Contained in the fierce, messy battle over “wholesome” sugar tech

In an electronic mail to Rogers that December—obtained, like many of the others on this story, from courtroom filings—Zhang wrote: “Some initiatives that you just thought had been owned by CFB should not owned by CFB.” He defined that each the inositol and the sugar phosphate applied sciences truly originated in his TIB lab and had been funded by a Chinese language company earlier than CFB started work on them. This might imply, he wrote, that CFB couldn’t declare full possession of both, however solely construct upon the Chinese language work.

Earlier than that e-mail, Rogers had proposed splitting CFB, leaving Zhang his sci-fi bio-battery and sugar-to-hydrogen ideas, whereas Rogers would commercialize the nearer-term uncommon sugars. Zhang dismissed the thought, and to nobody’s shock, he didn’t renew Rogers’s CEO contract, later citing his “failure to boost a single funding greenback.” However Rogers, who retained a small stake within the firm as a part of his compensation, was not able to stroll away. On the finish of December 2015, he despatched CFB an electronic mail referencing a “obvious” contradiction between statements the corporate had made in NSF grant purposes whereas he was interim CEO and statements made by Zhang. 

For instance, Rogers identified that whereas Zhang had informed him the rights to the manufacturing course of for sugar phosphates had been Chinese language, one software acknowledged that CFB owned the rights and would commercialize the method within the US. “If there’s a downside,” Rogers warned, “I can’t look the opposite method. In fact, any whiff of grant fraud will trigger potential licensees and potential buyers to flee.”

Within the electronic mail, Rogers reiterated his suggestion that CFB switch the rights for tagatose and one other uncommon sugar referred to as arabinose, in addition to the rights for the sugar phosphates course of, to a brand new startup he was meaning to type. However he wished to maneuver quick, ideally inside every week. “Should you want extra time, please let me know, however time is working quick in a number of methods,” he wrote. 

Zhang once more refused to separate the corporate, and on January 6, 2016, time ran out. Rogers integrated Bonumose within the state of Virginia and, 9 days later, despatched an electronic mail to the NSF’s Workplace of Inspector Common entitled “Report of attainable NSF grant fraud.”

It quoted from some seemingly damning emails between Zhang and Rogers. In a single, despatched in the summertime of 2015, Zhang writes: “About sugar phosphate mission, the experiments have been carried out by one in all my collaborators and my satellite tv for pc lab in China. The expertise switch will happen in China solely. If this mission is funded by [the NSF], most of cash will probably be used to fund the opposite mission in CFB.” That meant the promising tagatose analysis, which had not but acquired any official NSF funding.

One other, relating to a second NSF inositol proposal, took an analogous tack: “Almost all experiments … have been completed. Chun You [CFB’s chief scientist] and I’ve filed a Chinese language patent on behalf of ourselves, no relation to CFB … Whether it is funded, most of [the NSF money] will probably be used for CFB to assist the opposite initiatives.”