Research Library

The safety and efficacy of many stem cell treatments remain unproven by the FDA, yet state laws promote access and use of these unchecked and potentially harmful treatments. Fellow Kirstin R.W. Matthews summarizes her recent publication in a new commentary — outlining public health consequences of these state laws and calling for scientific societies’ advocacy in state policymaking.

The number of anti-vaccine bills filed in Texas has risen, yet many Texans support vaccine policy. Fellow Kirstin R.W. Matthews and nonresident scholar Rekha Lakshmanan examine the stakes of legislative engagement in public health initiatives and provide a call to action for Texans to embrace public health as an act of freedom.

For research involving human embryos and other controversial subjects, science journals should require ethics statements from researchers detailing research oversight, what embryos were used, how many and for how long. This will help increase transparency and improve communication with the public, writes Science and Technology Policy Fellow Kirstin R.W. Matthews.

As false or inaccurate information about stem cell interventions continues to circulate widely, the authors write that immediate action is needed to improve patient education and safety — and to combat misinformation more broadly.

As the world faces the latest wave of COVID-19, a vaccine produced by health fellow Peter Hotez and his colleague Maria Elena Bottazzi is ready to be deployed. Their CORBEVAX vaccine is inexpensive, effective, safe and easy to store and distribute, they write. Read their article in Scientific American: https://bit.ly/3n28isA

"The framework of science tikkun — repairing the world through science and global scientific cooperation — offers a path for countering a new rise in antiscience aggression," writes fellow Peter Hotez in The FASEB Journal. Find his perspective on how here.

To better reflect the iterative collaboration necessary for scientific progress, the Nobel Prize must expand its recognition to the many contributors of winning discoveries as well as diversify the selection committee, thereby also expanding recognition of the work of underrepresented minorities, argues this Baker Institute Blog post.

On Monday, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.” Fellow Kirstin Matthews praises their research on how capsaicin and TRP affect nerve cells as an accomplishment made possible by U.S. federal funding for and support of science.

"This is a moment to prioritise health over short-term political calculations," write fellow Peter Hotez, Rekha Lakshmanan
 and nine other experts in a Lancet commentary. Click here for their call for action against anti-vaccine rhetoric and COVID-19 misinformation, and five short-term recommendations.

The first step to reducing methane, Agerton and Gilbert argue, is to directly measure it. Their new Forbes post explains why inventory-based incentives that merely estimate emissions must give way to direct methane monitoring.