_
Weizmann Institute Honorary PhD 2007 Goes to a Dishonest Nobel Prize Laureate
To be updated. Check back
Rehovot, Israel (5 November 2007) - The featured event of the Day 2 of the 59th Annual General Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science is the ceremony for the Conferment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa (to begin today at 5 PM, Wix Auditorium).
This year recipients of the Weizmann's Honorary PhD are: Arie Lova Eliav of Israel, Professor Avram Hershko of Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, Professor Eric R. Kandel, M.D. of Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, Professor Christiane Nusslein-Volhard of Max Planck Institute, Germany, and Professor Jehuda Reinharz, President, Brandeis University, USA.
As the press release by the Weizmann Institute Publications and Media Relations Department states, Eric Kandel is a "pioneer and leader in neurobiological studies of neuronal plasticity and memory. His achievements became the standard against which the cellular approach to memory is measured. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard) for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system... He has received honorary degrees from 15 universities, including the University of Vienna. Prof. Kandel is a member of the National Academies of Sciences of the USA, Germany, France and Austria, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Medicine, and Germany's Order of Merit for the Sciences and Arts."
What Weizmann Institute Press Release missed is the statement that Dr. Kandel is a person behind his company called Memory Phramaceuticals. Owing at least 10 % of the company shares (see US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by Dr.Kandel. Ownership: Initial Statement of Beneficial Ownership of Securities, Form 3; Table 1: Non-Derivative Securities Beneficially Owned ) he failed to report in scienticifc publications his competing financial interest associated with his research.
The disclosure of potential or real financial interests is the unique essence of scholar activity, any scientific publication. Such disclosure gives readers decide for themselves, whether a publication speaks for science, or for ones company.
This science ethics law reciprocally applies to editors of scientific publications, so, there is a transparency with an identification of ones non-scientific interest. Again, this is where Eric Kandel missed honesty, as Open Letter to President GW Bush by a Rehovot scientist illustrated previously:
"...one of those who signed Union of Concerned Scientists statement "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking", Nobel laureate and reviews editor of major neuroscience journal Neuron, Eric Kandel, also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and principal scientific founder of Memory Pharmaceuticals. Because neither Neuron, nor UCS statement mentions Dr. Kandel commercial affiliation, [one may] wonder what is the reason for the non disclosure? Does Dr. Kandel utilize his post as Neuron review editor and UCS prominent signatory to build the value for his company?" letter to President George W Bush says.
One has little doubt that Memory Pharmaceuticals builds on the research and reputation by Kandel. In accord with this he is the first on the list of the company Scientific Advisory Board.
There are other indications that such instances of the dishonesty by a new Weizmann Honorary PhD is a sad pattern of his behavior. Thus, none of the seven abstracts co-authored by Eric Kandel, and to be presented this week at the American Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting disclose his commercial ties. While one can allow that in the majority of abstracts he got a gift authorship (another well loved by Weizmann scientists non accepted academic break practice), there is one abstract that he personally responsible for.
This is the abstract that he personally sponsored as an SFN member (denoted by an asterisk on the image above). Therefore, according to the Society rules, a non diclosure of his competing interest is Dr. Kandel personal responsibility. Such practice of non-disclosure for Professor Kandel Neuroscience abstracts happened in previous years and was noted by a leading medical organization in the USA.
Similar instances of non-disclosure by a number of Weizmann professors were reported by MyRehovot previously (see the footer of MyRehovot, 3 November 2007). The problem is that the Weizmann Institute science and graduate teaching is build on a non-disclosure (ex. Yosef Yarden, Feinberg Graduate School Dean; Professor Michal Schwartz of Neurobiology Department). A good lesson for young scientists, right?
Well, scientists' lure of profits and lie for sure is good for the corrupted Weizmann Institute administration. Remember how elegantly such interest was recalled in order to dismiss Ilan Chet, former President of the Institute. Conflicts by many others remain hidden. For a short while...
