This was Professor Liebers final year as Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) chair, and our office was in the process of considering potential successors," Stubbs said. Both Professors Dan Kahne and Ted Betley are held in very high regard by their colleagues, and both were strongly recommended for the chair role.

Stubbs said that given "the urgency of attending to the students and postdoctoral scholars in the Lieber group, the need to draw the CCB community together in mutual support, and the ongoing demands of administration of a large and complex department, we decided that co-chairmanship was a good approach. I am very grateful to Professors Betley and Kahne for their willingness to step into these roles on such short notice, and I look forward to working in partnership with them.

The interim chairs boast impressive credentials.

Betley runs Harvards Betley Research Group, which works in the field of synthetic inorganic chemistry to design new complexes capable of activating unreactive chemical bonds, says Betleys biography on Harvards website. We design catalysts comprised of first-row transition elements where precise control of the molecular electronic structure leads to reactivity in organometallic catalysis and small molecule activation."

The bio says Betley "has been recognized by the Technology Review as one of the top 35 US technological innovators, as well as by the NSF, DOE, and DOD with Early Career Awards."

Kahnes lab at Harvard, the Kahne Research Group, is interested in the problem of antibiotic resistance, his online bio says. To develop new approaches to treat resistant bacterial infections, we focus on the protein machines that assemble the outer membrane that protects Gram-negative bacteria from toxic molecules.

Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, are focused on Lieber, whos charged with making false statements to federal authorities. Hes currently free on $1 million bond and hasnt yet entered a plea.

The case stretches back to 2011, when a professor at a leading Chinese university e-mailed a contract to Lieber. He told Lieber he had been recommended for a global recruitment program, part of the communist governments Thousand Talents Plan to lure high-level scientific talent and, in some cases, reward them for stealing proprietary information, federal investigators have said.

A few days later, Lieber traveled to Chinas Wuhan University of Technology to sign a long-term agreement. When the terms were finalized, he would be paid $50,000 a month, $158,000 in living expenses, and $1.5 million to establish a research lab at the Chinese university, according to legal filings.

But Lieber kept that secret from Harvard, according to federal prosecutors, and when questioned by Defense Department investigators in 2018, denied he had ever participated in the Thousand Talents program.

Harvard officials last week said Lieber, who was arrested at his university office, had been placed on paid administrative leave.

The charges brought by the U.S. government against Professor Lieber are extremely serious, the university said in a prior statement. "Harvard is cooperating with federal authorities, including the National Institutes of Health, and is initiating its own review of the alleged misconduct.

Tonya Alanez of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.

Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.

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Two named to run Harvard chemistry department in wake of academic's arrest on criminal charge in China case - The Boston Globe