Dollars for Profs
Dig Into University Researchers' Outside Income and Conflicts of Interest
Published Dec. 6, 2019
This database was last updated in December 2019 and should only be used as a historical snapshot. There may be new or amended records not reflected here.
Conflict of Interest
Institutions must file significant disclosures to the National Institutes of Health if they determine financial relationships could affect the design, conduct or reporting of the NIH-funded research. The NIH provided us with their entire financial conflict of interest database, with filings from 2012 through 2019.
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Steven George
Washington University, Department: Biomedical Engineering
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4Design Biosciences, LLC
Payment for services (e.g., consulting fees, honoraria, paid authorship)
Based on WU’s Research COI Policy and the Procedures for Determining and Managing Research Financial Conflicts of Interests, the CIRC determined Dr. George’s personal financial relationship with 4Design Biosciences, LLC, related to the above referenced research, creates a financial conflict of interest due to the following reasons:
•The primary focus of 4Design Biosciences, an entity with which Dr. George owns equity, is to create and commercialize application-specific 3D microphysiological systems for drug development, which is directly related to the subject of the research.
•Dr. George’s personal financial relationship is directly related to the study because the study is evaluating a product licensed by 4Design Biosciences
•Since Dr. George owns equity in the company and will earn royalties from the sale and distribution of the licensed technology, he could directly benefit, should the company’s value increase as a result of the studies.
•Dr. George’s role in the study as PI could directly affect the outcome of the studies.
While the CIRC determined Dr. George has a financial conflict of interest, there are mitigating factors that help address the situation.
•Dr. George is uniquely qualified by virtue of his expertise and experience, and the research could not be conducted as effectively without his involvement.
•Other, non-conflicted, internal and external faculty and collaborators, not under Dr. George’s supervision, are involved in the conduct, review, and reporting the results of the research.
•The research is in an early ‘proof of concept’ phase, and no commercial product is currently available.
•As 4Design Biosciences creates (b)(4) that are specific to the needs of each client, the outcomes of the research are unlikely to directly affect the value of the company.
•Additionally, a plan has been developed to mitigate Dr. George’s financial conflict of interest, which is outlined below.
A 3-D In Vitro Platform of Tumor Metastasis (PQ24)
The central objective of our application is to create a high-throughput platform of 3-D human tumor spheroids perfused by human microvessels that mimics the early events of metastasis including epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) and intravasation. The flexible platform will provide new opportunities to study underlying mechanisms of metastasis, and thus new therapeutic options.
Filed on April 03, 2016.
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Steven George filed other conflict of interest disclosures with the NIH:
| Name | Institution | Type | Company | Disclosed Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steven George | University of California, San Diego | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences, LLC | $0 - $4,999 |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences | $0 - $4,999 |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | University of California, San Diego | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences, LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences, LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences, LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | University of California, San Diego | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences, LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences | Value cannot be readily determined |
| Steven George | Washington University | Conflict of Interest | 4Design Biosciences LLC | Value cannot be readily determined |
Notes: When a more specific filing date is not available for an individual financial disclosure or conflict of interest form, we use the year the form was filed. If the year was not disclosed, we report the range of years covered by our public records requests. In a few cases, a start date was provided instead of a filing date. In those cases, we use the start date instead.
Fewer than 10% of records from the University of Florida and fewer than 1% of records from the University of Texas system were removed because they did not contain enough information.
ProPublica obtained additional financial disclosures and conflict of interest forms that we have not yet digitized and added to the database. You can download those disclosures in the ProPublica Data Store.