A House panel has broadened its probe of financial management at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to include ties between former National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Richard Klausner and Harvard University. In a 10 November letter, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked NIH for a slew of documents relating to a $40 million, 5-year subcontract awarded in 2002 to Harvard chemist Stuart Schreiber to create a molecular target laboratory. The deal raises "serious appearance issues as to fairness and favoritism," says the 16-page letter from committee chair Billy Tauzin (R-LA) and James Greenwood (R-PA), who chairs an investigations subpanel.
The two lawmakers allege that Klausner was involved with the molecular lab competition at a time when he had recused himself from NCI's dealings with Harvard because he was one of the university's presidential candidates. They also question that right after he left NCI in September 2001, Klausner received consulting fees from Infinity Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a Schreiber spinoff company. The committee has also asked Harvard, Infinity, and SAIC, a government contractor involved in the deal, to cough up documents.
Klausner denies any role in Harvard's winning the molecular lab contract: "There was a strict separation between me and the decision-making process," he told Science.