Rehovot, Israel (5 November 2007) - The featured event of the Day 2 of the 59th Annual General Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science is the ceremony for the Conferment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa (to begin today at 5 PM, Wix Auditorium).
This year recipients of the Weizmann's Honorary PhD are: Arie Lova Eliav of Israel, Professor Avram Hershko of Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, Professor Eric R. Kandel, M.D. of Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, Professor Christiane Nusslein-Volhard of Max Planck Institute, Germany, and Professor Jehuda Reinharz, President, Brandeis University, USA.
As the press release by the Weizmann Institute Publications and Media Relations Department states, Eric Kandel is a "pioneer and leader in neurobiological studies of neuronal plasticity and memory. His achievements became the standard against which the cellular approach to memory is measured. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard) for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system... He has received honorary degrees from 15 universities, including the University of Vienna. Prof. Kandel is a member of the National Academies of Sciences of the USA, Germany, France and Austria, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Medicine, and Germany's Order of Merit for the Sciences and Arts."
What Weizmann Institute Press Release missed is the statement that Dr. Kandel is a person behind his company called Memory Phramaceuticals. Owing at least 10 % of the company shares (see US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by Dr.Kandel. Ownership: Initial Statement of Beneficial Ownership of Securities, Form 3; Table 1: Non-Derivative Securities Beneficially Owned ) he failed to report in scienticifc publications his competing financial interest associated with his research.
The disclosure of potential or real financial interests is the unique essence of scholar activity, any scientific publication. Such disclosure gives readers decide for themselves, whether a publication speaks for science, or for ones company.
This science ethics law reciprocally applies to editors of scientific publications, so, there is a transparency with an identification of ones non-scientific interest. Again, this is where Eric Kandel missed honesty, as Open Letter to President GW Bush by a Rehovot scientist illustrated previously:
"...one of those who signed Union of Concerned Scientists statement "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking", Nobel laureate and reviews editor of major neuroscience journal Neuron, Eric Kandel, also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and principal scientific founder of Memory Pharmaceuticals. Because neither Neuron, nor UCS statement mentions Dr. Kandel commercial affiliation, [one may] wonder what is the reason for the non disclosure? Does Dr. Kandel utilize his post as Neuron review editor and UCS prominent signatory to build the value for his company?" letter to President George W Bush says.
One has little doubt that Memory Pharmaceuticals builds on the research and reputation by Kandel. In accord with this he is the first on the list of the company Scientific Advisory Board.
There are other indications that such instances of the dishonesty by a new Weizmann Honorary PhD is a sad pattern of his behavior. Thus, none of the seven abstracts co-authored by Eric Kandel, and to be presented this week at the American Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting disclose his commercial ties. While one can allow that in the majority of abstracts he got a gift authorship (another well loved by Weizmann scientists non accepted academic break practice), there is one abstract that he personally responsible for.
This is the abstract that he personally sponsored as an SFN member (denoted by an asterisk on the image above). Therefore, according to the Society rules, a non diclosure of his competing interest is Dr. Kandel personal responsibility. Such practice of non-disclosure for Professor Kandel Neuroscience abstracts happened in previous years and was noted by a leading medical organization in the USA.
Similar instances of non-disclosure by a number of Weizmann professors were reported by MyRehovot previously (see the footer of MyRehovot, 3 November 2007). The problem is that the Weizmann Institute science and graduate teaching is build on a non-disclosure (ex. Yosef Yarden, Feinberg Graduate School Dean; Professor Michal Schwartz of Neurobiology Department). A good lesson for young scientists, right?
Well, scientists' lure of profits and lie for sure is good for the corrupted Weizmann Institute administration. Remember how elegantly such interest was recalled in order to dismiss Ilan Chet, former President of the Institute. Conflicts by many others remain hidden. For a short while...
