Texas A&M Biodefense Research Head Resigns

The Texas A&M University official overseeing the school’s federally funded biological defense research activities resigned from his post yesterday amidst an ongoing investigation of mishaps involving dangerous disease agents, the Dallas Morning News reported (see GSN, Aug. 1).

Richard Ewing announced his resignation as the university’s vice president of research after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials spent a week at the College Station campus.  The federal agency has been looking into the university’s failure to report 2006 incidents in which a laboratory worker was infected with brucella bacteria and three others were exposed to Q fever.

Texas A&M officials have acknowledged their failure to alert the federal health agency, which has suspended all research at the university involving “select agents.”

Last week, university officials said the infected laboratory worker was not authorized to work with the brucella agent, and the campus laboratory where the exposure took place was not authorized to carry out experiments involving the disease.

It remains unclear if Ewing was involved in the reporting failures, the Morning News reported.  The researcher who headed the unapproved brucella experiments remains on leave.

In a letter submitted to colleagues yesterday, Ewing said he was leaving his position he has held since 2000 “during a time the university is under tremendous scrutiny surrounding its select agent research program.”

“I fully intend to work with the interim university administration, faculty and staff to help bring our program back into full compliance,” said Ewing, who is due to stay at the university as a tenured professor in the mathematics department (Emily Ramshaw, Dallas Morning News, Aug. 2).

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