectly healthy. So do its litter-mates. So do the mice in other boxes. 'There's no sign of any tumour,' said a researcher who reviewed the footage. Nor are there obvious signs of injection or surgery. The cages are labelled with a researcher's name: Mark Smyth. The video was one of several captured covertly in QIMR Berghofer's animal house by his colleagues, as it started to dawn on them something was deeply amiss. 'I never saw him injecting anything, or measuring tumour growth, or anything like that,' said Casey*, a researcher in Smyth's lab at the time who captured some of the videos. 'He had a vial that contained tumour cells. He just took the tube and threw it in the trash bin.' After an independent external investigation, QIMR Berghofer, a leading government-funded research institute, concluded Casey and other whistleblowers were right. In 2021, QIMR announced it had found substantial research misconduct by Smyth, and he left the facility. QIMR did not, and will not, discuss the details of that investigation, despite the millions of dollars in taxpayer money involved. But based on a leaked cache of documents and videos, and interviews with more than 20 former colleagues and investigators, this masthead can reveal what went on in Smyth's lab at QIMR, tracking how whistleblowers and investigators finally brought him down. Jordan*, a researcher who helped film the videos, refused to believe such large-scale scientific misconduct was going on until they lifted the mice out of the cages themselves. 'I was like: 'Oh no. We have to get out',' they said. Their videos were later handed to corruption investigators as part of a package of evidence from 10 whistleblowers who alleged that Smyth – at the time one of Australia's top cancer researchers, who received more than $42 million in taxpayer funding – was making up much of his data. 'Many people knew, and nobody said. And that's what went wrong for 20 years: everybody knew, but nobody said,' said Alex*, a staff member in Smyth's QIMR lab, who spoke anonymously over fears of damaging their career. 'Mark was bringing money to the institute, so the institute protected Mark.' In part one of this investigation, this masthead charted Smyth's rise to 'godlike' status as one of Australia's most important cancer researchers at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, despite ultimately unproven allegations of misconduct against him. Smyth was hired by QIMR in 2012, but left Peter MacCallum in 2013 – months after his PhD student had reported him for allegedly providing falsified mouse data. His new labs at QIMR were a far cry from the cramped spaces at Peter Mac. The Brisbane-based research centre had just received what was then reportedly the largest charitable donation in Australia's history: $50 million from a local philanthropist. In 2013, it opened a cutting-edge 13-storey research building, wrapped in glass and with views of the Brisbane river; Smyth would take up residence here. 'I'm sure Mark would have been approached by a lot of different places to move. QIMR was new and had a pile of money,' said Brett*, a colleague from Smyth's Peter Mac days who spoke anonymously to protect his career. Loading Smyth was made head of QIMR's Immunology in Cancer and Infection Laboratory. In 2015, QIMR gave its new hire the QIMR Berghofer Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Research; by 2019 he sat at the top of the institute's '500 Club' for researchers with publications cited more than 500 times. 'He was like a publishing machine, basically,' said Brett*. 'Science is based on the publications you get, and the grants that flow from that. He published a hell of a lot of papers, basically. 'He seemed to produce work that was surprisingly fast. He must be working 20 hours a day.' Smyth was so fast, colleagues at QIMR felt ashamed of their own lab skills and work ethic. 'I know many other people had the same feeling – they were really feeling they were not good at their work, because Mark was so fast,' said Alex*. While Smyth's institute gave him awards, his lab was going off the rails. 'The vibe was quite toxic. It was the worst place I've ever worked,' said Jordan*. Science is a cutthroat industry, but Smyth seemed to deliberately pit his lab team against each other. This claim was echoed in QIMR's abridged public report of its investigation, which found Smyth bullied staff. As the realisation that something was badly amiss dawned on his team, they did not know who to talk to – or who was aware of Smyth's secret. 'It was a lab of secrets, and none of us could talk about it. If you'd been there long enough, you twigged that things weren't right, but then you did not know who you could talk to about it. You did not know who you could trust,' said Jordan*. Typically, a laboratory head, particularly one as famous as Smyth, would delegate nearly all their experimental work to junior researchers. But Smyth wanted to do nearly all his mouse experiments himself. In 2019, Smyth claimed to personally use 5000 mice, about five times the lab's other researchers, according to a brief of evidence compiled by a lawyer from accounts from 10 whistleblowers and submitted to QIMR and Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission (QCCC). 'I was like, wow, he's still doing experiments, and he has this big lab,' said Casey*. 'Then I started to wonder: when does he do those experiments? Because I was in the lab long hours. And I never saw Mark doing an experiment.' Casey* brought up their concerns with other lab members. 'They started laughing. 'He's probably not doing the experiments at all.' I was shocked. So everyone knows about this, but no one does anything about it? He's just openly fabricating data?' Smyth's experiments were always conducted in isolation, according to the whistleblower brief, even those typically requiring multiple scientists. He often claimed to be working improbably early in the morning or late at night, alone in the lab. He also managed to publish 238 papers in his seven years at QIMR, while speaking at international conferences, writing grant applications, and managing a large team of junior scientists. 'It seems physically impossible,' the whistleblower brief reads. 'Even if Smyth were to spend all night, every night in the animal house … it would still be impossible for him to do all the experimental work he alleges he is doing.' Alex*, one of the whistleblowers, told this masthead that Smyth's alleged conduct that was investigated at Peter Mac – where he was accused of making up mice before being cleared – was different to that at QIMR. This time, the mice existed – the whistleblowers claimed he just wasn't injecting them. 'He was very cautious about covering his bases,' they said. 'He's not a stupid guy – he's very, very smart.' The whistleblower brief alleges Smyth would sometimes throw away cancerous cells meant to be injected into mice. In other cases, he would inject cells after they had spent hours warming on the bench, rendering them useless. Many mice showed no signs of experimentation while the data always seemed to produce 'suspiciously 'perfect' results', the brief alleges. And Smyth's staff often seemed unable to reproduce his perfect results. 'Mark could get it to work all the time, and nobody else could get it to work,' said Jordan*. 'We were just like: Mark was a stealthy science genius, how is he doing this? But that looks so dumb now.' One researcher, worried Smyth might tamper with their experiments, asked for additional mouse testing. Smyth refused, and emailed a sharp response: 'If you are implying we might not be trusted and break the rules, it is insulting to all of us. Please show a bit more tact writing emails, if you want people to keep helping you.' 'You have to show some judgement or research science will be a very difficult place for you to be long term.' Smyth himself has refused to publicly address the allegations, including when this masthead approached him at a house in Brisbane recently, but he still has defenders. 'I never saw any evidence of research misconduct,' says one co-author. Smyth 'was usually the first into work and the last to leave,' and worked most weekends, they said. Smyth always stressed the importance of good record-keeping. 'QIMR has failed to show me any substantive evidence of his accusations,' they said. 'It felt like the investigation was out to get Mark.' Smyth has published hundreds of papers, many of which have multiple, sometimes dozens, of co-authors. This masthead does not suggest they were party to, or knew of, his research misconduct. The co-author said several of their papers with Smyth were investigated by QIMR. All Smyth's work on the papers were verified, they said. Much of the evidence against Smyth seemed to come from data about where Smyth was at QIMR when experiments were apparently being run, they said. Smyth could have forgotten his access card or used someone else's, the co-author said. He may have been able to perform experiments much quicker than other scientists because of his seniority and experience, they said. 'If you asked any researcher in the world to 'prove' they did an experiment, they couldn't,' they said. 'Can you prove you had cells in your needle? No. That kind of 'proof' doesn't exist in day-to-day science.' One of Smyth's key research focuses at QIMR, as it had been at Peter Mac, was CD96 – the receptor on immune cells he hoped to turn into a cancer-buster. When Casey* joined the lab, they could not seem to replicate Smyth's work. 'I do not see CD96 as a potent target for cancer immunotherapy,' Casey* told this masthead. 'My personal opinion is that it does not do much.' It was the CD96 work that finally triggered Jordan* to try to blow the whistle. 