TV news personality Jane Pauley had a message to deliver in April when she spoke at a fundraiser for UC Irvine's Brain Imaging Center.
She told the 140 guests at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach about her battle with mental illness and spoke in support of the research being done by the center's director -- and Pauley's brother-in-law -- UCI psychiatry professor Steven G. Potkin.
Potkin is one of UCI's biggest stars. The 60-year-old psychiatrist is among the university's most prolific researchers. He brings in lucrative contracts from some of the world's biggest drug companies and has presided over as many as a dozen clinical trials at a time.
UCI probe: An article in the Aug. 13 California section about investigations into UC Irvine researcher Steven G. Potkin's work stated that Steven Mee, who conducted a clinical trial with Potkin and psychiatry department co-chairman William E. Bunney, had been a medical school student under the two doctors. In fact, Mee did not study under Potkin. In addition, the article stated that Mee did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Mee said he had never received a voicemail message left for him at his office.
UCI probe: An article in the Aug. 13 California section about investigations into UC Irvine researcher Steven G. Potkin's work said Steven Mee, who conducted a clinical trial with Potkin and psychiatry department co-chairman William E. Bunney, had been a medical school student under the two doctors. In fact, Mee did not study under Potkin. In addition, the article said Mee did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Mee said he never received a voicemail message left for him at his office.
Recently, his investigation into nicotine's effects on the brain received national attention. And in March, the university proudly trumpeted his role in heading a $24-million National Institutes of Health project that will be headquartered at UCI.
But at the same time Potkin has attracted funding and recognition for UCI, he has also been investigated three times by the university for alleged ethical or financial breaches, according to more than 300 pages of documents obtained by The Times. And although Potkin says he was not disciplined as a result the investigations, each raised serious questions about his practices and how UCI dealt with the issues.
Most recently, administrators found in 2004 that the professor had skirted the school's patient safety review board to test a drug for a pharmaceutical company without the required university approval. When UCI learned of the research, it ordered Potkin to immediately halt the study.
Seven years earlier, administrators looked into why Potkin had directed drug companies to pay more than $2 million in research funds to a firm his family owned. The payments were related to studies he was performing at UCI. The university concluded that the company may have been set up to avoid UCI overhead fees, and it prohibited Potkin from using the company in future research projects.
UCI launched its first investigation of Potkin's work in 1989, four years after the psychiatrist arrived at the university from the National Institutes of Mental Health, where he specialized in schizophrenia research. Fellow UCI doctors accused Potkin of wrongfully billing Medi-Cal for his research. Although Medi-Cal rejected some billings for the clinical trial, the state and UCI concluded that Medi-Cal was not defrauded.
