During the shutdown, Innes joined federal inspectors to sort through and identify materials in his lab and determine whether the permits for them were up-to-date.
Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Indiana University Bloomington biology professor Roger Innes’s lab is back up and running nearly two weeks after federal officials ordered the university to lock it down.
Innes said he still hasn’t received a clear explanation for why the United States Department of Agriculture told the university to close the lab, but he suspects it is retaliation for his speaking in defense of Youhuang Xiang, his former postdoc, and other Chinese researchers in the United States who have been investigated and deported in recent months.
“The timing is just suspicious,” Innes said. “I spoke out broadly to the press after my postdoc had been sentenced [in April] and was safely back in China … And basically two weeks after that, I got this retraction on my compliance notification.”
