
German university finds misconduct by researcher who promoted cancer blood test - respinal
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/german-university-finds-severe-misconduct-researcher-who-promoted-questionable-cancer
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orbifold
The story is even worse than what is publicly reported. The test was actually
not developed by this professor but by one of his postdocs. She happened to be
Chinese and her contract was up for renewal, when he saw the potential for
commercialization, he did not renew her contract. She only had a work visa and
therefore was forced to go back to china. There was more shady stuff and
nepotism going on, but I don't remember. This guy 100% deserves everything
that is coming for him.

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yorwba
[https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003806/chinese-scientist-
say...](https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003806/chinese-scientist-says-german-
university-stole-her-project) has more details on that part of the story. FWIW
it says that she resigned herself after she was transferred to another project
and got hassled in other ways.

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perspective1
That's terrible specificity, but with a very high sensitivity the test may
still have value as a "rule-out" type test. That is, you do this and if it's
positive, you do a mammogram. Mammograms are generally very uncomfortable and
read by specialized (more expensive) radiologists, so even preventing 1
mammogram for every 2 women getting the test has some value. Similar thing
works with people getting Tb tests, or HIV tests. You have a cheap rule out
high sensitivity test with low specificity, and follow the positives up with
the more expensive sensitive and specific "gold standard" test. I don't see
the misconduct based on this article alone.

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dindresto
Yay, that's my university!

