By Marjie Lundstrom, McClatchy Newspapers, July 22, 2012

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A prominent neurosurgeon at the University of California, Davis, was banned from performing medical research on humans after he and a colleague were accused of experimenting on dying brain cancer patients without university permission [....]

The university has admitted to the federal government that the surgeons' actions amounted to "serious and continuing noncompliance" with federal regulations.

Documents show the surgeons got the consent of three terminally ill patients with malignant brain tumors to introduce bacteria into their open head wounds, under the theory that postoperative infections might prolong their lives. Two of the patients developed sepsis and died, the university later determined.

The actions described by two prominent bioethicists as "astonishing," and a "major penalty" for the school threaten both the doctors' professional careers and the university's reputation and federal-funding status [....]