A renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist who was axed after having what he said was a consensual fling with a much younger colleague, said the mushrooming scandal forced him on the unemployment line.
David Sabatini, 54, whose research involved unraveling how tumors develop, resigned from MIT last month and has been surviving on employment after fellow scientist Kristin Knouse claimed he “groomed” and “coerced” her into a sexual relationship, according to a report and court papers.
A longtime friend and dean at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine tried to offer him a job, but after an uproar, the school announced on May 3 that it would not hire him despite the fact that colleagues described him in a recent article as one of the world’s greatest scientists — a “genius” in line for the Nobel Prize.
“What wormhole did my life take, to … protests and being called a sexual predator? What quirk in the universe allowed this to happen?” said Sabatini, who has denied wrongdoing and noted Knouse did not work in his lab or report to him.
In an October lawsuit against MIT, Sabatini said that his relationship with Knouse, who is 21 years his junior, was consensual — and told a reporter he was shocked to find himself the subject of protests at NYU when the school explored the possibility of hiring him.
Sabatini has contended he and Knouse began their fling during a 2018 conference, while he was in the midst of a divorce. By 2020, he thought the affair had cooled, though he claims Knouse wanted to continue. By October 2020, she complained she’d been harassed, and in a later lawsuit alleged Sabitini oversaw a “sexualized” environment in his lab.
Since his departure from MIT, he has been despondent, he said. He stopped eating and sleeping, dropped 35 pounds in three months, “cried a lot and his hair was falling out,” according to the article on Bari Weiss’ “Common Sense” SubStack column.
It’s not just Sabatini dealing with the fallout.
After the Grossman School of Medicine announced it would not hire him, the National Institutes of Health decided to audit $500 million in grant money overseen by the dean who first considered bringing him aboard, Common Sense reported.
Dafna Bar-Sagi, a vice dean for science and chief scientific officer at the med school, called Sabatini “one of the greatest scientists of our century,” and oversaw an investigation of the allegations against him “at the risk of depriving society of the benefit of having someone like this continuing their career and making really meaningful discoveries that can affect human health for generations,” she told the outlet.
NIH said it received anonymous complaints about Bar-Sagi and recently sent NYU a letter raising concerns about her ability to provide “a safe environment for trainees,” Common Sense reported.
“If there was anything untoward about this man’s behavior, we would not have touched him with a 10-foot pole,” Ken Langone, the chair of the board for NYU Langone Medical Center, told Common Sense, calling the work to vet Sabatini “exhaustive.”
Outside lawyers consulted by NYU, who reviewed a report into the allegations done by MIT, found Sabatini was not given due process, the university told Common Sense.
“If people are close minded to the idea that there can be a consensual relationship between two adults, I’m afraid we can’t make any traction,” said NYU Medical School Dean Robert Grossman.
The NIH did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Knouse did not respond to an email seeking comment.
