[22] Upon completing postdoctoral training, Coico's stated interests were to study the use of flow cytometry to detect risks for colo-rectal cancer (1985), and the growth and differentiation of epithelial cells (1990).
[41] Coico was appointed president five years into CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein's 2005–2015 Decade of Science,[42] a system-wide initiative to expand facilities and recruit faculty in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,[42][43] and eleven years into the university's reform efforts to raise academic standards based upon a 1998 Mayoral task force report, entitled "The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift.
"[44][45] According to an article published in The Campus, a 2016 study conducted by Harvard Graduate School of Education found professors at City College of New York "extremely dissatisfied".
Protests- organized by Allen Roskoff, Scott Caplan, Charles Bayor, and other members of the Jim Owles Club- erupted over the return of Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) to campus,[47][48] employment,[49] the sudden defunding of the CCNY's WHCR-FM, also known "The Voice of Harlem," [50] cafeteria closure due to health violations,[51] and labor contracts.
[68] The scandal prompted Federal prosecutors to look into affiliated of The City College of New York, and charity funds spending attached to CUNY and CCNY, which Coico and others may have misused.
The outrage prompted Milliken-enlisted Fredrick Shaffer, then-City University of New York general counsel and senior vice chancellor for legal affairs, to audit Coico's spending.
[citation needed] Although Coico denied any "inappropriate use" of CCNY funds and stated in letters to students and faculty that college employees should "cooperate fully" with investigators.
's office called an "interim review") in November 2016, citing "shoddy oversight and ineffective management" at the City University of New York had created a system "ripe for abuse" that had possibly siphoned away money from needy students and crucial campus projects.
[82] Earlier, Governor Cuomo had replaced most of CUNY's trustees, including chairman Benno C. Schmidt Jr.,[83] naming a new chairman, Bill Thompson, former New York City Comptroller; Fernando Ferrer, former Bronx Borough President; Robert F. Mujica, the governor's budget director and a longtime top aide for the Senate Republican majority; Ken Sunshine, a public relations consultant; and Mayra Linares-Garcia, Cuomo's former director of Latino affairs and the daughter of Guillermo Linares, former NYC assemblyman and city councilman, and head of the state Higher Education Services Corporation.
[85] In February 2017, CUNY Board of Trustees approved setting aside $25,000, in accordance with university practices, for each college president, or department dean, who might need to hire an attorney when being interviewed by I.G.
[98][99] In 2018, two years after Coico resigned amidst ongoing federal and state probes, the inspector general continued to identify and investigate the university's corrupt spending practices.
[citation needed] Coico returned in 2018 to the City University of New York system as a faculty member as medical professor in the CUNY School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Science.
[104][105] Forticell Bioscience, Incorporated is a publicly traded company that developed proprietary and patented technology to stimulate the repair and regeneration of human tissue, including biologically active wound dressings, such as the tissue engineered product OrCel (trademark sign), to stimulate the repair and regeneration of human skin on burn patients, and other wound healing products, relevant to reconstructive and cosmetic surgeries.