Jackson Lab responds to FBI investigation of former employee
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice have been investigating Chinese collaborations of a scientist formerly at the Jackson Laboratory, the biomedical research organization headquartered in Bar Harbor.
Yijun Ruan, formerly professor and director of genomic sciences at the lab’s Farmington, Conn., facility, “has received, and possibly is continuing to receive” funding from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, China, and Shenzhen People’s Hospital in Shenzhen, China, while receiving research grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to an FBI affidavit filed Dec. 30 in the Bangor federal court.
Ruan was previously affiliated with both of the Chinese institutions, and his "close ties" to them could have made him ineligible for the grants, the affidavit said.
Ruan “failed to disclose material information to JAX, thereby causing JAX to submit materially false grant applications, Just-in-Time reports and other documents to NIH via the internet. These interstate wire communications facilitated Ruan’s scheme to defraud."
The affidavit asked the court to issue a search warrant, and the case was reported by the Bangor Daily News Tuesday night. Mainebiz received a statement from the lab Wednesday morning.
“While we cannot comment on an ongoing governmental investigation, JAX is fully cooperating with the FBI and DOJ, as we do with inquiries from any U.S government or U.S. regulatory agency," the statement read in part.
“Integral to our commitment to upholding the highest standards, JAX has policies and procedures in place to guide the ethical conduct of our scientific staff and how we share our research with other institutions, and works to ensure compliance with regulations and standards governing disclosure of external financial interests and sources of support for their research. Our paramount priority is to advance our research mission for the betterment of humankind ...
“It is also our institutional responsibility, and the responsibility of every JAX employee, to pursue science with integrity and in full compliance with all laws and regulations. These JAX policies include requirements that JAX scientists disclose all significant income from sources outside of JAX, all academic affiliations, all sources of support for scientific and academic activities outside of JAX, and any portions of scientific work done abroad for federally funded research. Any violation is taken with utmost seriousness.”
Ruan, a U.S. citizen, arrived at the Farmington site in 2012. His positions just prior to JAX were at the National University of Singapore and Genome Institute of Singapore, according to his curriculum vitae.
In the 1990s, he worked for Large Scale Biology Corp. and Monsanto Co. in the U.S.
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