By Shobana Kesava

SCIENTISTS who pass off others' work as their own, massage research results to support sexier conclusions or who offer one piece of research to multiple publishing houses have either made the news or the gossip mill.

No one quite knows how many of these unethical acts occur every year. But every once in a while, a high-profile case like that involving South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk makes headlines round the world and embarrasses the entire community.

The tragedy is that it takes just one rogue scientist to tar years of hard-earned reputation.

Will Singapore suffer the same fate one day?

With the rapidly growing pool of scientists and researchers here, the question is no longer academic.

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) reported that, as at the end of 2006, Singapore had 36,100 researchers in the public, non-governmental and private sectors, up about 40 per cent from 2001. Just under 20 per cent are foreigners.

Fifteen researchers here told The Straits Times they did not sense that misconduct was a problem here.

But all added that it did not mean Singapore was immune to the possibility of scientific fraud.

They had been asked to respond to findings released last month about misconduct among American scientists.

An estimated 1,000 counts of plagiarism, falsification or fabrication go unreported there each year, with only two dozen uncovered by whistle-blowers.

Dr Laurent Renia, who studies malaria at the Singapore Immunology Network, said: 'Singapore science is still young and those who enter the field are doing it for the love of science, but eventually, there will be those who choose science as a career path to fame and this is where problems can arise, such as massaging data to suit one's desired result.'

He said it would be useful to have a formal body to oversee the checks in place at all research institutions to ensure scientists stay above board.

A contrary view came from the deputy president of research and technology at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Professor Barry Halliwell, who said the current system of each institution doing its own monitoring was working well, so an umbrella watchdog body was not needed.

He noted that the US scientific community operated within a complicated system of universities and hospitals of varying standards.

Singapore circumvented the problem, he said, 'by bringing in some of the best scientists in the world'.

Other researchers also noted that the ethical lapses in the US were partially caused by its 'publish or perish' culture. There, senior scientists risk losing their labs - and their jobs - if they fail to get published in scientific journals.

Prof Halliwell added that a research institution like NUS, for example, has a powerful review board which can shut down a scientist's laboratory and seize all records for investigation in the event of serious reports of misconduct.

The vice-dean of research at the NUS School of Computing, Professor Wong Limsoon, sits on several international bodies that assess scientific papers for publication. Of the 200 that pass through his hands every year, some come from researchers with a poor command of English who copy the phrasing of other scientific papers.

This happens in less than 10 per cent of the papers, however, and the onus is on their supervisors to weed out such problems, Prof Wong said.

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) places the responsibility for the integrity of a research project on the individual scientist, whose papers must stand up to scrutiny by international experts reviewing them.

An NTU spokesman said the university also has a 'research integrity officer' to handle all accusations of breaches of integrity.

The executive director of the Biomedical Research Council, Professor Lee Eng Hin, said one type of ethical breach to watch for is the 'double submission', which is the practice of sending a paper to different journals for publication.

He said he has not seen this done here, though foreign scientists have done it, just so they can claim to have been published more often.

Here, Simon Shorvon stands as the only high-profile scientist whose ethics were called into question. As chief of the National Neuroscience Institute in 2002, he was found guilty of putting Parkinson's disease patients through tests without their informed consent.

Since that case, hospital clusters SingHealth and the National Healthcare Group (NHG) have tightened safeguards; their respective review boards and clinical trials compliance panels keep things on the straight and narrow.

SingHealth's assistant chief executive officer of research and education, Professor Soo Khee Chee, said keeping log books of study data is a must. These become pieces of evidence when investigations are launched; on the flip side, they can also vindicate the wrongly accused.

The head of NHG's research and development office, Mr Choo Kin Poo, said public forums can also educate members of the public and patients about research and their rights as test subjects. Its first such forum, on clinical trials, will take place this Saturday at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Whistle-blowing is encouraged at all levels in research institutions. The hiring contracts for senior scientists taking charge of laboratories at NUS, for example, often require them to set up a system for those who detect wrongdoing to report these without fear of reprisal.

All junior researchers here have to go through a standard module on ethics run by the institution they join.

Researchers told The Straits Times that, in any case, ethical lapses seldom go unnoticed for long.

With published findings being used as the basis of tests in labs across the globe conducting similar research, the failure to replicate a particular result in several labs will raise suspicions - and word gets around fast in the scientific community.

This was how that Korean scientist's faked study of human embryonic stem cells was 'outed'.

Associate Professor Adekunle Adeyeye of NUS' department of electrical and computer engineering said he impresses upon his students that even innocent mistakes will not be seen as such.

'A slip will not only mean the reputation of the researcher is in question, but his lab, the entire institution and the country's standing in science.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 23, 2008.