Three years ago, Drs. Jiangyu Zhu and Kayoko Kimbara., two former postdoctoral fellows at Harvard Medical School, were alleged to steal valuable trade secrets belonging to Harvard Medical School. Now, they were indited June 16 for lab theft of taking research materials they used from Harvard to their lab at the University of Texas, where Dr. Zhu was appointed Assistant Professor.
They were charged with Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property, an offense that carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Their arraignment is set for July 11.
Chinese national Jiangyu Zhu, 33, and Japanese national Kayoko Kimbara, 35, who are married, have been living on bail in San Diego since their arrest nearly three years ago. They are accused of stealing materials from Professor of Cell Biology Frank D. McKeon's lab at HMS in December, 1999, when both were preparing to leave Harvard for the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The couple allegedly shipped more than 20 boxes of sensitive medical materials to Texas, where they were recovered in June, 2000. The stolen materials were crucial to research involving calcineurin, an enzyme that causes the immune system to reject transplanted organs. Immediately before leaving Harvard, Zhu and Kimbara had found genes that block calcineurin--a lucrative discovery for drug development.
The defense indicated its central argument will be that Zhu and Kimbara did nothing out of the ordinary. (Source: PRNewswire, June 16, 2006;Adam M. Guren, Crimson, June 26, 2005)