'This is going to affect people's health and the direction of clinical trials. People shouldn't get an unproven and pointless treatment.' A treatment developed by global pharmaceutical giant GSK, at least partly based on Smyth's work, is going through clinical trials. The company insists it has robust scientific evidence behind those trials. If so many people suspected Smyth's misconduct, why did it take so long to bring him down? Smyth was enormously valuable to the institute. An external review ordered by QIMR found it treated him like a 'star' and required everyone to support him. 'Reputation is everything, everything, at QIMR,' said one former colleague, speaking under condition of anonymity to protect relationships. 'If you can bring money into an institute, a lot of things get overlooked,' said Jordan*. 'We did not feel like anyone at QIMR would believe us.' The review also found Smyth was 'a bully who used his reputation, status and power to intimidate'. The review noted that these problems started as soon as Smyth walked into the building in 2013; only one year later, a whistleblower resigned. The way Smyth treated them – and caused QIMR's HR department to treat them – was 'disgraceful'. Smyth accused them of forging their job application and faking their CV, and called them an 'idiot'. Smyth bullied researchers who raised research integrity concerns; they worried they would be sacked if they reported him. 'I've never met a research misconduct case that doesn't involve bullying,' said Elizabeth Lacey, a lawyer specialising in the field. 'The ones who are so hell-bent on getting away with it. It's all about how good you can make yourself look. 'And anything is a slight. So then anyone who might question you has to be taken down.' QIMR had no formal research integrity office until 2018, leaving researchers with HR. 'It was perceived that [human resources] would do nothing if a report were made,' the review found. 'That perception reflected the fact HR did not do anything in relation to complaints about Professor Smyth.' One whistleblower did make a report to HR, but was told 'they can't do anything about it because Mark just brings so much money to the institute'. The first part of this masthead's investigation revealed Smyth had been secretly investigated for research misconduct by Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre before he moved to QIMR. He was cleared, but the secret got out. News of the investigation soon did the rounds at QIMR. That, too, kept people from reporting. Feeling blocked, one young researcher confided in 2017 to a third party – Roberta*, a research manager at a charity that funds medical research at QIMR. The researcher opted to leave QIMR quietly rather than push the complaint. Six months later, another researcher approached Roberta* with the same story. 'They did not have a safe space internally. It just wasn't available. They did not feel if they went to their institution they could get the support they wanted. They came to me because I was independent,' Roberta* said, speaking under condition of anonymity to protect the charity. 'It is very hard as a young researcher to bring forward concerns about a multimillion-dollar grant winner. The institution has a vested interest. This man had brought them in a fortune.' Roberta* connected them with Professor David Vaux, one of Australia's most important cancer researchers, who was already suspicious of Smyth. Vaux brought Lacey on board. The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research picked up the legal tab, meaning one of Australia's leading research institutes was now paying to investigate another leading research hub. 'I had three, and then four, and then five. After a very short time I had 12 people who were impacted by him,' said Lacey. Her core investigative strategy was simple: follow the mice. 'The mice records, the animal records in the animal house, the CCTV footage will show when [Smyth] came in. Even if you're skilled, it would take, say, 45 minutes per mouse to inject this tumour. So he needs to be in the lab for at least 3 hours. But actually he was there for 25 minutes.' Lacey interviewed the whistleblowers individually. Their stories all matched, she said. 'The evidence was overwhelming and compelling.' In April 2020, she put together a brief of evidence and submitted it initially to the QCCC. The process shows the challenges of calling out scientific misconduct. The QCCC declined to investigate, arguing it 'did not have jurisdiction,' Lacey said. It asked Lacey's team to inform QIMR instead. Lacey's team declined, thinking QIMR already knew about the allegations. They were also concerned about revealing the whistleblowers' identities. In July, one of the whistleblowers separately submitted a complaint about Smyth, headed 'scientific fraud', to the National Health and Medical Research Council. The Office of Australia's Chief Scientist received a similar set of complaints. Both referred the complainant to QIMR, noting that it was not their remit to independently investigate allegations of research misconduct. The investigation seemed stuck. Then, in 2020, QIMR appointed a new chief executive, Professor Fabienne Mackay. Vaux and Lacey put together a fresh complaint that was met with a 'textbook response'. 