Indian scientist arrested in US for 'DNA theft'

"A visiting Indian scientist in a US university has been arrested for allegedly stealing vials containing DNA samples of tuberculosis organisms and computer discs containing research material.

Singh Lakshman Meena, 33, a research scientist at the University of Central Florida, has been made to give up his passport after spending nearly two weeks in jail, media reports said.

Meena has been accused of taking eight vials of cloned DNA pieces from a tuberculosis organism that could be used to develop drugs to fight TB, police said. He also allegedly took disks with research information in them.

Meena was arrested on March 22, two days before he planned to leave for India, on charges of offence against intellectual property, petty theft and obstruction by false information."

www.rediff.com...

He was on a yearlong research fellowship sponsored by the Government of India at the UCF's Biomolecular Science Center in Orlando, researching TB genes. And manage to not only swipe the dna and disks, bit also manuscripts and notebooks.

SO, I guess nothing much has changed since 9/11. The pilots were trained and aided by America to do their dirty work, as will the future terrorists...
If they want us to take their war seriously, then they should also. these fellowship programs should only be offered to our closest allies, and then the candidates should be closely scrutinized....




[edit on 8-4-2005 by dawnstar]

Originally posted by dawnstar
"A visiting Indian scientist in a US university has been arrested



, two days before he planned to leave for India, on charges of offence against intellectual property, petty theft and obstruction by false information."

Some more from that article:

Meena's lawyer Dean Mosley, however, said Meena is a respected research scientist who was simply taking his own work back to India and he failed to fill out the proper transfer paperwork.

"This is not about any kind of terrorism or a bio-terrorist situation. This is just one scientist trying to show the university in India and the government, 'This is what you paid for'," Mosley said.

To tell you the truth that explanation came to mind as I read your post (before clicking the link). I've been around research labs and the politics there can get nasty.

This scientist could have just been hated by his peers, or the university would not let him take any of his research back with him.

Normally you need permission (in the form of a Material Transfer Agreement) to ship samples from one research lab to another. But I know of academics who share research without asking and some are stupid enough to sent it through fed-ex or even carry it on their person when going to visit a collegue in another lab.

Seems he may have taken things into his own hands (so to speak) and got caught with everyone who hated hime jumping on the bandwagon.

No charges related to terrorism at all and certainly no reason the implement the kind of solution you have proposed. They would only exacerbate a worrying trend for US universities: Reverse brain drain threatens U.S. economy

[edit on 4/9/2005 by Gools]