Class Journal Week 5

Hailey

• What are your initial reactions to hearing about this case?

It is crazy to put your name and career on the line to tell a big lie that would eventually be caught. Additionally, I was shocked that Dr. Potti was able to get away with lying about being a Rhodes scholar for as long as he did; it makes me wonder how many fraudulent resumes and CVs there are floating around that don't get a second glance.

• What role did data sharing play in uncovering this fraud?

When data was analyzed to verify results, some findings were unable to be explained and errors were found. Had data not been shared, this external verification would not have been completed and the tumor-drug match program would have been investigated much later if at all. As stated in the DataOne slides, data sharing can increase data quality with its inherent transparency. Data sharing proved to be critical in this real-world case.

• What additional information would you like to know about this case? (We will be visiting it again in subsequent weeks in the course.)

I'm curious how they claimed to be able to match each person's specific case to its proper drug. As we discussed in class on 2/13/2024, there are infinite genetic sequences, and to claim to be able to match that sequence to an ideal drug without having spent years collecting data and writing algorithms to match tumor to drug should raise more red flags than it seemed to have done. Though I haven't looked into it; maybe database building and writing a program was part of the study/claims.

Hivanson (talk) 23:14, 14 February 2024 (PST)

Charlotte

• What are your initial reactions to hearing about this case?

My initial reaction to this case was concern about the implications of of scientific misconduct. When researchers engage in behaviors like data manipulation and misrepresentation, it undermines the trustworthiness of scientific research. In fields like cancer therapy where accuracy is critical, the repercussions of misconduct can be very damaging. This worries me for cancer patients and those of us who believe in these scientific discoveries.

• What role did data sharing play in uncovering this fraud?

Data sharing played a key role in uncovering the fraud carried out at Duke University. By openly sharing data, researchers enable others to scrutinize and validate their findings independently. In this case, discrepancies in the shared data raised suspicions, leading to further investigation.

• What additional information would you like to know about this case?

What measures did Duke University and other institutions involved take to address the misconduct and prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future?

Ckapla12 (talk) 19:54, 14 February 2024 (PST)

Dean Symonds

1. My initial thoughts are that this is obviously frightening because doctors are people that we are supposed to trust more than anybody, and this is a case in which a doctor is prioritizing their own prestige and achievements over helping patients.
2. Data sharing played a crucial role. For if the other doctors did not have access to this data, they would possibly never have uncovered the fact that the data was fabricated. Data sharing can clearly lead to many different problems, but cases like these illustrate why it is necessary.
3. What happened to Dr. Potti after the events of this case? Is he still a practicing doctor? Did his career end with this case? Is his reputation still affected by this case?

Msymond1 (talk) 22:40, 14 February 2024 (PST)

Katie Miller

1. What are your initial reactions to hearing about this case? I was shocked that so many people were deceived by Dr. Potti and that he was able to get away with this fraud for so long. If it wasn't him manipulating the data like he claims, I think it is incredibly irresponsible that this manipulation wasn't realized for several years. I'm also surprised that it was in the field of cancer research that this occurred, as there are so many people who are either impacted by cancer diagnoses or are involved in finding a cure. Dr. Potti was very bold to fabricate data in a field that has so many researchers, but it was likely the prestige of finding a cure like this one that caused him to manipulate his data.
2. What role did data sharing play in uncovering this fraud? The data involved in this fraud was shared to several high profile databases that did not notice that they were receiving manipulated data. For many people who accessed his papers, they likely didn't consider that the data had been manipulated as it came from a reputable database. But, because the data was available to access, the fabricated data was eventually discovered and clinical trials were stopped, though this did take the trials being paused, resumed, and then finally stopped.
3. What additional information would you like to know about this case? (We will be visiting it again in subsequent weeks in the course.) I would like to know if Potti ever faced legal repercussions for what he did, or if they even confirmed that it was him who had manipulated the data, as he claims it was not.

Kmill104 (talk) 23:33, 14 February 2024 (PST)