By Matthew Bauer
Academic science laboratories typically survive by applying for private- and government-funded grants. This model of funding scientific innovation is being flipped on its head with the creation of the Arc Institute in Palo Alto.
Research labs no longer need to apply for highly competitive processes for grants. Instead, the Arc Institute aims to put science first, by funding its scientific investigators’ salaries and research costs for 8 years.
By Matthew Bauer and Nicole Welch
Diagnostic tests have changed in the eyes of many Americans across the COVID-19 pandemic.
The traditional site of diagnostic testing, the doctor’s office, has taken a back seat during the COVID-19 pandemic. We can now receive at-home antigen tests in the mail, drive through PCR tests at local sports stadiums, and our workplace cafeteria may serve as a de facto COVID-19 testing site.
The new paradigm of fast, easily accessible, and user-based diagnostics helps to reduce barriers for people to test for COVID-19.
However, nearly all these tests give binary results of yes or no for detecting a specific piece of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As we look ahead, both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics will require binary tests, but also tests that give us more granular information about the disease. These changes should be integrated into future diagnostic paradigms, empowering clinical diagnostics to meet both the needs of patients and the broader public health community. Read More
By Matt Bauer
Science and engineering graduate students’ curricula should include cross-disciplinary studies in intellectual property (IP).
These students research, discover, and invent new technology and methodologies for their thesis work. Accordingly, they should be better equipped to understand and navigate the fundamentals of intellectual property to protect those innovations.
By Matt Bauer
The changing landscape of the life sciences industry relies more and more on a form of intellectual property protection called trade secrets to safeguard mechanisms of manufacturing and process knowledge not always included within life science patents.
To the public, this means the methods of production for life saving therapeutics may be kept indefinitely in the hands a single company, never to enter the public domain.
By Matthew Bauer
During the COVID-19 pandemic, science has moved quickly, and the pace of disseminating research findings also has sped up.
When science (and the media) moves this quickly, all involved — including scientists, journalists, and the general public — should exercise a greater degree of caution when interpreting research.
By Matthew Bauer
How should scientists, policy makers, and governments balance efforts to address the current pandemic with initiatives to prevent the next one?
We have seen this play out before during the 2003 SARS crisis. A burst of research funding and resources were thrown at tackling the health emergency that spread to 29 different countries. Ultimately, enormous efforts across the globe were able to halt the crisis, but as scientific research continued post-outbreak, it became difficult to sustain funding.
By Matt Bauer
In academia, many of the scientists who are recognized as inventors on patents see little economic gain from these agreements.
Instead, royalties are primarily assigned toward their home institutions.
The scientists who drive discoveries within the walls of academia are not receiving an equitable share of the benefits of their innovations. Despite being the source of these discoveries, students and postdoctoral researchers don’t see the financial upside of the commercialization of their inventions.
By Matt Bauer
As mandates for COVID-19 vaccinations expand, should we consider including the seasonal flu vaccine along with it?
The Biden administrations recently announced its plans to require all employers with 100 or more employees to arrange for their workers to be vaccinated or test regularly. The mandate will likely impact over 80 million workers in the private sector. Health care and federal workers are also subject to new vaccination mandates.
Many universities, colleges, and secondary schools also have vaccination requirements, specifically for enrollment. And these requirements shift in light of changing circumstances: A 2017 mumps outbreak across the broader Harvard and MIT communities prompted universities to revisit vaccine statuses for mumps (typically included in the MMR vaccine). More recently, many institutions of higher education have implemented COVID-19 vaccination requirements, which have subsequently met legal challenges.