Story highlights Federal prosecutors accuse a researcher of falsifying HIV research

The NIH awarded Iowa State and the researcher nearly $15 million

Watchdog says Iowa State repaid the government about $500,000

If found guilty, the researcher faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine

Ames, Iowa (CNN) If government prosecutors are right, a former top researcher at Iowa State University is guilty of brazen scientific fraud-actions which a criminal complaint says have cost taxpayers nearly $15 million.

Federal prosecutors accuse Korean-born researcher Dr. Dong Pyou-Han of deliberately falsifying key blood research into a possible vaccine for HIV.

An indictment brought against Han says he falsely showed that rabbits infected with the virus had shown remarkable improvement. That improvement was so advanced that the government's National Institutes of Health awarded Iowa State and Han nearly $15 million in federal research grants.

Prosecutors say the false results actually cleared a first level of back-up testing but fell apart after Han's boss at Iowa State began to get suspicious.

According to the criminal complaint, the false results were secretly given to the NIH as well as a senior scientist at Iowa State after the first publication of the scientific paper. It was then, according to the complaint, that they discovered the rabbit blood was spiked with human antibodies, making it appear the rabbits were developing an immunity to the virus.

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