Milena Penkowa (born 1973) is a Danish

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

who was a professor at the

Panum Institute The Panum Building (formerly referred to as the Panum Institute) is a large building complex that is part of the University of Copenhagen's North Campus in Copenhagen, Denmark. It houses the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. This includes ...

at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

from 2009–2010. In 2010 she was convicted of

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

and

embezzlement Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...

of funds from The Danish Society of Neuroscience. In the same year, she was suspended by the University of Copenhagen and consequently resigned her professorship. In 2012, the

Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty ( da, Udvalgene vedrørende Videnskabelig Uredelighed, or UVVU) are a set of three committees under the Danish Ministry of Research and Information Technology: a committee for natural science, agricul ...

concluded that she had been guilty of

scientific misconduct Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countrie ...

. As of 2020 Penkowa has had nine of her research publications retracted, and four others have received expressions of concern.

Academic career and scientific misconduct

Penkowa graduated from

Kalundborg Gymnasium Kalundborg Gymnasium ( da, Kalundborg Gymnasium og HF) is a municipal gymnasium in Kalundborg Municipality, Denmark. Established on 12 August 1957 as a high school, the first rector was R. Stig Hansen. , the rector is Peter Abildgaard Andersen, w ...

in 1991 and went on to study at the University of Copenhagen. She became assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen in 2000 and associate professor in 2002. Her research at

at the University of Copenhagen from 2009–2010 mainly concerned the protein metallothionein. In 2010 Penkowa was accused of

, as her graduate students were unable to replicate her previous results. Doubts arose about whether Penkowa had in fact carried out the experiments that she had reported. Penkowa was suspended from her professorship and research articles that she had authored were retracted from several journals. During the investigation, accusations of having misspent part of a 5.6 million kroner research grant were also leveled against her, and the University of Copenhagen returned 2 million kroner to the donor. Fifty-eight Danish researchers signed a letter requesting an open review of Penkowa's research, citing suspicions about data fabrication going back to 2002. Penkowa denied any wrongdoing, but resigned her professorship in December 2010. In August 2012, an international panel investigating Penkowa's research for The University of Copenhagen reported "no doubt that there is justified suspicion of deliberate scientific malpractice in 15 of Penkowa’s articles." Penkowa responded: "No-one is perfect, not even me, and there is no doubt that unforeseen errors could have been committed since I started working in a laboratory in 1993 and for that I apologise deeply. 'Deliberate malpractice' is another matter and something I have never done. I therefore do not think it is reasonable to infer that my research has been fraudulent as the press is doing these days." In September 2017, the University of Copenhagen stripped Penkowa of her doctoral degree, after determining she had covered up her scientific misconduct.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penkowa, Milena 1973 births Living people Danish neuroscientists Danish women neuroscientists Danish women academics University of Copenhagen alumni People involved in scientific misconduct incidents Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen

Academic career and scientific misconduct

See also

References