Quoting Weizmann Institute Press Release
Eric Kandel
Born in Vienna (1929), Eric Kandel emigrated with his family to the US in 1938 after Austria's annexation by Germany. As he later attested, his traumatic experiences as a child under the Nazi regime may have helped to
determine his later interests in the mind and in human behavior, the unpredictability of motivation, and the persistence of memory. Over the years, he has returned to these subjects repeatedly, as his professional interests evolved from a youthful interest in European intellectual history to psychoanalysis with its more systematic approach to mental processes, and, finally, to the biology of conscious and unconscious memory.
After graduation from Harvard College and the New York University School of Medicine, Kandel trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Wade Marshall in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at NIH and later with Ladislav Tauc at the Institut Morey in Paris. He did his residency in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health
Center, Harvard Medical School.
Prof. Kandel held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and the New York University School of Medicine before coming to Columbia (1974), where he was the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, and, in 1984, a Senior Investigator at the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute at Columbia.
Prof. Kandel is a pioneer and leader in neurobiological studies of neuronal plasticity and memory. His achievements became the standard against which the cellular approach to memory is measured. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard) for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system. Additional honors include the Lasker Award (1983), the Rosenstiel Award of Brandeis University (1984), the Gairdner International Award of Canada (1987), the National Medal of Science (1988), the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research (1991), the Harvey Prize of the Technion (1993), the Charles A. Dana Award (1997), and the Wolf Prize (1999). He has received honorary degrees from 15 universities, including the University of Vienna. Prof. Kandel is a member of the National Academies of Sciences of the USA, Germany, France and Austria, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Medicine, and Germany's Order of Merit for the Sciences and Arts.
Prof. Kandel's love of teaching culminated in a seminal textbook, Principles of Neural Science (1981), the first attempt to link cell and molecular biology to neural science, and neural science to behavior and clinical states. This textbook, in its multiple updated editions, became the standard textbook in neuroscience
worldwide.
In 2006, Kandel published In Search of Memory: the Emergence of a New Science of Mind, which chronicles his life and the intellectual trajectory of his research. The book was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Science and Technology.
Eric Kandel
Born in Vienna (1929), Eric Kandel emigrated with his family to the US in 1938 after Austria's annexation by Germany. As he later attested, his traumatic experiences as a child under the Nazi regime may have helped to
determine his later interests in the mind and in human behavior, the unpredictability of motivation, and the persistence of memory. Over the years, he has returned to these subjects repeatedly, as his professional interests evolved from a youthful interest in European intellectual history to psychoanalysis with its more systematic approach to mental processes, and, finally, to the biology of conscious and unconscious memory.
After graduation from Harvard College and the New York University School of Medicine, Kandel trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Wade Marshall in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at NIH and later with Ladislav Tauc at the Institut Morey in Paris. He did his residency in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health
Center, Harvard Medical School.
Prof. Kandel held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and the New York University School of Medicine before coming to Columbia (1974), where he was the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, and, in 1984, a Senior Investigator at the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute at Columbia.
Prof. Kandel is a pioneer and leader in neurobiological studies of neuronal plasticity and memory. His achievements became the standard against which the cellular approach to memory is measured. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard) for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system. Additional honors include the Lasker Award (1983), the Rosenstiel Award of Brandeis University (1984), the Gairdner International Award of Canada (1987), the National Medal of Science (1988), the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research (1991), the Harvey Prize of the Technion (1993), the Charles A. Dana Award (1997), and the Wolf Prize (1999). He has received honorary degrees from 15 universities, including the University of Vienna. Prof. Kandel is a member of the National Academies of Sciences of the USA, Germany, France and Austria, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Medicine, and Germany's Order of Merit for the Sciences and Arts.
Prof. Kandel's love of teaching culminated in a seminal textbook, Principles of Neural Science (1981), the first attempt to link cell and molecular biology to neural science, and neural science to behavior and clinical states. This textbook, in its multiple updated editions, became the standard textbook in neuroscience
worldwide.
In 2006, Kandel published In Search of Memory: the Emergence of a New Science of Mind, which chronicles his life and the intellectual trajectory of his research. The book was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Science and Technology.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home