The panel that hands out the Nobel Prize for Medicine has demanded the resignation of two of its judges for allegedly mishandling a scandal over a disgraced Italian surgeon who specialised in stem cell therapy.
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A separate investigative report released last week describes problems with synthetic tracheal implants performed by Macchiarini on three Karolinska University Hospital patients, two of whom later died. Break away from tradition and step up into a smarter way to capture medical images and video. The assembly has 50 voting members who are professors at the Stockholm-based Karolinska Institute. They will not be allowed to participate in the Nobel process ever again.
‘Confidence in the two principals [Wallberg and Hamsten] is so seriously damaged that it has been exhausted, ‘ assembly secretary Thomas Perlmann told Sweden’s TT news agency. Much of the work is done by the Nobel committee, which is appointed by the assembly.
Harriet Wallberg during her spell as the Karolinska Institute’s president.
“Scandal is the right word”.
Macchiarini was employed as a researcher into stem cell biology at the Karolinska Institutet and consultant at Karolinska University Hospital in 2010.
The Swedish Karolinska Institutet, which chooses the 50-strong jury, has said Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson and Anders Hamsten were implicated in an external review published the day before. Wallberg, was president of the institute in 2014 when allegations about the doctor began surfacing.
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Stem-cell surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who denies any wrongdoing, faces numerous accusations of scientific fraud and misconduct resulting in the death of two patients and being investigated on suspicion of gross criminal negligence. The Guardian reported Wallberg, now chancellor of the Sweden Higher Education Authority, was sacked Monday from that position.
