◆ The HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) will have two new members when it meets this month. In an email sent to its listserv on Sept. 11, the Office for Human Research Protections announced that Alison Bateman-House, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, and Neal W. Dickert, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine, were appointed to SACHRP.

SACHRP’s charter calls for 11 members who meet three times a year and serve three- or four-year terms. The announcement did not indicate the terms of the new members. Dickert’s appointment means SACHRP now has two physicians serving on it—he joins SACHRP Chair Doug Diekema, M.D., professor of pediatrics and adjunct professor in the Departments of Bioethics and Emergency Medicine in the University of Washington School of Medicine. Three other new members appointed in July also represent universities, replacing three individuals who were affiliated with pharmaceutical companies. With the newest appointments, SACHRP is still down two members but will have enough to conduct committee business. Its next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 18-19 and is planned to be held in person. Details, including the agenda, have not been released. Information about the new members was not posted online as of Sept. 13. (9/14/23)

◆ The HHS Office of Research Integrity (ORI) recently issued three misconduct findings against investigators, two of whom were working together. Kotha Subbaramaiah, formerly a professor of biochemistry research in medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC), “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data” in a dozen papers published from 2008 to 2015, all of which have been retracted. Subbaramaiah “reused Western blot images from the same source and falsely relabeled them to represent different proteins and/or experimental results,” ORI said. He agreed to exclude himself from federal funding for seven years, beginning Aug. 16, according to ORI’s Sept. 7 announcement.