Stanford University president to resign

SAN FRANCISCO — The president of Stanford University said Wednesday he would resign, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found flaws in some papers he authored.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement to students and staff that he would step down Aug. 31.

The school’s board of trustees in December launched a review into allegations that he engaged in fraud and other unethical conduct related to his research and papers.

A neuroscientist, Tessier-Lavigne said he “never submitted a scientific paper without firmly believing that the data were correct and accurately presented.” But he said he should have been more diligent in seeking corrections.

The review assessed 12 papers that Tessier-Lavigne worked on, five of them for which he was the principal author. He said he was aware of issues with four of them but acknowledged taking “insufficient” steps to deal with the issues. He said he’ll retract three of the papers and correct two.

The panel cleared him of the most serious allegations — that a 2009 paper published in the scientific journal Nature was the subject of a fraud investigation and that fraud was found. There was no investigation and no fraud discovered, the panel ruled. The paper proposed a model of neurodegeneration, which could have great potential for Alzheimer’s disease research and therapy, the panel wrote in its report.

But the panel also concluded that the paper had multiple problems, including a lack of rigor in its development, and that the research and its presentation contained “various errors and shortcomings.”