Former Cleveland Clinic doctor accused of sharing research funded by US with Chinese government
CLEVELAND (WJW) — A former Cleveland Clinic research doctor and Case Western Reserve University professor is accused of receiving federal grant money for research in the United States and not disclosing similar funding he received for research in the People’s Republic of China.
He is also accused of sharing research he did in the U.S. with the Chinese government.
Dr. Qing Wang, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his home in Shaker Heights. He is being charged with false claims and wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in grant funding that he and his research group at the Cleveland Clinic received from the National Institutes of Health.
According to a federal complaint, Dr. Wang “knowingly failed to disclose to NIH that he held an affiliation and the position of Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Sciences and Technology” in China. It alleges that he received $3 million in grants from the Chinese government for some of the same scientific research that was funded by the NIH grant, but never disclosed that information.
“Why should another country and another group of citizens benefit from information that we funded here in the United States?” said Jeffrey Fortunato, an assistant special-agent-in-charge with the Cleveland Division of the FBI.
Dr. Wang is also accused of participating in a Chinese government program that recruited individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.
