Macchiarini hörs i höst – eventuellt åtal dröjer

Paolo Macchiarini (born August 22, 1958) is an Italian thoracic surgeon and a former researcher on regenerative medicine, who became known for research fraud. Previously he was considered a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients' own stem cells as trachea transplants, and he was a visiting researcher on a temporary contract at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden from 2010. Macchiarini has been accused of research misconduct and unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients. Seven of the eight patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants have died. Also, an article in Vanity Fair suggested that Macchiarini had falsified some of his academic credentials on résumés. Similar accusations have been published in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet according to which Macchiarini's claim to have been a professor at universities in Hannover and Barcelona has turned out to be false. The secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Urban Lendahl, resigned in February 2016, owing to his involvement in recruiting Macchiarini to Karolinska Institutet in 2010. Shortly afterwards the vice chancellor, Anders Hamsten, who in 2015 had cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct also resigned. Macchiarini's employment by Karolinska was due to end in November 2016 following a decision by the institution not to renew his contract. On March 23, 2016 the Staff Disciplinary Board at KI announced that his employee relationship with the institute had been effectively terminated. After being dismissed from Karolinska, he works at the Kazan (Volga region) Federal University in Russia. Since June 2016, Macchiarini is under legal investigation by the public prosecutor's office on a suspicion for manslaughter and grievous bodily harm based on the material leading to death of the three patients operated in Sweden released from the scientific inquiry. The decision concerning a possible indictment will be made in 2017 pending medico-legal assessment by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare.