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"Premier Peter Beattie gave QUT researchers in grant controversy an extra $225,000 for related work

Mark Solomons
July 30, 2013 12:00AM

Former premier Peter Beattie has been drawn into the QUT grant scandal, with revelations his government provided an additional $225,000 Smart State grant for related work. Source: News Limited

QUT scientists at the centre of a controversy over a $275,000 federal grant for a now discredited journal paper also received $225,000 from then premier Peter Beattie for related work, as part of a 2007 funding package worth more than $1 million.

But while QUT has informed the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the National Health and Medical Research Council about errors in the application for the federal grant and the retraction of a key research paper, the university has not told the State Government.

QUT's reputation at risk in scandal

In the retracted paper, first published in 2010, the group of researchers at QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation acknowledged the Queensland government's support, provided in 2007 under the Beattie administration's Smart State policies.

"This work was funded by a Queensland Government Smart State Research Industries Partnership Program Grant ... (lead researcher Zee Upton) was supported by a Queensland State Government Smart State Senior Fellowship,'' the scientists wrote.

Premier Peter Beattie personally handed over the $1.03 million grant at a biotech conference in Boston in the US in May 2007, part of a link-up with Brisbane company Tissue Therapies, which was set up to develop products based on the QUT scientists' work. Tissue Therapies contributed a further $275,000 of cash and in-kind support and QUT the remainder.

In a Tissue Therapies announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange a few days later, Mr Beattie was quoted as saying: "This is a world-first development and once on the market will place global focus squarely on Queensland experts among the international stem cell community. There is a global market for this type of product, which means it will benefit our economy as well as save lives."

In a progress report to Tissue Therapies and QUT the following year, the scientists wrote: "Developments that address these challenges will be revolutionary ... The outcome of this project will be a world-first development that will accelerate the important work of stem cell research for new therapies."

The scientists later abandoned the work.

US scientific journal Stem Cells and Development this year retracted the 2010 paper after a whistleblower pointed out errors in it. The whistleblower claimed some of the results had been exaggerated, prompting an internal QUT probe that last year cleared the scientists of misconduct.

Another whistleblower made an official complaint about the federal grant application, claiming it contained similar errors.

QUT Registrar Shard Lorenzo told The Courier-Mail the university had not informed the State Government about these allegations because "the researchers have advised that this grant is not related to the research in the retracted paper".

"This grant was about making new chimeric proteins that are different from the chimeric protein in the retracted paper," she said.

"No publications have yet resulted from this work, therefore the State Government has not been informed about the retracted publication."

The NHMRC is assessing information provided by QUT in which the university states there was no misconduct in relation to the federal grant application.

But QUT Vice-Chancellor Peter Coaldrake has acknowledged the university could be forced to pay back the grant money and suffer reputational damage if the NHMRC does not accept its findings.