A former Harvard Medical School (HMS) instructor is suing the University for breaching her employment contract, defaming her name in the academic community and causing her "emotional distress."

Both sides have submitted statements to Middlesex Superior Court, and the case, filed last December, has not yet gone to court. The plaintiff, Dinah K. Bodkin, has demanded monetary compensation for all professional and personal damage--an amount initially estimated at $450,000.

While working as a researcher at Brockton/West Roxbury Veterans Administration Medical Center (BWRVA), one of the hospitals affiliated with HMS, Bodkin began to question the accuracy of experiments performed by a co-researcher in her laboratory.

Within a year of her complaint, Bodkin said, the head of the laboratory chose not to renew her annual contract. She alleged that this was in retaliation for her speaking out and claimed that her termination violates a stated University policy.

Harvard denied responsibility for the termination, saying that Bodkin was an employee of the hospital, not the University.

Although HMS and BWRVA investigations concluded there was no scientific misconduct, Denise A. Chicoine, Bodkin's attorney, said the case stands whether or not the research actually was flawed.

The Road to Conflict

In April 1994 Bodkin started working in Associate Professor of Medicine Kenneth A. Bauer's laboratory on a project funded by a three-year grant, studying the genetics of factor VII hemophilia. One other researcher, Arnaldo A. Arbini, was working with them.

Bodkin said she raised doubts about the validity of Arbini's research after he made his first public presentation of his work during a faculty seminar in April 1995. At the time, Bauer and Arbini were preparing to submit the data for publication.