A breakthrough, alleged racism and peanuts: The two Oxford dons at war

Former colleagues in the university’s school of pathology are fighting over who gets the credit for an important paper on peanut allergies

dons

Academics are notorious for their overblown rivalries, with the mere suspicion of a half-copied idea or misattributed quote sparking bitter feuds that last decades. But even by those standards, the latest story to come from the Dreaming Spires is a seriously nutty one, as two Oxford researchers go to war over a study involving dry roasted peanuts.

Dr Amin Moghaddam claims that he is the real brains behind a study attributed to another research medic – and a man who used to share a laboratory with him, working as his supervisor – Quentin Sattentau, a professor of immunology. The study posits the potentially life-saving theory that dry roasted peanuts are more dangerous in terms of triggering an allergic reaction than raw peanuts.

In 2014, the pair published their findings in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The results came from testing both types of nut on mice and measuring their immune responses. The difference between responses to dry roasted and raw peanuts could be explained, the researchers believe, by chemical changes caused by high temperatures in the dry roasting process, which primes the body to set off its allergic immune response when it encounters a peanut. 

Interestingly, that could explain why there are more people with peanut allergies in the West, where dry roasted peanuts are far more common, compared with, for example, East Asia.

At the time of publication, Prof Sattentau – who is credited with leading the research at Oxford University’s Dunn School of Pathology – proudly declared that this was the first time “that a potential trigger for peanut allergy [had] been directly shown”. Dr Moghaddam, who co-authored the piece, echoed his words.

But never mind those benefits to society: now the two men are locked in a battle over whose work this really is, and who should get credit – with one declaring a racially charged motive, and even claiming that the resulting row left him suicidal.

Dr Moghaddam said that the entire experience had left him feeling 'suicidal'
Dr Moghaddam said that the entire experience had left him feeling 'suicidal' Credit: Champion News

Moghaddam, who had worked as a senior postdoctoral scientist under Sattentau since May 2003, alleges that his supervisor actually stole his ideas and put himself down as the lead author of the research paper. The argument has rippled out into the university: after Moghaddam left in March 2019, he sued the University of Oxford, as well as Sattentau and their chief supervisor, Prof Matthew Freeman. 

Moghaddam had been at Oxford for 16 years, but wasn’t awarded any further funding after his fixed-term contract ended. That made him, well, nuts.

Round One of this bout went to Sattentau and Oxford: in 2022, Moghaddam learnt that he had lost his case at the Reading Employment Tribunal.

Moghaddam had claimed during the heated hearing that Sattentau committed “author misconduct” by putting his name on top of the study, in what he perceived as a “calculated approach to steal my ideas and work”. 

Moghaddam also alleged that he’d gone to the head of their pathology department, Freeman, to complain, and had instead been told that he “stood on the shoulders of giants” – Freeman quoting Sir Isaac Newton. The implication there presumably being that no one truly makes a discovery alone, but builds on the work of others; it’s a team effort.

But that didn’t chime with the dogged Moghaddam, who continued to argue that he hadn’t received the credit he was due – and that it had affected his career path, since his ambitions to get a better position in the lab then weren’t “properly supported”. He said that Sattentau used his own fixed-term career status as a cover to “appropriate” Moghaddam’s ideas and therefore secure more grant funding.

The tribunal also heard that Moghaddam had wanted to be viewed as an independent researcher and to make his own grant applications, but was told he couldn’t do so as it was department policy for Sattentau – who had the title of “principal investigator” – to be the lead on any applications.

Moghaddam, who sounds increasingly paranoid by this stage, also said he felt “threatened” when, in March 2018, Sattentau had preliminary discussions with the Wellcome Trust’s grant panel about funding the next stage of the peanut research. Moghaddam refused to commit to them potentially producing another research paper unless he had guaranteed shared authorship – which Sattentau explained was difficult to agree to ahead of time.

That, Moghaddam told the tribunal, left him feeling “very depressed and pessimistic”, and convinced that Sattentau was really threatening his future employment by talking about the need to secure funding.

Prof Sattentau said he grew to find his lab mate 'hostile and abusive'
Prof Sattentau said he grew to find his lab mate 'hostile and abusive' Credit: Champion News

Moghaddam, who was born in Iran, also said that the lab “favoured” white students when it came to crediting report authors. When he went to the employment tribunal, then, his claims weren’t just of unfair dismissal, but also of race and disability discrimination. 

However, the tribunal soundly rejected his interpretation, ruling that Sattentau was actually being supportive towards his application for Wellcome Trust funding. The tribunal did recognise that the relationship between the two men was, by then, “unravelling fast”.

It was in October 2018 that Moghaddam accused his boss of appropriating his “scientific output and rightful authorship”, leading to a meeting with Freeman in which their supervisor trotted out that Newton quote – and where Moghaddam claims he felt “belittled”.

Again the tribunal ruled against him, noting that it’s a “commonly used” phrase. Freeman reportedly encouraged Moghaddam to apply for faculty positions elsewhere if he was so keen to become an independent researcher, but Moghaddam took that as a slight as well.

However, employment judge Andrew Gumbiti-Zimuto dismissed all of those claims, saying that the “lack of cooperation” between the two colleagues simply meant that “there was no real prospect of an application for grant funding being successful”. 

Moghaddam’s wilder theories were not accepted by the tribunal. In their ruling, it was suggested that Moghaddam had reinterpreted events, imagining “malign” motives from his boss where “none existed”.

You might think that would be the end of this storm in a teacup – or perhaps a peanut shell. But the inexhaustible Moghaddam is now appealing the tribunal’s ruling.

His barrister, Jesse Crozier, argued that the tribunal judge didn’t fully resolve whether Moghaddam’s alleged whistleblowing led to his dismissal, that Sattentau and Freeman deliberately failed to secure the funding that would have continued Moghaddam’s employment, and that the judge also should have recognised Moghaddam as a disabled person who was entitled to special consideration.

That latter claim is based on the mental health conditions depression and anxiety that Moghaddam had suffered. Crozier claimed that his client had endured long-term effects from those illnesses and “narrowly avoided catastrophe”.

However Jennifer Danvers, the barrister representing Sattentau, Freeman and the university, argued that the real issue was Moghaddam and Sattentau’s unworkable relationship.

Sattentau grew to find his lab mate “hostile and abusive”, and could not work with him in joint supervision sessions, Danvers reported in written submissions. It was that breakdown in their relationship which was the “whole reason for no further funding applications being made”, Danvers added.

This tale doesn’t yet have a final ending, since Judge Murray Shanks has delayed giving a ruling. Will Moghaddam be left high and dry, or will Sattentau crack? I’ll definitely be tuning it for the next episode of their nutty legal saga.