Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group

by Ian McLaughlin   On the 24 th of October, the Penn Science Policy Group met to discuss the implications of a new mechanism by which individuals can essentially take part in the peer review process.   The group discussion focused on a particular platform, PubPeer.com, which emerged in 2012 and has since become a topic of interest and controversy among the scientific community.   In essence, PubPeer is an online forum that focuses on enabling post-publication commentary, which ranges from small concerns by motivated article readers, to deeper dives into the legitimacy of figures, data, and statistics in the publication.   Given the current state of the widely criticized peer-review process, we considered the advantages and disadvantages of democratizing the process with the added layer of anonymity applied to reviewers. PubPeer has been involved in fostering investigations of several scandals in science.   Some examples include a critical evaluation of...

by Arpita Myles Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS is a global health problem that has terrified and intrigued scientists and laypeople alike for decades. AIDS is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, which is transmitted through blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and from an infected mother to her child [1] . Infection leads to failure of the immune system, increasing susceptibility to secondary infections and cancer, which are mostly fatal. Considerable efforts are being put into developing prophylactic and therapeutic approaches to tackle HIV-AIDS, but there is also interest in understanding how the disease became so wide-spread. With the advent of the Ebola and Zika viruses in the last couple of years, there is a renewed urgency in understanding the emergence and spread of viruses in the past in order to prevent those in the future. The narrative surrounding the spread of HIV has been somewhat convoluted, but a new paper in Nature by Worobey et. al , hopes to se...