Dong-Pyou Han faked HIV vaccine results — and got 57 months in federal prison

Dong-Pyou Han, a research scientist at the University of Iowa, was working on an HIV vaccine funded by $19 million in NIH grants. To produce positive results, Han spiked rabbit blood samples with human antibodies, making it appear that the vaccine had produced an immune response in the animals.

The fraud was discovered when a colleague noticed anomalies in the data. Han initially claimed the results were legitimate, but the investigation confirmed the fabrication. He was charged with making false statements and research fraud.

In 2015, Han was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison — one of the harshest sentences for research fraud in US history. He was also ordered to pay $7.2 million in restitution. The case illustrated how the pressure to produce results in a high-stakes, high-funding research environment can drive a scientist to fabricate data, and how the consequences of fraud in medical research extend beyond the laboratory to the patients who depend on the results.