“Retracting a paper is a rare act, especially for a scientist of Tessier-Lavigne’s stature. A database of retractions shows that only four in every 10,000 papers are retracted.”
Marc Tessier-Lavigne got warnings about his papers in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-2016 and March 2021, and fixed nothing until a student newspaper went public. Stanford’s 95-page report clears him of personally faking data while finding manipulation in labs he ran at three institutions. One panel member stepped off over an $18 million stake in a biotech Tessier-Lavigne cofounded, and the investigation’s spokesperson came from Edelman’s crisis communications team. He sat on two corrections to Science papers for seven years because he drafts emails he never sends.