Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group

By: Ian McLaughlin & Enrique Lin Shiao

By: Ian McLaughlin & Liana Vaccari Antibiotic resistance, policy and prevention By: Liana Vaccari What are antibiotics? Antibiotics, which might also be called antimicrobial or antibacterial agents, are chemicals that can disrupt the life-cycle of bacteria in a few different ways; some actively kill the cells, others prevent them from reproducing, and others inhibit their ability to metabolize energy sources.  Over the years, they’ve been used for everything from strep throat to pneumonia 1 , but use has recently been dialed back because bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics that currently exist. One reason this has become an issue is that discoveries of new antibiotics can’t keep pace with the ability of the bacteria to resist old ones because developing new drugs is a long and expensive process. 2 , 3 Early this year, a woman died of an infection caused by a strain of bacteria that none of the 26 antibiotics available in America could cl

by Adrian Rivera-Reyes On November 10 th , the Penn Science Policy Group and the Penn Intellectual Property Group at Penn Law co-hosted a panel discussion focused on intellectual property and how to patent scientific research. The panel included Peter Cicala, Chief Patent Counsel at Celgene Corp.; Dr. Dora Mitchell, Director of the UPstart Program at the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) Ventures; and Dr. Michael C. Milone, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), and Assistant Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at Penn Medicine. The event started with the introduction of both groups by their respective presidents and was proceeded by Kimberly Li giving an introduction of the panelists. Next, Peter gave a short PowerPoint presentation with a general introduction of intellectual property. Below are some key points to understand intellectual property/patent law 1,2 : 1) In general, paten

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 papers published in Nat

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