From Dr. Wang Xiaodong to Dr. Fu Xinyuan

My professor came to my bench this afternoon and asked me if I knew
that Xiaodong Wang was elected Member of the Academy. I said yes and
I learned it from Chinese networks first.

My professor knows Wang personally. He said Wang declined an offer
from Berkeley last year for going back to China and setting up a new
institute in Beijing. I knew Wang's job visit here and he gave a very
impressive seminar. I went to it that time.

I said no, probably it's not true that he was quitting to get back
to China from UTWSMC. My professor said Wang indeed decided to go
back to China but somehow he found the government assigned a
associate director for the institute, which Wang was originally
appointed Director for. This associate director seemed to control
everything, a typical control freak, which made Wang very mad and
eventually gave up his plan for going back.

I told my professor this was quite unlikely, to my knowledge,
because most of established Chinese professors in the US usually
tend to keep their positions here, while going back to China just for
part-time or temporary positions, where they are appointed at very
high levels and givenwith a lot of fundings. They remain in the US.
I said there are many examples, such as Professor Fu Xinyuan at Yale,
who did the same thing and is the director of an institute at Tsinghua
Univerisity while he physcially remains at Yale and keeps lab or
everything there.

My professor looked at me for a few seconds, asking me if this Professor
Fu, the one who worked on Stats & JAK. I said yes and you should know him.

"Well," my professor said, "to my knowledge, he didn't get tenure at
Yale".

"How did you know that"? I was so surprised and actually I have been
shocked when I learnt from this net that he is not titled a Scientist
at Yale and have been confused for very long time why Dr. Fu couldn't
make it since he published so many high-profile papers in Cell, Nature
and Science.

"Very simple, some key conclusions in his papers can not be repeated
by other labs. He claimed Stat5 is part of T cell receptor, nobody
believes it! I am not an immunologist, but I know Dr. XXX and Dr. XXX
were very upset about him, and both wrote very bad letters to the tenure
committee for him at Yale. Of course he was denied". My professor
continued, " if you fabricate some JBC paper, you may have problems,
but not that big; but if you do so on the Science or Nature papers,
you are over in this circle. You know, this circle isn't that big.
Everybody knows everybody."

"xxxx it, now I understand something", I said. I lost interest in talking
with my professor, and feel pretty bad about what I learnt. I know Fu's
work for more than 10 years and admired him quite much before my
this converstaion with my professor. I will not tell you whom my professor
is for common sense but decide to tell you what I know about this mystery
why Dr. Fu can't be tenured at Yale. I think my professor's story may make
sense.

As a matter of fact, I know there are many Chinese scientists in the USA
who did the same or similar thing for Science or Nature publications.
Postdocts in our lab constantly fail to repeat some data from Science,
Cell and Nature paper, and in the past year, at least two papers made us
crazy, and both are from Chinese PIs. One lab is at UPenn and another at
Burham, La Jolla, and the first authors happen to be Chinese as well.

This is a very dangerous trend.

These people are still enjoying their lives and privileges. However, some
are disclosed, and that's why you someday may find why this guy or
that guy is still not tenured or not promoted to full professor...for
so many years.

To save reputations of Chinese scientist in this country and academic
communities, these people should be exposed. One by one.

A Chinese Researcher at UC Berkeley