California
Related: About this forumSalk Institute suspends a star geneticist over allegations about his conduct
The Salk Institute in La Jolla said Saturday it suspended star cancer scientist Inder Verma due to unspecified allegations, further rocking a center that was earlier accused of gender discrimination by three of its female professors.
Neither the Institute nor Verma have said what the scientist is exactly accused of doing. The Institute also did not suggest the allegations were sexual in nature.
But when asked about the matter, Verma said in an email forwarded by his attorney: I have never used my position at the Salk Institute to take advantage of others. I have also never engaged in any sort of intimate relationship with anyone affiliated with the Salk Institute.
I have never inappropriately touched, nor have I made any sexually charged comments, to anyone affiliated with the Salk Institute. I have never allowed any offensive or sexually charged conversations, jokes, material, etc. to occur at the Salk Institute.
Read more: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-salk-suspension-20180421-story.html
Cicada
(4,533 posts)In 2006 USC geneticist William French Anderson was sentenced to 16 years for sex with children. I had remembered him with a little girl a few years before he had cured of bubble boy disease. Those with bubble boy disease had no immune system defense against diseases and had to live in a controlled environment away from humans, a bubble. They died pretty quickly. The little 4 year old girl was able to rejoin the world and lead a normal life. I think this was the beginning, the very first example, of our transformation from Homo sapiens to some other species where we control our own genetics. That is the most significant science advance of all time. So when Anderson got sent to jail I thought we should have locked him up in a research hospital or something, anything to not waste his life saving mind. We used the nazi rocket experts, including Werner von Braun, in Huntsville Alabama to develop out space program. If Russia alone had space rockets....so again I worry about stopping this guy from doing his work. I guess Anderson and this guy in La Jolla can be replaced, that they are not unique. So I guess shutting down their life saving work doesnt stop progress. But I still wish there were a punishment which let them continue their science.