A federal judge allowed most of a whistleblower lawsuit against Harvard to proceed, ruling that two claims can move forward accusing the University and a Harvard Catalyst principal investigator of misusing NIH grant funds. U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun rejected the bulk of Harvard’s motion to dismiss, tossing one count while keeping two allegations alive. The case, filed by David S. Zielinski in March 2024, targets cooperative agreements connected to Harvard Catalyst—then the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center—and alleges the parties collected $275 million in NIH grants while abandoning or repurposing promised research work in violation of the False Claims Act. Harvard has 14 days to respond to the surviving counts. The court’s decision emphasized that, at the pleading stage, the allegations were sufficiently stated and Harvard’s arguments did not make the claims implausible—because the alleged purpose was to keep NIH “in the dark” from the truth.