A federal crackdown on professors’ undisclosed outside activities is achieving what China has long struggled to do: spur Chinese scientists to return home. In this crisis, it’s costing the U.S. intellectual firepower. On the fourth floor of the University of Florida cancer research building, the once-bustling laboratory overseen by professor Weihong Tan is in disarray. White lab coats are strewn over workbenches. Storage drums and boxes, including some marked with biohazard warnings, are scattered across the floor. A pink note stuck to a machine that makes copies of DNA samples indicates the device is broken. No one is here on this weekday afternoon in February. On a shelf, wedged next to instruction manuals and binders of lab records, is a reminder of bygone glory: a group photo of Tan surrounded by more than two dozen smiling students and employees. As the Florida lab sat vacant, a different scene unfolded half a world away in China, where a team of 300 scientists and researchers worked furiously to develop a fast, easy test for COVID-19. The leader of that timely project? Tan, the former Florida researcher. The 59-year-old Tan is a stark example of the intellectual firepower fleeing the U.S. as a result of a Trump administration crackdown on university researchers with ties to China. Tan abruptly left Florida in 2019 during an investigation into his alleged failure to fully disclose Chinese academic appointments and funding. He moved to Hunan University in south-central China, where he now conducts his vital research.
Tan, a chemistry professor whose research has focused on diagnosing and treating cancer, quickly pivoted to working on a coronavirus test when the outbreak began in China. Boosted by a Chinese government grant, he teamed up with researchers at two other universities in China and a biotechnology company to create a test that produces results in 40 minutes and can be performed in a doctor’s office or in non-medical settings like airport screening areas, according to a 13-page booklet detailing the test’s development and benefits. It has been tried successfully on more than 200 samples from hospitals and checkpoints, according to the booklet, which Tan shared with a former Florida colleague. It’s not clear how widely the test is being used in China. Epidemiologists say that testing is vital to mitigate the spread of the virus. But the U.S. has lagged well behind China, South Korea, and Italy in the number of people tested. It’s hard to know if Tan’s test would have made a difference. The slow U.S. ramp-up has been blamed largely on bureaucratic barriers and a shortage of chemical agents needed for testing. A star researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health, Tan taught for a quarter century at Florida and raised two sons in Gainesville. He was also a participant in the Thousand Talents program, China’s aggressive effort to lure top scientists from U.S. universities, and had been working part time at Hunan University for even longer than he had taught at Florida. Last year, alerted by NIH, Florida began investigating his outside activities.
Tan declined to answer questions about his departure from Florida or his new test, but he provided documentation that his department chairman at Florida was “supportive” of his research in China as recently as 2015. He is one of three University of Florida researchers — along with others from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Louisville — who relocated to China while under investigation for allegedly hiding Chinese funding or affiliations with universities there. Such nondisclosure may well be pervasive. A ProPublica analysis found more than 20 previously unreported examples of Thousand Talents professors who appear not to have fully revealed their moonlighting in China to their U.S. universities or NIH. NIH has contacted 84 institutions regarding 180 scientists whom it suspects of hiding outside activities or funding, and it has referred 27 of them for federal investigation, said Michael Lauer, the agency’s deputy director for extramural research. “There’s no reason why the U.S. government should be funding scientists who are engaged in unethical behavior. It doesn’t matter how brilliant they are,” said Lauer, who declined to discuss specific professors under scrutiny. “If they don’t have integrity, we can’t trust them for anything. How can we be sure that the data they’re producing is accurate?”
On the fourth floor of the University of Florida cancer research building, the once-bustling laboratory overseen by professor Weihong Tan is in disarray. White lab coats are strewn over workbenches. Storage drums and boxes, including some marked with biohazard warnings, are scattered across the floor. A pink note stuck to a machine that makes copies of DNA samples indicates the device is broken. No one is here on this weekday afternoon in February. On a shelf, wedged next to instruction manuals and binders of lab records, is a reminder of bygone glory: a group photo of Tan surrounded by more than two dozen smiling students and employees. As the Florida lab sat vacant, a different scene unfolded half a world away in China, where a team of 300 scientists and researchers worked furiously to develop a fast, easy test for COVID-19. The leader of that timely project? Tan, the former Florida researcher. The 59-year-old Tan is a stark example of the intellectual firepower fleeing the U.S. as a result of a Trump administration crackdown on university researchers with ties to China. Tan abruptly left Florida in 2019 during an investigation into his alleged failure to fully disclose Chinese academic appointments and funding. He moved to Hunan University in south-central China, where he now conducts his vital research.
Tan, a chemistry professor whose research has focused on diagnosing and treating cancer, quickly pivoted to working on a coronavirus test when the outbreak began in China. Boosted by a Chinese government grant, he teamed up with researchers at two other universities in China and a biotechnology company to create a test that produces results in 40 minutes and can be performed in a doctor’s office or in non-medical settings like airport screening areas, according to a 13-page booklet detailing the test’s development and benefits. It has been tried successfully on more than 200 samples from hospitals and checkpoints, according to the booklet, which Tan shared with a former Florida colleague. It’s not clear how widely the test is being used in China.
Epidemiologists say that testing is vital to mitigate the spread of the virus. But the U.S. has lagged well behind China, South Korea, and Italy in the number of people tested. It’s hard to know if Tan’s test would have made a difference. The slow U.S. ramp-up has been blamed largely on bureaucratic barriers and a shortage of chemical agents needed for testing. A star researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health, Tan taught for a quarter century at Florida and raised two sons in Gainesville. He was also a participant in the Thousand Talents program, China’s aggressive effort to lure top scientists from U.S. universities, and had been working part time at Hunan University for even longer than he had taught at Florida. Last year, alerted by NIH, Florida began investigating his outside activities.
Tan declined to answer questions about his departure from Florida or his new test, but he provided documentation that his department chairman at Florida was “supportive” of his research in China as recently as 2015. He is one of three University of Florida researchers — along with others from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Louisville — who relocated to China while under investigation for allegedly hiding Chinese funding or affiliations with universities there. Such nondisclosure may well be pervasive. A ProPublica analysis found more than 20 previously unreported examples of Thousand Talents professors who appear not to have fully revealed their moonlighting in China to their U.S. universities or NIH. NIH has contacted 84 institutions regarding 180 scientists whom it suspects of hiding outside activities or funding, and it has referred 27 of them for federal investigation, said Michael Lauer, the agency’s deputy director for extramural research. “There’s no reason why the U.S. government should be funding scientists who are engaged in unethical behavior. It doesn’t matter how brilliant they are,” said Lauer, who declined to discuss specific professors under scrutiny. “If they don’t have integrity, we can’t trust them for anything. How can we be sure that the data they’re producing is accurate?”