MIT faculty rally around colleague arrested for Chinese government links
Letter to university’s president signed by 170 faculty members debunks charges against nanotechnologist Gang Chen
More than 100 faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have signed a letter to their university’s president, Rafael Reif, attacking the arrest of one of its nanotechnology professors for failing to report his ties to the Chinese government. Gang Chen, who directs a nanotechnology laboratory and a solid-state solar energy centre at MIT, was taken into custody on 14 January and faces several charges, including wire fraud, that together carry a jail sentence of up to 30 years and $750,000 (£550,000) in fines.