Science chief at NIH drug abuse institute resigned after sexual misconduct probe

In August, Antonello Bonci, scientific director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), resigned, and the agency’s director told employees in an email that Bonci would be running an addiction institute in Florida. Science has learned that Bonci’s departure followed an investigation spurred by an internal complaint, which alleged that he sexually targeted a trainee and later directed resources to another trainee with whom he was in an intimate relationship.

Sources at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which NIDA is part of, said they were disturbed by NIDA’s lack of transparency. Because there was no public accounting of the reasons for Bonci’s departure, they said, rumors have swirled, depressing morale at the $1.4 billion institute.

NIH, speaking for NIDA and its director, Nora Volkow, declined to comment on Bonci’s resignation. “NIH cannot comment on personnel matters as they are confidential,” a spokesperson emailed. Attempts to reach Bonci by phone, text, and email were unsuccessful.

Bonci had been NIDA’s scientific director since 2010. On 9 November 2018, Volkow sent an email to employees of the institute’s intramural research program. It said: “Dr. Anto Bonci has a very special opportunity to undertake a sabbatical experience to enhance his executive leadership skills” for up to 1 year. The sabbatical removed Bonci from the reporting line of the trainee with whom he was in an intimate relationship, according to NIH sources. (NIH policy “strongly discourages” intimate relationships in which one person has real or perceived professional authority over the other, and requires the prompt disclosure of such ties. The agency may then remove one person from the reporting line as a remedy.)

In March, a senior scientist at NIDA filed a complaint, which alleged that while on sabbatical, Bonci assigned projects and resources to the trainee. It also alleged that he had previously sexually targeted a different trainee, who had been strongly advised against reporting the behavior when she first sought to do so, in the best interest of her career. (NIH sources say that advice came from a senior person in NIDA’s intramural research program.)

After receiving the complaint, NIH hired an external contractor to investigate. On 21 August, after the investigation was complete, Volkow sent an email to NIDA employees stating that Bonci had “resigned his position as NIDA scientific director. … His new position will be as President of the Global Institutes on Addictions” in Miami. That institute is a for-profit corporation that was registered in Florida on 31 July.

On 4 September, Volkow held a town hall meeting with employees at NIDA’s intramural campus in Baltimore, Maryland. At the meeting, Volkow said she could not provide details about Bonci’s departure. (The 1974 Privacy Act bars federal agencies from making such disclosures.) But she said NIDA takes sexual misconduct very seriously; she noted points of contact for employees experiencing misconduct and she met separately with trainees while on campus.

Some credited NIDA for taking the complaint seriously and acting upon it swiftly. One NIH scientist said: “They did it 80% right. He’s gone.”

This story was supported by the Science Fund for Investigative Reporting.

*Editor's note, 26 February, 10 a.m.: This story was revised to clarify that allegations related to sexual misconduct rather than sexual harassment. In addition, Antonello Bonci, through counsel, denied that he engaged in, or was found to have engaged in, sexual harassment or workplace discrimination of any kind.