Chronology of Institut Pasteur scandal

The Korea Times with the help of Dr. Djaballah and other documents it obtained has constructed the following timelines. – ED.

# July. 21, 2015 Miss Min sent an email to former CEO confirming her attendance for the Institut Pasteur meeting in Oct., 2015 in Paris and stated that her travel expenses were funded by the French Embassy in Korea.

# July. 29, 2015 The head of safely sent an email to the members of the Respiratory Viruses Research Laboratory headed by Miss Min informing them that As of July 28, MERS-CoV was designated as High Risk Pathogen by Korean CDC. Miss Min acknowledges receiving the email re MERS-CoV designation as High Risk Pathogen.

# Aug. 24, 2015 Korean CDC inspects IPK with emphasis on the management conditions of pathogens especially high-risk pathogens.

# Aug. 24, 2015 Miss Min exchanges emails with a collaborator based in France regarding a formal meeting in Paris in Oct., 2015 to kick start the MERS collaboration.

# Sept. 25, 2015 Miss Min enters the BSL3 and performs MERS experiments. MERS Samples were removed without proper inactivation procedures, authorization, and documentation. We suspect that Miss Min has kept the MERS samples at her parents' home, where she currently reside with her son, until her departure to Paris.

# Oct. 6, 2015 Miss Min sent a first email to Felix Rey "Dear Felix, Nice to be connected again. Been seen & talked to you on the Ebola conf calls. On the 12th can me meet in your office?" and a second email "Dear Felix, I'm available anytime whole day. Shall we meet at 1 pm at your office?" Miss Min failed to mention that she is bringing three MERS samples as part of their collaboration and it sounds like this is the first exchange ever between Miss Min and Felix Rey; not exactly that of well known collaborators with a track record.

# Oct. 11, 2015 Miss Min boards a Korean Air flight 901 leaving Incheon and arriving at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport. Miss Min checks in at the IBIS Paris Tour Eiffel Cambronne hotel the same evening and in possession of the MERS samples. Miss Min failed to declare the biohazardous samples in her possession to Korean authorities and upon her arrival to French authorities.

# Oct. 12, 2015 Miss Min has lunch with former CEO and two collaborators; followed by a 1pm meeting in Felix Rey office to discuss MERS. She did not inform Rey about the MERS samples she transferred from Korea nor did she inform the former CEO.

# Oct. 16, 2015 Miss Min leaves the samples with Rey secretary and sent him an email at 11:45 letting him that she brought with her MERS samples. Miss Min delivers the MERS samples to Rey five days after arriving in Paris.

# Oct. 23, 2015 Rey informs Miss Min via email about the MERS samples she left with him and he clearly states "I also have to inform you that specialized personnel of Institut Pasteur has by now destroyed those samples." Rey failed to say the Brechot himself ordered the destruction of the samples. Former CEO asked Miss Kim if all the rules and regulations for transporting such a virus, especially in view of the Korean CDC designation of MERS as High Risk Pathogen on 28 July 2015. Her response was convincing enough at the time since she was the chair of the institute biosafety committee (IBC).

# Oct. 24, 2015 Brechot contacts the former CEO and verbally instruct him not to investigate and to make every efforts possible to protect Miss Min. He added that this is not good publicity for Pasteur.

# Oct. 27, 2015 Brechot orders the destruction of the MERS samples brought by Miss Min to Paris. This does not fit with the precise details provided by IPP in the press release of Oct. 12, 2016. Rey claims in his email to Miss Min that MERS samples were destroyed on Oct. 23, 2015?

# Nov. 4, 2015 Former CEO received Marc Jouan, VP of international affairs at IP Paris, in his home in Itaewon while he was recovering from surgery. Jouan delivered a very clear message from Brechot that he must drop all investigations into Miss Min transfer of the MERS samples to Paris, and he should not consider opening investigation into the sexual harassment accusations against Marc Windisch, a German national and a sexual predator who allegedly led a Korean female researcher to suicide.

