Medical expert claims scholar faked research

A prominent leukaemia expert has been accused of stealing research from a former colleague - a serious charge rarely levelled in medical academia on the mainland.

Lu Daopei , former director of Peking University's Institute of Haematology, held a press conference to claim Huang Xiaojun , the current director, stole his work and faked data in 14 publications. Dr Huang could not be reached for comment. Professor Lu is a pioneer in bone marrow transplants. He oversaw Dr Huang's PhD when the student joined his team in the 1990s.

The accusations were widely reported on scientific research websites as rarely, if ever, has an established scholar made such severe public charges against a student. Campuses cherish the Confucian ideal that teachers should protect students as their children, and students in turn should respect teachers as parents.

'It is a sad move [to hold a press conference]. Our relation is teacher and disciple, after all,' Professor Lu was quoted by The Beijing News as saying. 'But in his papers, different groups of rodents were used in different experiments, which produced the same mean and standard deviation data. How can it be possible? I feel regret that one of my students turned out like him. We need to bring the academic ethics issue to society and let the public keep an eye on it.'

At the centre of the debate is who developed a transplantation technology called GIAC that has been widely adopted in recent years.

Dr Huang claimed that he single-handedly developed the technology and won numerous medical awards. But Professor Lu said he created and named the technology.