Couple Admits Cell Line Theft

In an apparent resolution to a six-year-old case of academic theft, two former Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers have signed an agreement admitting that they stole research data and materials—including genetic material and cell lines—from the HMS cell biology laboratory where they were employed as postdoctoral fellows.

The case dates back to January 2000, when HMS researchers returned from a vacation to find that over 20 crates of materials and data were missing.

A security camera caught Jiangyo Zhu and Kayoko Kimbara removing the materials from the lab, according to court documents. The two were arrested in June 2002, and prosecutors said at the time that the stolen materials were worth over $300,000. Three years later, a federal district court indicted the pair on charges of transporting stolen materials worth over $5,000 across state lines.

But the case against Zhu and Kimbara is now on hold. Under the agreement filed this past Thursday, Zhu and Kimbara, who have been under electronic monitoring and a curfew since their arrest in June 2002, will not be prosecuted for a year. If they do not break the law in that span, the indictment will be dismissed.

Zhu and Kimbara would have faced a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the agreement, the theft came as Zhu and Kimbara were preparing to leave Harvard for a lab at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Over the course of five days during winter break in late 1999 and early 2000, the researchers entered the lab as early as 5:34 a.m., removed materials, and shipped them by private carrier to Texas.

Zhu and Kimbara were working on developing immunosuppressive therapies for heart, kidney, and lung transplants, according to a statement released by HMS Thursday.

“The theft of primary research data compromised the careers of student colleagues by slowing the development of publications, and also slowed the development of therapies for human disease,” the statement read.

While Zhu and Kimbara, who are married, had previously asserted that it is common practice for postdoctoral fellows to take materials with them when moving to a new institution, the researchers acknowledged in the agreement that they “knew that the nature and quantity of the materials that they removed...exceeded that which would have been customary.”

In 2002, federal prosecutors filed charges alleging that Zhu illegally sold the results of his research to a Japanese biochemical company. However, these charges were dropped before the researchers’ 2005 grand jury indictment.

Kimbara is now listed on the University of California, San Diego website as a postdoctoral fellow in medicine. The researchers and their lawyers could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Professor of Cell Biology Frank McKeon, who supervised Zhu and Kimbara, has not made himself available for comment, according to HMS officials, but he released a statement Friday saying that “this has been a difficult period for my lab and research team. I am pleased with today’s announcement, and that this matter has come to a close.”

—Staff writer Laurence H. M. Holland can be reached at lholland@fas.harvard.edu.