US professor with China ties jailed for lying on grant applications

A former Ohio State University rheumatologist and researcher who was arrested in May 2020 for his role in an immunology research fraud scheme has been sentenced to 37 months in prison. Last November, Song Guo Zheng pleaded guilty to lying on federal research grant applications so that he could use more than $4 million (£2.8 million) that his research groups secured from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop rheumatology and immunology expertise for the Chinese government. As part of his 14 May sentence, Zheng is ordered to pay more than $3.4 million in restitution to the NIH and approximately $413,000 to Ohio State University.