Getting it to market too early

If you think sex, deception and research don't mix, think again.

In the last few years, Penn Psychiatry professor Daniel Langleben has crafted an imaging system that detects lying by analyzing the brain's blood flow. And come July, you'll be able to use that very system when No Lie MRI opens its first "VeraCenter" adjacent to campus.

No Lie MRI plans to serve "a whole range of concerns."

The cases will "usually involve power, sex and money," No Lie MRI founder Joel Huizenga said. Perhaps "fidelity for females."

Huizenga can use Langleben's technology because the University licensed it to him in exchange for 10-percent ownership of his company -- seemingly a win-win deal.

Seemingly.

The truth is a bit trickier. First, the reason Penn licensed the imaging system was to raise funds for the technology's next phase of research.

That phase is translational research, or studies into how findings translate to real-world situations. So, basically, Penn licensed a real-world application of its technology in order to fund research of that application.

At least one Penn ethicist sees a Catch-22.

"The studies that have been done are simple compared to the kinds of lies you find in courtrooms or other places you want to use this technology," said Paul Wolpe, a senior fellow at the Penn Center for Bioethics. "The vast majority of research has been done with yes-or-no answers."

Of course, lies in the real world are rarely yes-or-no affairs. And while current law bars polygraph tests from the courts and forbids employers from using them, no law has been written on functional MRI -- the technology underpinning the No Lie MRI system. Huizenga said that he's currently working with a defense team in California to submit functional MRI results as evidence in a case.

All of which is to say, Penn commercialized a technology that hasn't been studied fully. To be fair, no one can be physically forced to take a functional MRI because the slightest body twitch throws the system off, just like any other MRI.

But another Penn professor, Britton Chance, is researching how infrared spectroscopy could detect lies. This technology uses infrared rays to measure activity in the brain -- rays that could be fired at an unwitting subject from across a room. Right now, Chance's technology can't do that, but he expects it to be able to in the next few years.

Clearly, then, Penn needs to pull back and fund further research on its technologies before licensing them -- before people outside academia start relying on our technology to make life decisions.

"There still are a variety of false positives and false negatives," Wolpe said about Langelben's lie-detection. "And also, there is an enormous under-study of [mental] countermeasures that can be used with this."

Despite probable false results, on its Web site, No Lie MRI compares its accuracy in detecting lies to that of DNA's in identifying people. Such a grandiose claim will only lead to trouble -- people making decisions based on an untested machine. Naturally, the flip side of this scenario is one in which technology helps society, a scenario in which No Lie MRI acquits the wrongfully accused, maybe.

Unfortunately, Penn has no control over which scenario wins the day.

Because even though Penn owns 10 percent of the company, its contract does not allow it to dictate how No Lie MRI uses the technology, according to Vice Provost for Research Perry Molinoff. Plus, Penn refuses to take a seat on the No Lie MRI board and plans to sell its 10-percent stake in the near future.

"If the company does something wrong," Molinoff said in reference to the planned sale, "we try to get away from that. We try to keep ourselves isolated so we're not responsible. And we're not."

At least not legally. But something's off when a university worries about wrongdoing while raising funds for research. And then, there is still that whole leges sine moribus vanae thing.

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