Walter W. Stewart (scientist)

Walter W. Stewart (born c. 1945[1]) is an American biomedical scientist who worked at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.[2] Working at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases, he invented Lucifer yellow, a fluorescent dye used for visualizing cells under microscope, in 1979.[3] In 1971, he had also isolated and worked out the chemical structure of tabtoxin, or wildfire toxin, an antibiotic precursor from the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae.[4] He is most popularly known for his efforts in maintaining scientific integrity by fighting against important cases of malpractices.[5][6] He accompanied James Randi in debunking homeopathic experiment perpetrated by French immunologist Jacques Benveniste in an incidence known as the Benveniste affair in 1988.[7][8]

The Baltimore case

David Baltimore was a microbiologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who received the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (along with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco) for the "discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell."[9][10] Since 1981, he collaborated with Brazilian immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari at the Institute for Genetics in University of Cologne, Germany.[11] By the next year, Imanishi-Kari joined him at MIT and worked on mutations in immunoglobulins.[12] In 1986, Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari's team published a paper in the journal Cell on rearrangement of immunoglobin gene and the effects in transgenic mice.[13]

Margot O'Toole, a post-doctoral researcher at MIT claimed that she could not reproduce the same experimental results and accused Imanishi-Kari of fabricating research data. When Charles Maplethorpe, a former graduate student with Imanishi-Kari, learned of this, he took the matter to Stewart and his colleague Ned Feder, who had specialised in dealing with research frauds.[14] Stewart and Feder reanalysed the laboratory data and the published paper, and found not just small mistakes but "concluded that the published paper contained a number of serious misrepresentations of scientific fact."[15] With permission from the NIH, they submitted their findings to MIT and Tufts University, where Imanishi-Kari had moved. As the universities took no action, Stewart and Feder informed the case to John Dingell, a member of the United States House of Representatives.[16] As the research was funded by the U.S. federal government, the case was taken up by the United States Congress. Dingell, as chairman of the House's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (OSI), pursued the case.[17]

In 1991, Imanishi-Kari was accused of data falsification and barred from research grants for 10 years.[18] Baltimore was prompted to resign as president of the Rockefeller University for assisting and defending Imanishi-Kari.[19] Cell retracted the paper.[20] In 1994, however, OSI's successor, the Office of Research Integrity found Imanishi-Kari guilty on 19 counts of research misconduct,[21] but was cleared of the charges in 1996.[22] Consequently, Stewart and Feder, faced a bad reputation.[23]

References

  1. ^ "Stewart-Feder: Reassignment Is A Moral--Not An Administrative--Matter". The Scientist. Retrieved 2025-05-03.
  2. ^ Culliton, Barbara J. (1987-01-23). "Integrity of Research Papers Questioned". Science. 235 (4787): 422–423. doi:10.1126/science.3798118.
  3. ^ Hanani, Menachem (January 2012). "Lucifer yellow – an angel rather than the devil". Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. 16 (2): 22–31. doi:10.1111/j.1582-4934.2011.01378.x. PMC 3823090. PMID 21740513.
  4. ^ Knight, T.J.; Durbin, R.D.; Langston-Unkefer, P.J. (1987). "Self-protection of Pseudomonas syringae pv. "tabaci" from its toxin, tabtoxinine-beta-lactam". Journal of Bacteriology. 169 (5): 1954–1959. doi:10.1128/jb.169.5.1954-1959.1987. PMC 212058. PMID 3571155.
  5. ^ Stewart, Walter W.; Feder, Ned (1987). "The integrity of the scientific literature". Nature. 325 (6101): 207–214. doi:10.1038/325207a0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 3808019.
  6. ^ Murray, Mary (1987-01-24). "A Long-Disputed Paper Goes to Press". Science News. 131 (4): 52–53. doi:10.2307/3971418. JSTOR 3971418. S2CID 88418420.
  7. ^ Maddox J (June 1988). "Can a Greek tragedy be avoided?". Nature. 333 (6176): 795–7. Bibcode:1988Natur.333..795M. doi:10.1038/333795a0. PMID 3133566.
  8. ^ Maddox, John; James Randi; Walter W. Stewart (28 July 1988). "'High-dilution' experiments a delusion". Nature. 334 (6180): 287–290. Bibcode:1988Natur.334..287M. doi:10.1038/334287a0. PMID 2455869. S2CID 9579433.
  9. ^ "Physiology or Medicine 1975 – Press Release" (Press release). October 1975. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
  10. ^ Weiss, Robin A. (1998). "Viral RNA-dependent DNA polymerase RNA-dependent DNA polymerase in virions of Rous sarcoma virus". Reviews in Medical Virology. 8 (1): 3–11. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1654(199801/03)8:1<3::AID-RMV218>3.0.CO;2-#. ISSN 1052-9276. PMID 10398490.
  11. ^ Bothwell, Alfred L. M.; Paskind, Michael; Reth, Michael; Imanishi-Kari, Thereza; Rajewsky, Klaus; Baltimore, David (1981-06-01). "Heavy chain variable region contribution to the NPb family of antibodies: somatic mutation evident in a γ2a variable region". Cell. 24 (3): 625–637. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(81)90089-1. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 6788376.
  12. ^ Bothwell, Alfred L. M.; Paskind, Michael; Reth, Michael; Imanishi-Kari, Thereza; Rajewsky, Klaus; Baltimore, David (1982). "Somatic variants of murine immunoglobulin λ light chains". Nature. 298 (5872): 380–382. doi:10.1038/298380a0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  13. ^ Weaver D, Reis MH, Albanese C, Costantini F, Baltimore D, Imanishi-Kari T (April 1986). "Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged mu heavy chain gene". Cell. 45 (2): 247–59. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(86)90389-2. PMID 3084104. S2CID 26659281. (Retracted, see doi:10.1016/0092-8674(91)90085-D, PMID 2032282)
  14. ^ Culliton, Barbara J. (1988-06-24). "A Bitter Battle Over Error". Science. 240 (4860): 1720–1723. doi:10.1126/science.3132741.
  15. ^ Culliton, Barbara J. (1988). "A Bitter Battle Over Error (II)". Science. 241 (4861): 18–21. doi:10.1126/science.3388013.
  16. ^ Lewis, Anthony (1996-06-24). "Abroad at Home; Tale Of A Bully". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-05-05.
  17. ^ Weiss, Philip (1989-10-29). "Conduct Unbecoming". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-05-05.
  18. ^ "Imanishi-Kari case ends, but debate on scientific conduct continues". MIT News. 1996-07-24. Retrieved 2025-05-05.
  19. ^ Hilts, Philip J. (1991-12-03). "Nobelist Entangled in Fraud Case Resigns as Head of Rockefeller U." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-05-05.
  20. ^ Weaver, David; Albanese, Christopher; Costantini, Frank; Baltimore, David (1991-05-17). "Retraction: Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged Mu heavy chain gene". Cell. 65 (4): 536. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(91)90085-D. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 2032282.
  21. ^ "Scientific Fraud in American Political Culture: Reflections on the Baltimore Case | The Institute for Applied & Professional Ethics". www.ohio.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-04-14. Retrieved 2021-04-14.
  22. ^ Johannes, Laura (1996-06-24). "Board Clears Imanishi-Kari Of Falsifying Scientific Data". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2025-05-05.
  23. ^ Warsh D (June 30, 1996). "The fortune that never was". Boston Globe. The public skirmish over the reputations of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Baltimore and Tufts University researcher Thereza Imanishi-Kari has been formally ended by a report deeply embarrassing to the government
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.