A Harvard University professor has been charged with making false claims regarding funds he received from China as part of its Thousand Talents Program, the New York Times reports.
The US has been cracking down on researchers who have failed to disclose foreign funding sources. Last March, the US National Institutes of Health sent letters to a number of institutions to inquire about researchers' potentially undisclosed links to foreign governments. This had led to researchers being dismissed or resigning from numerous institutions, including MD Anderson Cancer Center, Emory University, and the Moffitt Cancer Center for failing to disclose outside funding sources.
The Harvard professor, Charles Lieber, is the chair of its chemistry and chemical biology department, and is known for his work on nanoscale electronics, the Times reports. Federal prosecutors allege that Lieber lied about his participation in the Thousand Talents Program to the Department of Defense and mischaracterized his role at Wuhan University of Technology, where he was paid up to $50,000 a month in salary, according to the Times.