22.08.1958 (65 years) (Basel, Switzerland)
Paolo Macchiarini (born 22 August 1958) is a Swiss thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden.Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients' own stem cells as trachea transplants, Macchiarini was a visiting professor and director on a temporary contract at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet (KI) from 2010. Macchiarini has been accused of unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients, resulting in fatalities for seven of the eight patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants. Articles in Vanity Fair and Aftonbladet further suggested that he had falsified some of his academic credentials on résumés.Urban Lendahl, the secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, resigned in February 2016, owing to his involvement in recruiting Macchiarini to KI. Shortly afterwards KI's vice chancellor, Anders Hamsten, who in 2015 had cleared Macchiarini of misconduct, also resigned. KI terminated its clinical relationship with Macchiarini in 2013 but allowed him to continue as a researcher; in February 2016, the university announced that it would not renew his research contract, which was due to expire in November, and terminated the contract the following month. After being dismissed from KI, Macchiarini worked at the Kazan Federal University in Russia until that institution terminated his project in April 2017, effectively firing him.After a one-year medico-legal investigation, the Swedish Prosecution Authority announced in October 2017 that Macchiarini had been negligent in four of the five cases investigated due to the use of devices and procedures not supported by evidence, but that a crime could not be proven because the patients might have died under any other treatment given. Sweden's Expert Group on Scientific Misconduct also found evidence of research fraud by Macchiarini and his co-authors in six papers and called for them to be retracted.As of 2023, Macchiarini has had 11 of his research papers retracted, four others have received an expression of concern, and three others have been corrected.