The researcher of IDIBELL (Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute) that died under unclear circumstances In July 2022, he most likely suffered from Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJ) syndrome, a disease related to mad cow disease and the subject of his study.
Salut confirms a case of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease that coincides in time with the researcher’s case
In January 2021, the Public Health Surveillance and Emergency Response Subdirectorate received notification of a probable case of CJ in a man from Barcelona. The laboratory tests performed on this patient meet the diagnostic criteria for that disease, as confirmed by the Department of Health. Notification times match with those in the case of the scientist.
The deceased asked IDIBELL for permission up to three times to work with prions and always received refusals.
The investigator kept without authorization in his laboratory samples infected with prions, the causes of CJ’s illness, according to the newspaper’The country’. Finding cause and effect relationships seems obvious. But silence from most informed sources and a very slow research (the samples They were not analyzed until two years later of their discovery) leave many questions.
“It is unlikely that he would carry out these experiments without anyone noticing. It would be a failure of the security system”
Where did those samples come from? Were they manipulated in that laboratory (which does not have a sufficient level of security)? Were they the cause of the infection or did it occur in a center in Germany?
From Göttingen to Barcelona
The researcher returned to Barcelona (where he had trained) in 2018, after a five-year stay at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) from Göttingen, where he worked with Inga Zerrone of the references in the study of CJ syndrome.
“We train people, we explain the regulations, but we cannot go around checking like police officers”
Director of IDIBELL
In his previous stage in Barcelona, between 2011 and 2013, the scientist requested three times to IDIBELL work with prions in their laboratories, receiving as many refusals. After returning to Barcelona, the researcher continued publishing articles based on infected samples. But it is not known if he used the ones found in his laboratory.
It remains to be clarified where the samples came from and whether the infection occurred in Barcelona or Germany.
Why wasn’t IDIBELL suspicious? “It is unlikely that he would do these experiments without anyone noticing. It would be a failure of the center’s security system,” says a researcher from another institution that is an expert on the subject.
“We train people, we explain the regulations, but we cannot go around checking like police officers,” he replies. Gabriel Capella, director of IDIBELL, who assures that the scientist had not notified the presence of the samples. In February 2019, the institute reached a agreement to do those kinds of experiments in another center, the MAGGOT (Centre d’Investigació en Sanitat Animal), which has a high security laboratory.
When the scientist fell ill, the UB requisitioned the samples, sent them to CRESA, sealed the laboratory and cleaned it
Inga Zerr has not answered EL PERIÓDICO’s questions so it is unknown if the samples came from Germany or from another place, or if the scientist could contract the disease in the Göttingem laboratory (the symptoms of the disease can take years to appear).
Two years of paralysis
When the scientist went on sick leave, his group warned that there were suspicious boxes, according to Capella. Put on alert, the University of Barcelona (UB, owner of the infrastructure) requisitioned the samples in December 2020sent them to CRESA, sealed the laboratory and cleaned it.
It was not until December 2022 that the UB sent the samples to be analyzed: “It is very strange that it took so long”
But it wasn’t until December 2022, two years later, when the UB sent the samples to be analyzed. Meanwhile, the scientist died in July 2022. “It is very strange that it took so long. It could be analyzed immediately and compared with the researcher’s samples,” says the scientist from another center.
Salut affirms that the autopsy of the patient notified in January 2021, but its execution depends on the permission of the family, Beatriz Pérez reports.
The samples were not analyzed because their owner was unknown, argue UB sources
The samples were not analyzed because their owner was unknown, UB sources maintain. The pandemic context slowed everything down, sources from the department allege. CYBER (Networked Biomedical Research Center), the scientist’s employer. Capella explains that it was necessary coordinate between three institutions and that the case was complicated.
Finally, the UB decided that it could not wait any longer, according to university sources, and sent the samples to be analyzed at a center in the Basque Country in December 2022. In March 2023, the results arrived, which confirmed that they were infected. Last July the UB opened the official investigation.
Silences
The case is also confusing because silence from most sources: the researcher’s partner, lab colleagues, most of his co-authors. The IDIBELL works council has explained to EL PERIÓDICO that it has not received a response from management to its requests for information.
In an email dated October 11, Capellá asked the center’s staff to refer media inquiries about this case to him. Various sources affirm that the researcher’s partner (who did not answer EL PERIÓDICO’s questions) would even have denounced to the boss of the deceased researcher for making his health condition known.
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Capellá defends the center’s actions. “We have protection mechanisms that work. That there was a researcher who skipped them? Well, that is something exceptional that is being investigated. We have no choice but to trust people,” he concludes.
The opacity scenario contrasts with another known case of prion infection at a research center, which occurred in France in 2010 and that had a lot more advertising.