who’s going to save my mom, Niccum thought.
What the Jacobs family didn’t know — couldn’t have known — was that they were now involved in what would becomeone of the worst medical research scandals of this century. Prominent scientists would see their careers derailed. Duke,an emerging biomedical powerhouse, would be disgraced. Patients would die of their cancers not knowing their finalmonths of treatment had been compromised by scientific fraud.
The scandal would also prove a crucial test for a leader quickly rising through the ranks of academia. The dean overseeing clinical research at Duke Medical School at the time was Sally Kornbluth. Today, she is the president of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. She is helming one of the top research institutions in the world during a periodof unprecedented upheaval in science, at a time when President Trump and his allies have precipitated — andcelebrated — the ouster of at least five leaders of elite universities, four of them women.