https://www.biospace.com/article/harvard-professor-two-chinese-national-charged-with-lying-about-ties-to-government-of-china/Harvard University’s Charles Lieber was charged with “one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement” regarding his work with organizations tied to the Chinese government, including the Thousand Talents Plan, while he filed for research grant funding from the National Institutes of Health. The DOG said over the years, Lieber’s research group at Harvard received more than $15 million in NIH funding. The government charged Lieber, 60, with failing to disclose his ties to the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) and was also a participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a Chinese government program aimed at recruiting western scientists to further China’s own scientific development programs. The Thousand Talents Plan in China provides funding for scientists willing to conduct scientific research on behalf of the Chinese government. The U.S. government has alleged that the Chinese program is not only a way for that country to prosper off of U.S.-based research but also as a means to steal proprietary information.
The government has been closely monitoring researchers with ties to China, either through funding or heritage. A 2017 report issued by the FBI noted that that intellectual-property theft by China costs the U.S. as much as $600 billion annually. Last year, the government fined Michigan-based Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) $5.5 million to resolve claims the institute made false allegations related to grants from China it received. The government said VARI failed to disclose Chinese government grants that funded two VARI researchers. Last year, researchers at Emory University and at MD Anderson were terminated following the revelation of potential undisclosed funding ties with the government of China. In 2018, two Chinese scientists pled guilty to stealing intellectual property from GlaxoSmithKline. Those trade secrets were going to be part of the foundation for setting up a company in China called Renopharma. Another Chinese national is currently in U.S. court over charges related to the Renopharma scandal.
Just what POTUS is focusing on.