# Nov 28, 2015 Miss Min sent a text message to former CEO with the following message "Apparently folks at IP Paris shared my interaction with Rey on EM imaging with former head of safety. My friend Dr Kang wants to propagate this within Korea and eventually put me under investigation. Current head of safety stopped by me to inform" she continues by saying "The point is I'm amazed the level of confidence of folks in Paris. It's serious matter for Paris and IPK." and concludes by adding "Seems like I became very famous in Paris this year." It is rather strange that the gossip about the samples took almost a month to reach Korea? It begs the question whether they were destroyed as alleged by Brechot.

# Dec. 9, 2015 IPK 24th Board of Directors meeting took place with Brechot, Bruzzone and Jouan present; the former CEO was verbally harassed by Jouan almost on a daily basis from 4 November until the day of the meeting not to reveal the incident to the Board.

# Dec. 17, 2015 Former CEO begun the yearly performance evaluation process and requested additional supporting information from Miss Min. The IPK chairman of the board Uhtaek Oh ordered the former CEO to stop investigating Miss Min by stating that the Korean Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning (MSIP) will further cut the budget and adding that Mr. Jin-Gyu Lee, Director general at MSIP does not like this kind of bad publicity and it will have serious ramifications on IPK.

# Jan. 5, 2016 Former CEO request additional information and clarification re the MERS samples from Miss Min writing "Can you please provide a complete summary of how MERS samples were taken by you to IP Paris and left with Felix Rey secretary? Please highlight the paperwork and knowledge of our safety team; import and export permits for such a pathogen to leave Korea and enter France." Miss Min emails back stating that that "According to your excellent advice to include EM images in our MERS paper, I immediately identified the EM facility at Asan Medical Center (AMC) in Korea. Fortunately my collaborator Dr. Sung-Han Kim is based in AMC therefore the experiment was conducted with no charge. The procedure has been reviewed by our safety team and according to the Korean law MERS samples prepared for EM work are not subjected into the safety regulation. Please note attached supporting document and knowledge of our safety team." and Miss Min concludes by saying "MERS samples never been taken from IP Korea to IP Paris. Please refer to our BSL3 facility entry log and virus inventory."

# Jan. 6, 2016 Brechot instructs Marc Jouan and the chairman of the board Uhtaek Oh to pressure the former CEO. They begun to coach Miss Min on what to do next. Jouan exchanged phone calls and emails with Miss Min. One day later, Miss Min and Marc Windisch write offensive letters about the former CEO to Brechot. Ironically, Miss Min letter is completely silent on the allegations that former CEO ordered her to take MERS samples to Paris.

# Jan. 7, 2016 Former CEO begins his investigation in view of contradictory statements from Miss Min. Head of safety sent an email to former CEO stating "I searched their lab notes and interviewed Miss Park, But, I couldn't find a record regarding the EM sample (that has been inactivated after infection with environmental samples) from the notes. Miss Park told me A549 cells are only used for experiment with Influenza viruses and they have been using Vero cells derived from a camel for MERS-CoV research. Also, she insisted that the sample was just VERO cell pellets which weren't infected with virus. (Refer to attached file) I'll try to find the evidence additionally."

# Jan. 8, 2016 Miss Min responds to former CEO by saying "Week of Oct 5th, I ask my team to prepare uninfected Vero cells processed by the same protocol. Oct 16th 2015, it was my last day in Paris before my return flight, I stopped by Felix's office again to give him samples he might have waited. Felix was in the meeting in his office that asked me to leave message to his secretary. I left Vero cell pellets with the note that this is the sample for the imaging analysis." Very strange response from Miss Min. Rey must have these Vero cells in Paris and does not really need her to bring him samples of dead cells?

# Jan. 8, 2016, The head of safety emails former CEO stating "I checked records related to taking samples out BSL3 again. As I mentioned yesterday, Miss Park have taken samples out from BSL3 in order to transfer them to Asan Hospital on September 8, 2015. Today, I found Miss Min has been in the BSL3 doing the MERS experiments with Miss Park together on September 25, 2015 as the picture below. Miss Min has carried out an experiment by herself and Miss Park assisted her. And they taking a sample from BSL3 that morning.. I went their lab at BSL3 lab to find records from their lab notes, but there isn’t records regarding the experiment. I guess, the samples (took out from BSL3 on September 25) have been transferred to IP."

