From Tina Kelley, MSN.com, September 23, 2024
A professor was placed on leave — prohibiting him from conducting research or teaching — days after he started his new job at Rutgers University, university officials said.
Xiaobing Zhang, an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical
School in Newark, was put on leave Sept. 14, shortly after the university
received a letter from an animal rights group saying he was barred from his
previous research lab at Florida State University following accusations
involving the mistreatment of animals.
Zhang, a neuroscientist, was working for less than two weeks at Rutgers
before he was put on paid administrative leave, according to campus
officials.
Zhang did not respond to an email request for comment.
He began his job at Rutgers Sept. 3, according to university spokeswoman
Megan Schumann. He had not conducted any animal-related research since
joining the university.
“The matter is currently under review,” Schumann said. “He will not be
involved in any research or teaching at Rutgers during this time.”
At his previous job at Florida State University, Zhang was conducting
surgical experiments on digestion in laboratory mice, when two
whistleblowing graduate students alleged animals had been mistreated,
investigators said in a report filed in April with Florida State’s animal
care committee. Florida State forwarded the report to the National
Institutes of Health.
The students alleged Zhang’s lab provided only one of a recommended four
doses of pain relief to mice. They also alleged the lab had been changing
records to hide the mistreatment, investigators said.
After Florida State investigated, university officials shut down part of the
$413,000 research project and prohibited Zhang and two other employees from
working in their lab for a year, the report said.
At Florida State, Zhang was also accused of failing to sedate mice before
they were euthanized by decapitation, the report said. The complaints
against him involved operations on nearly 1,600 animals, and the alleged
falsification of 110 records.
Florida State officials did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
An animal rights activist wrote to Rutgers about the findings of the
investigation of Zhang’s lab in a Sept. 11 letter. The watchdog group called
on Rutgers to prohibit the researcher from continuing experiments on animals
in his new lab in New Jersey.
“Falsification of documents is not ethical,” wrote Michael A. Budkie,
executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW, an Ohio-based national
watchdog of research facilities. He sent the letter to Michael A. Zwick,
senior vice president for research at Rutgers.
“Denying animals pain relief is not humane,” Budkie wrote.
Zhang was previously given the opportunity to address violations in his
Florida State lab in 2021, but failed to make changes, according to
university reports on the lab.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Zhang received funding for
four projects between 2022 and 2024, totaling $1.8 million, all at Florida
State University.
The National Institutes of Health did not immediately answer questions about
the status of the federal funding for Zhang’s research project.
Zhang posted on LinkedIn in early September that he relocated his lab and
needed an associate research scientist, postdoc researcher and lab
technician at Rutgers.
Schumann, the Rutgers spokeswoman, cited “personnel matters” when she
declined to say if school officials first learned of the problems with
Zhang’s previous lab through the Sept. 11 letter from the animal rights
activist group. She also declined to describe the vetting process Zhang went
through before he was hired.
Rutgers only conducts animal research if it is likely to improve the health
of animals or humans, she said.
“We take animal care and welfare matters seriously and report all incidents
to the appropriate authorities, outlining actions taken to ensure necessary
protections and the continued welfare of the animals in our care,” she said.