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, Arnold 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.

In her complaint, Bodkin questioned the methodology and conclusions of Arbini's research.

"In November 1995, Dr. Bodkin reviewed her co-worker's research manuscript and discovered the presen- tation of the data in the manuscript wasinaccurate and misleading," the complaint reads."Dr. Bodkin advocated certain changes to themanuscript to make it conform to acceptedprinciples of scientific research, but Dr.Bodkin's co-worker refused to make the changes."

In an interview Friday, Bodkin claimed thatArbini failed to follow correct scientificprocedure, drawing his conclusions fromexperiments performed for different lengths oftime.

Arbini, however, said all of his experimentsran for the same lab time. "It was just a bigmisunderstanding," he said.

An HMS panel convened after Bodkin filed aformal complaint with HMS and found Arbiniinnocent of scientific misconduct. But the paneldid urge the lab to "keep better track of data,"said HMS Director of Public Affairs Donald L.Gibbons.

Arbini said he admits his mistake, but said theincomplete recording had no effect on theconclusions of the research.

"[For] the exact experiment that I decided touse, I did not enter the date or all of the exactconditions in my notebook," he said. "The onlyreason for that was inexperience."