Science - 31 January 2020

sciencemag.org SCIENCE

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China ties snare Harvard chemist

FOREIGN INFLUENCE |The chair of Harvard

University’s chemistry department was

arrested and charged this week with lying

to authorities about his involvement in

China’s Thousand Talents Program, which

recruits foreign scientists. Charles Lieber has

received more than $15 million in U.S. fed-

eral research funding since 2008 for his lab’s

work in nanoscience, according to prosecu-

tors. From 2012 to 2017, he also participated

in the Thousand Talents Program, which paid

him up to $50,000 monthly plus additional

living expenses and more than $1.5 mil-

lion to establish a lab at Wuhan University

of Technology, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in

Boston said. Lieber told investigators in

2018 and 2019 he had never been asked to

participate in the program, the office said.

He is one of the highest profile researchers

to be caught up in a wide-ranging U.S.

government effort to crack down on what

officials have alleged is a systematic effort

by China to take unfair advantage of feder-

ally funded research. In a similar case,

Turab Lookman, a theoretical physicist at

Los Alamos National Laboratory, last week

pleaded guilty to denying his participation

in China’s program. Neither Lookman

nor Lieber has been accused of espionage.

Creationist leads Brazil agency

LEADERSHIP |Brazilian scientists are up in

arms about the appointment of a creationism

advocate to head CAPES, the federal agency

responsible for regulating all graduate-level

programs at Brazilian universities. Benedito

Guimarães Aguiar Neto, appointed CAPES

director on 24 January, previously served

as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian

University. The private religious school in

São Paulo supports intelligent design (ID), an

argument without scientific basis that pres-

ents creationist critiques of Charles Darwin’s

theory of evolution. The university hosted

the second Congress on Intelligent Design

in October 2019, and Aguiar Neto recently

said ID should be introduced in Brazil’s basic

education curricula as “a counterpoint to the

theory of evolution.” Brazilian President Jair

Bolsonaro enjoys strong support from Brazil’s

evangelical Christians, many of whom advo-

cate the teaching of creationism in schools.

NEWS

“

Wake up, America! Wake up, world!

”

Jerry Brown,former governor of California and executive chair of the Bulletin of the

Atomic Scientists, as the group moved up its Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds until midnight,

the closest ever, because of threats from military conflict and climate change.

A

U.S. advisory committee last week agreed to review how to balance

security and transparency in research that tweaks risky patho-

gens in ways that could make them more dangerous to humans.

Gain-of-function research that makes pathogens more potent or

likely to spread in people could help experts prepare for pandem-

ics. But critics worry that a labmade virus could escape and cause

an outbreak. The critics want more transparency, noting that more than

1 year ago, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) panel that

weighs the risks and benefits of such experiments approved new work

on the H5N1 bird flu virus in secret (Science, 15 February 2019, p. 676). At

last week’s meeting of a separate federal committee that offers guidance

for such research—the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity,

which includes academic scientists—HHS officials said they were open

to greater disclosure. But meeting participants also noted that the emer-

gence of a new virus in China (p. 492) underscores the need for prompt

approvals. The board is to develop recommendations by early summer.

A microbiologist studies the H5N1 avian influenza virus in a biosafety lab.

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Biosecurity panel to consider openness

490 31 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6477

IN BRIEF

Edited by Jeffrey Brainard

DA_0131NewsInBrief.indd 490 1/29/20 10:32 AM

Published by AAAS