Dive Brief:
- The California Board of Regents filed a lawsuit on behalf of UC San Diego alleging an Alzheimer’s researcher who left for the University of Southern California, bringing along most of his research team, conspired to take research data and funding to USC’s new Alzheimer’s research center.
- While universities are constantly jockeying for top researchers, the lawsuit alleges USC took extralegal recruitment action in its pursuit of Paul Aisen, and the Los Angeles Times reports that included contract interference, computer crimes, and civil conspiracy.
- Aisen has led the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study at UC San Diego since 2007, and the lawsuit also alleges that he and his team stored data in an external Amazon account to which they have not given the university access since they left.
Dive Insight:
The Alzheimer’s study has been based at UC San Diego since 1991, and Aisen was simply one in a line of research directors that UC San Diego will now replace. While the National Institute on Aging said its five-year, up to $55 million grant for the study will stay at UC San Diego, the funding concern with Aisen’s transition came with his potential to take grant money with him to his new research home.
Carnegie Mellon University was the victim of severe researcher poaching this past academic year. It lost 40 robotics researchers to ride-sharing app creator Uber, which is working on driverless car technology. The mass exits have decimated the university’s robotics department.