Question

Ethics

Aarti Shankar, a new M.D.-Ph.D. graduate, has a hypothesis about a mechanism that would explain an unexpected phenotype displayed by a knockout mouse constructed by her doctoral mentor, Dr. Gina Costello. With Dr. Costello’s permission and resources, Aarti experimentally tests her hypothesis in the few remaining weeks before she leaves the lab. Her results reproducibly demonstrate that the mouse is totally missing a minor signaling protein called Xgro. This defect provides a compelling explanation for the knockout phenotype. Aarti leaves for her residency training buoyed by the hope of being an author on a major paper. In follow-up work on the project, Raymond, another postdoc in the lab, is unable to repeat Aarti’s work. To Dr. Costello’s chagrin, not only are Aarti’s data irreproducible but Raymond demonstrates that, to the contrary, the mutant mouse produces 10-fold more Xgro than the wild-type mouse. It takes another 4 months of experiments to rigorously collect confirmatory data. In the process, Raymond also discovers that Aarti’s data were the result of her failure to properly conduct the signaling protein assay. Interestingly, Raymond’s newly observed overproduction of Xgro provides an attractive alternative explanation for the mutant phenotype. Upon completing the lab work and data analysis, Dr. Costello and Raymond write a manuscript describing their findings on the mechanism underlying the mouse phenotype. Aarti becomes aware of this and requests that she be a coauthor on the paper because her seminal idea was key to the work even though she did the assay incorrectly. Raymond is opposed to this, saying Authorship and Peer Review 125 that Aarti’s lab work has delayed submission of this important discovery for publication. Dr. Costello seeks your advice on whether Aarti has a case for authorship.

What do you tell her? Why?