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Provost: Sir Derek Roberts, CBE, FRS, FEng



22 October 1997



Dr Thomas Thach, Junior
Programme Committee Chairperson
Society for Neuroscience
11 Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 500
Washington DC 20036
USA



Dear Dr Thach

As a consequence of information brought to our attention in October 1994 by Dr L J Bindman relating to two scientific communications, and the published abstracts that refer to them, from her laboratory including one published by your Society (Barry, M F, Christofi, G, Vickery, R M and Bindman L J, Society of Neuroscience Abstract 20, 370, 12, 1994) an investigation into the veracity of the published material was initiated. The first stage was an internal departmental review that established that certain of the experimental results presented in these abstracts had been falsified. The second stage was a formal inquiry instituted by University College London and undertaken by an independent scientific panel drawn from senior neurophysiologists from outside UCL. They concluded that expermental material had been falsified and that, beyone reasonable doubt, Dr Bindman, Dr Vickery and Dr Barry are innocent of falsifying data.

Dr Christofi has twice challenged in the Courts the procedures whereby the College investigated the allegations and the proposal to seek to publish retraction letters. He was unsuccessful on both occasions.

We ask you to publish this letter as a formal retraction relating to the abstract that appeared in your publication. A more detailed retraction is being sent to you by Dr Bindman and we would ask you to publish that subsequent to the publication of our retraction above.

Yours sincerely



D H RobertsK M Spyer
ProvostHead, Department of Physiology

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