A scientific investigating cornmittee at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has concluded that a scientist deliberately falsified and misrepresented research results and has recommended that his affiliation with the center be terminated.
As a result of the findings the scientist, Dr. William T. Summerlin, 35 years old, has been given up to a one‐year medical leave of absence with pay while he undergoes psychiatric care for an emotional illness, Dr. Lewis Thomas, president of the cancer center, said yesterday. Dr. Thomas told news conference that in his opinion “the fraud in this work is a result of mental illness” but that even if he recovers, Dr. Summerlin would not return to the center.
According to the committee's long report, which was released at the news conference, Dr. Summerlin admitted to the committee that he had darkened the skin of two white mice with a pen to make it appear that the mice had accepted skin grafts from genetically different animals, and that on four occasions he had misrepresented the results of experimental transplants of human corneas into rabbit eyes.
Dr. Summerlin was attempting to prove in these and other experiments that, by keeping tissues in laboratory culture for several weeks, they could be successfully transplanted to genetically different animals without the use of dangerous drugs to suppress rejection. Such an achievement would have great practical importance in organ transplantation and in the treatment of patients requiring skin grafts.