558 6 MAY 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6593 science.org SCIENCEPHOTO: ABBY WILSON/WSNC
ancer biologist David Sabatini, dogged by con-
troversy since Science reported that he was in
job talks with New York University’s Grossman
School of Medicine, withdrew this week from
consideration for a position at the medical
school. Sabatini had recently been forced out of
jobs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for
breaching its consensual relationships policy and the
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research for sex-
ual harassment. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
also fired him last year for violating workplace poli-
cies. In a 3 May statement, Sabatini decried “false,distorted, and preposterous allegations about me” in
news reports and on social media, adding that his
withdrawal was meant to reduce “enormous pressure”
on the medical school. Its top administrators emailed
faculty members and students on 3 May that the school
and Sabatini “have reached the conclusion that it will
not be possible for him to become a member of our
faculty.” Last week, hundreds of trainees protested
outside the medical school (above), and hundreds of
its faculty, students, alumni, and others signed letters
of protest. Forty-five anonymous former Sabatini lab
members said they signed a letter supporting him.NEWS
IN BRIEF
Probe knocks Raoult institute
RESEARCH MISCONDUCT |France’s drug
regulatory agency has found “serious ethi-
cal breaches” in past clinical trials at the
institute led by controversial microbiologist
Didier Raoult, who became notorious for
promoting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-
19 drug despite a lack of evidence. TheNational Agency for the Safety of Medicines
and Health Products (ANSM) investigated
two trials at the Hospital Institute of
Marseille Mediterranean Infection (IHU),
which Raoult leads, one on children’s
infections with the bacterium Tropheryma
whipplei, the other on illnesses contracted
by French medical students while abroad.
ANSM’s draft report, published on 27 April,documents “critical” and “major” problems
in consent and ethical approval procedures
in both studies and says Raoult submitted
a falsified ethical approval document in
the course of the investigation. ANSM has
referred its findings to Marseille authori-
ties for possible criminal prosecution. The
report is another step in Raoult’s fall from
grace, following a reprimand last year fromEdited by
Jeffrey Brainard#METOOBiologist accused of sexual misconduct drops NYU job quest
“
It would be a huge shame for science and the public if this
disappeared into the basement of an oligarch.
”
Paleontologist Stephen Brusatte, in The New York Times, about the first-ever auction on 12 May of a
Deinonychus velociraptor fossil. He fears a private buyer might refuse to allow study or public display.0506nib_15564720.indd 558 5/3/22 5:52 PM