December 2008
When Felix Oden came up with the idea for a cure for bone marrow cancer, he sits alone in his office at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch. It's the morning after the Christmas party and Oden lets his eyes wander over a grove behind the low rise of the famous research center. He thinks about plasma cells, so he tells SPIEGEL.
Plasma cells belong to the immune system and produce antibodies, but in bone marrow cancer they multiply malignantly, thus generating cancer cells. Suddenly Oden comes up with a question: Why has anyone ever made an antibody against these cells?
Oden begins to research and finds a protein that occurs more or less exclusively on the cell surface of plasma cells. He knows that if one can make an antibody for it, it could stop the growth of cancer cells.
The PhD student reports his idea to his chief and task force leader, the renowned cancer researcher Martin L. He dismisses Oden's project and lets him do research, Oden told SPIEGEL.
Today, Oden works as a scientist in a private company. But the five-and-a-half years he was at MDC still make him angry. For him and his teammate, the postdoc Stephen Marino, they have become an odyssey in the scientific world, which is about the right to invent one's own invention, but also one's own existence.
Their story shows how competitive top research can be - and that it's not just about new, better medicines, but also about power, money and vanities. And it shows that junior scientists can only defend themselves to a limited extent if they have problems with their bosses.
Early 2012
After more than three years of research, Felix Oden can prove that his antibodies are effective against cancer cells. Oden's boss, Martin L., learns that, according to Oden, he insists on making a declaration of invention to the employer; later, the invention can be applied for a patent.
Oden fills in a form, his boss is according to Oden the largest share. "I was honored for the inven- tion message and signed once," he says. "How the percentages are distributed, I was not interested in this moment."
But then the young researcher comes up with doubts: "Why should Martin L. get the most percent of the invention, even though I had the idea?" Oden finds out that the leader of a working group is far from being an inventor just because he finances the work. He turns to the legal department and advises him not to raise the subject until he has defended his thesis.
Thomas Sommer, MDC's deputy board member, also believes that this approach is right. Oden keeps still. Sommer can not remember exactly: "I could have advised him to work through the conflicts one after the other, but I certainly did not advise him not to take care of his shares," he tells SPIEGEL.
Again and again, there are disputes over patents at German research institutes, but these are usually clarified internally. Institutions should be interested in getting the parties to agree quickly, because it will throw a bad light on them if they do not. But that's hard, because a drug is actually approved, it can go to a lot of money. The higher the shares in the patent, the more jumps out for the individual inventors (see box).
At the beginning of March 2012, Felix Oden will be interviewed by postdoc Stephen Marino from another working group. He convinces him to visualize the structures of the antibody. So you could see better, which parts would have to be changed, so that the antibodies are not repelled by the human body.
From then on, Oden's and Marino's workgroups cooperate with each other. From now on, Marino is mainly working to make the structure of the antibody visible. This plays an important role in patenting. The distribution of the percentages has to be clarified.
"Martin L. has suggested giving himself and me 35 percent and the rest of the scientists," says Oden DER SPIEGEL. L. informs the SPIEGEL that he can not comment on the patent litigation because it is a pending case. But he also says that he developed the antibody together with Oden. "Accordingly, I have made compromise proposals to the inventor shares of the patent."
Autumn 2012
The collaboration between Oden, Marino and L. will become increasingly difficult from now on. There is a dispute over the appointment of authors, research funds, the publication of data and publications. Oden and Marino accuse L. several times to have behaved scientifically wrong and complain to the MDC board about him, as they tell the SPIEGEL. But they get the impression that the MDC does not do anything against the group leader.
L. writes: The accusations "are not new to me, but lack any truth-relevant basis, they are simply wrong or constructed." I have no scientific misconduct to blame! "
Early 2014
Thomas Sommer, deputy chairman of the MDC, as well as the Ombudsman of the Institute advise Oden and Marino to submit a formal complaint. "This would have allowed us to convene an independent commission of external scientists to investigate the allegations," says Sommer. But Oden and Marino do not want to go this way, because the complaint is directed not only against L., but also against the board. They do not believe in an independent commission.
imago / Jürgen Ritter
Max Delbrück Center in Berlin
The two scientists complain to the Ombudsman for the Science of the DFG, as they tell the SPIEGEL. The panel replies: "We can not say that Prof. L. was wrong, because we did not do anything about it, that the MDC could have violated rules, that your complaint was not properly investigated, does not correspond to ours examination of the facts. "
Stephan Rixen of the ombudsman body says it intervenes only if the panel has the reliable impression that nothing is being done on the spot or that the procedures are not being carried out correctly there. "Our job is to mediate, we do not impose sanctions." Unfortunately, there is no other instance that could help and intervene with junior researchers.
A mistake in the science system.
The years of dispute delay the development of the antibody. It takes even longer than any other drug to get the patients in urgent need of it. And that, even though the MDC calls it his mission "to bring insights into clinical application as quickly as possible", as it says on the homepage.
End of 2015 and beginning of 2016
Felix Oden now works in a private company, Marino continues to work as a scientist at the MDC. But then his contract is not renewed, although Marino's work colleagues and his boss write support letters and money was provided for its extension, as Marino says. "Performance has no value in this system," says Marino. He had become too uncomfortable for the MDC.
Thomas Sommer, the deputy board member, says that the board did not approve the financing and that it was not permissible to grant it a further time limit.
Marino turns to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research - but also from there it says he must file a formal complaint to the MDC Board. The dispute culminates in a house ban that Marino receives from the MDC Board in February 2016.
Autumn 2017
Even Marino's former boss makes it clear to him in an e-mail that he will have no future at the MDC. Various scientists had been quite upset about the complaints. Marino makes that angry. He can not believe how the science system works: "We were denied real help."
Autumn 2018
To date, the patent dispute is not settled. The MDC has hired a law firm to clarify who earns how many percent of the invention. The law firm has already prepared two appraisals, now the third one is in progress.
After a temporary project in the Charité and a year of unemployment, Stephen Marino graduated with academic science and found a job in a private company.
According to Oden and Marino, it is not about defending their own rights. They want to prevent similar things from happening to other scientists. "The system encourages the exploitation of young scientists instead of protecting them," says Oden. And Stephen Marino asks, "How many promising careers have been destroyed rather than promoted? How much do we citizens lose each day because of this injustice?"