'It was great. It was like Christmas,' says Lacey. QIMR now accepts it mishandled concerns about Smyth. 'While the institute didn't know about the misconduct, it ought to have known,' a QIMR spokesman said. 'Research integrity and quality is fundamentally important to the Institute. QIMR Berghofer's Council undertook extensive reforms to assure and protect research integrity since being made aware of the allegations, and apologised for past failings.' Smyth published 238 papers while he worked at QIMR. So far, just eight have been formally retracted and seven corrected. This does not surprise Vaux. A single retraction can often take years, and care must be taken in retraction statements to minimise the effects on innocent co-authors. Smyth's former co-author Robert* said catching fraud is very difficult, as individual scientists typically perform and record every step in an experiment. 'Without someone monitoring every step of the process, it would be very easy to fabricate that data. Particularly for someone at Mark's level. How do you monitor a professor?' QIMR conducted two lower-level investigations of Smyth over research integrity concerns before the whistleblower complaint, this masthead can reveal. In both cases, no problems were found. Without more detailed information, executives at QIMR felt they could not pursue an in-depth forensic investigation. 'The material was there, the mice were there, the data was collected,' one said, speaking anonymously to reveal confidential information. 'You can see how you cannot see what's going on, if you're not looking for the forensic evidence – and you cannot really look for that without due cause.' Why did Smyth, already a god, choose to do what he did? Smyth has never spoken about the matter. Approached at a Brisbane home, he refused to answer questions and did not respond to calls or emails. 'Mark is an astonishing person,' said one former colleague-turned-investigator, speaking anonymously to detail confidential information. 'I still struggle to understand how he could have been so dumb.' Everyone has a different theory. 'I think he's sick. His value system is so different from mine. This is something that is too difficult for me to understand, because it's too far away,' said Alex*, who worked closely with him. Co-authors and former lab members, speaking anonymously to protect their careers, think it's about ego and arrogance. 'Maybe he likes the title of most-cited immunologist, and maybe all the fanfare,' said one. Science essentially operates on an honour system – if a scientist says they did an experiment, people believe them – and with few watchdogs. 'I think it got to the point where he maybe realised he could get away with stuff,' says a former colleague, speaking anonymously to protect their career. 'I'd be surprised if he was the only one.' Science is also characterised by a 'publish or perish' mentality, producing pressure to repeat earlier successes. 'I wonder whether Mark got caught up. He pushed it too hard, and he was generating results that got him to a level he wasn't able to sustain, and so he felt that level of pressure,' said Brett*. Taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year supporting what Australians are told is a world-class science system; tin-rattling charities raise hundreds of millions more from our goodwill. To many, the Smyth case exposes the system's rotted foundations. 'Has the system failed everyone who has acted with integrity? Yes,' says Lacey. 'What all these poor whistleblowers found is when you put your head above the parapet, it gets shot off. So few of them have remained in science.' Vaux says research institutes – which rely on their public reputation to solicit grants and donations – have a strong incentive to sweep problems under the carpet. Bruce Lander was the first Independent Commissioner Against Corruption in South Australia and led QIMR's external investigation into the Smyth matter. He was so concerned by what he unearthed he demanded QIMR allow him to write a second report, one advocating for an independent Office of Research Integrity. He argues the current system sees all allegations of research misconduct investigated by the institution where the wrongdoing allegedly occurred. A young researcher would need to be courageous indeed to blow the whistle on their boss to their employer. 'There is a real disincentive for the institution to investigate its own researchers,' Lander wrote.
AU Financial Review
2 days ago
- AU Financial Review
World-leading MDMA production kicks off in Australia
Safe, domestically produced MDMA might be the dream for Australian ravers, but it is now a reality for people with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder after Melbourne-based psychedelics manufacturer Cortexa finished its first production run of 10,000 capsules. In an Australian first, Cortexa has synthesised the world's largest single batch of high-quality therapeutic MDMA, an undertaking two years in the making and produced under high-level security.
