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Scientist Sentenced for Stealing Cultures


08:10 AM EST June 12, 2003
The Associated Press


SYRACUSE, N.Y.

A Chinese researcher was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing yeast cultures and other potentially lucrative biological materials from Cornell University and trying to smuggle them to China.

Yin Qingqiang, a former postdoctoral research associate at Cornell, was given credit for time served and will spend 10 months behind bars. He was convicted in December of theft and lying to the FBI.

"I apologize to the court and judge for having caused so much trouble to the United States government. I regret and feel very sorry for what I have done," Yin said through an interpreter in court Wednesday. He had asked for mercy so he could join his family in China.

Yin was arrested at the Syracuse airport last July after security officers found vials, test tubes and petri dishes hidden in his family's luggage as they tried to board a flight to Shanghai.

Yin, 39, was leaving the university after he wasn't rehired because of poor job performance. He had been paid $24,000 to help develop an enzyme known as phytase, a livestock feed supplement that scientists hope will improve nutrition and reduce phosphorous excretion in animal waste.

The product is still in development, but Cornell has two patents pending and says the materials Yin took could one day be worth millions of dollars.

 
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