# Jan. 12, 2016 Vincent Delorme, the new chair of the IBC, was tasked to obtain answers from Miss Min on some critical questions where he writes "Please explain why MERS-containing samples were removed from the BSL3 without notification of the IBC committee, approved and validated procedures demonstrating total inactivation of the virus nor proper documentation in the logs of what has been removed."

# Jan. 12, 2016 Former CEO suspends Miss Min in view of the overwhelming evidence against her especially the lies, the inexcusable breach of the BSL3 and the potential of endangering lives by transferring the MERS samples to AMC in Seoul and to IPP in France.

# Jan. 22, 2016 Miss Min was dismissed with a stand by order requiring her to stay home until her contract expires; former CEO was even compassionate and providing Miss Min some time to find another job.

# Feb. 3, 2016 MSIP dispatched a three member team to IPK headed by the International Cooperation Director. They were alarmed at what they found out for both Min and Windisch; and in a private session with me, the head told me that Min should be in jail. They left the meeting saying that they will write a report and follow up in a form of a deeper investigation. Nothing happened after that. I suspect MSIP's Jin-Gyu Lee felt that this is a bigger issue to deal with and it may well impact his career inspiration and future promotion.

# Mar. 21, 2016 Miss Min was reinstated by interim CEO Bruzzone claiming that she is his friend and in complete disregard for the safety violations committed by her.

# Aug. 12, 2016, The Korea Times broke the news about a MERS cover up in Korea.

# Sept. 20, 2016 Using Korean taxpayer money, Brechot and Bruzzone continue their harassment against former CEO by sending a cease and desist letter; the timing of which is hardly coincidental. A day before Bruzzone addressed his employees about the MERS samples.

# Sept. 20, 2016 Brechot contacted Miss Min on the gravity of the situation with the MERS samples. Miss Min replies by saying "Your statement on Prof. Bruzzone's conclusion makes me puzzled as Prof. Bruzzone distributed official report of investigation which strongly supporting me." This is very strong and damming evidence against Bruzzone's cover up efforts.

# Sept. 21, 2016 Bruzzone sent an email to IPK employees denying that MERS samples ever left Korea for France. in his prepared statement he first writes about the MERS samples taken to Asan Medical Center (AMC) "IPK found only one instance of documented sample transfer of MERS coronavirus infected cells. The samples were inactivated following a standard protocol provided by our collaborators to perform electron microscopy experiments and were brought by Miss Park to Asan Medical Center (AMC) on 8 September 2015. Samples were handed over to Dr. Jiwon Jung, a physician in the Department of Infectious Diseases at AMC." and concludes by saying "IPK safety committee found evidence of only incomplete recording of procedures in the logbook in two occasions. However, the committee concluded that there was no evidence that MERS coronavirus-infected cells – even after fixation – were taken out of the institute after samples were transferred to AMC. All related documents and emails may be consulted upon request."

# Oct. 5, 2016, The Korea Times breaks the news regarding the incident.

# Oct. 12, 2016, The Korea Times has learnt that Bruzzone orders the head of IPK public relations to post a press release only on its website at 6pm Seoul local time denying that Bruzzone has tried to cover up the incident and that he sought the help of the Korean CDC. A message somehow different from that of 21 September 2016.

# Oct. 12, 2016 Brechot and IP Paris provide their own press release confessing that MERS samples were indeed transferred from Seoul to Paris on a commercial flight. Brechot becomes defensive on whether he exchanged or not emails with Miss Min and threatens to file a complaint; not a sturdy behavior of an innocent leader. Miss Min email to Brechot was clear about Bruzzone strongly supporting her. Brechot email exchanges, in any case, do not add more than what Korea Times has learnt regarding his yearlong cover-up. Their document concludes that these MERS samples were inactivated and presented no risk of contamination to others.

# Oct. 12, 2016 Brechot contradicts Bruzzone, his own man in Seoul, since the later claims that no MERS samples ever left IPK with the exception of the sample transferred to AMC. If this is not a big lie and cover-up, what is it?

# Oct. 12, 2016 We have learnt that IPP have finally reported the incident to the ANSM. The agency claim to have received a detailed report on the MERS samples. The agency has not as yet made a formal statement confirming what Brechot has said.