The lawsuits against Duke and its embattled former professor are starting to add up.
Three clinical trials involving over 100 patients were launched in 2008 in large part by researcher and Duke Department of Medicine associate professor, Anil Potti, whose own research claimed that genomics could help dictate which chemotherapy would be best for each patient. The clinical trials had been designed, were ongoing, and enjoyed funding by the American Cancer Society, which had goven Potti and colleague Joseph Nevins a $729,000 grant.
They have since suspended payment of the grant, and Duke has returned the amount that the grant had already paid out.
But concern and doubt regarding the scientific credibility of Potti's research began when other researchers failed in reproducing his results—the gold standard in such research—specifically when statisticians at MD Anderson Cancer Center claimed they found serious flaws in Potti's published findings. They got worse when Potti was acccused of lying on his resume, claiming, among other things, that he was a Rhodes Scholar.
When The New York Times and other publications, including peer-reviewed journals, began urging Duke to put a halt to Potti's work, they were initially ignored. Eventually, administrators at Duke decided to halt the three clinical trials being run by Potti. He has since resigned.
Papers related to his work have been retracted from The Journal of Clinical Oncology and Nature Medicine.
Meanwhile, two lawsuits have been filed; the first was on behalf of two of the trial patients and the estates of six others. The second has been filed by another of the trial participants, which claims that the researchers, as well as others at Duke, knew that Potti's research was flawed but continued with the trials.
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