A former Iowa State University scientist is now facing federal charges after he admitted to faking his findings in AIDS vaccine research. Dong Pyou Han resigned from his position as a laboratory manager at ISU last year after he confessed to spiking rabbit blood with human antibodies to alter research that was part of a $19 million project funded by federal grants.
A letter from the National Institutes for Health released Thursday states ISU may be required to return at least some of the grant funding that is still unspent, following the scandal. According to federal court documents, Han’s research was hailed as “groundbreaking” before the fraud was discovered.
Han was arrested in Ohio earlier this week and is scheduled to appear in federal court in Des Moines next Tuesday. He’s facing four felony charges of making false statements. Each charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison.