Rowan Walrath

@rowanwalrath.bsky.social

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Associate editor, life sciences reporter @cenmag.bsky.social. Texan Bostonian. she/her. r_walrath@acs.org. For sensitive tips, I'm on Signal @rowanwalrath.01 or email rowan.walrath@proton.me

"The reason why so many trials get stopped or paused is because of mediocre results." Sadie Whittaker, chief scientific officer, Solve ME
In the foreground of a collage, a person wearing a surgical mask holds one hand to their chest and another to the mask as if in pain. The image is tinted in ochre yellow except for the surgical mask, which is a bright blue. The background contains multiple images tinted in black and white. In one, a scientist peers into a microscope. In another, a scientist stares directly into the camera, wearing a surgical mask and safety glasses.
An image of the painting "Making of a Great Martini" by Guy Buffet. Across 12 panels, a mustachioed, tuxedoes bartender shakes the perfect martini in a blurred, violent fashion. Streaks of paint evoke chaotic motion.
A beer can in motion. It is completely blurred. It is clearly white with an illustration of a honeybee on the front but all other distinguishing characteristics are indiscernible.
"I think that there’s a lack of really trusting that this pathway that’s commercially viable for individualized medicine is really going to open up. If investors don’t believe in it, there are no companies in this space. The companies won’t last." Julia Vitarello, patient advocate and founder, EveryONE Medicines
Artur Mylin wears a lab coat and stands for a portrait in an orderly lab space. He stands on one natural leg and one prosthetic leg and holds a cane. An array of flasks, some with stoppers and others without, are on the counter behind him and on the shelves above him. The brown, tiled floor alternates in a pattern of squares, diamonds, and eight-pointed stars.
Two bar graphs show both the number of deals and total deal size of business development deals in China steadily rising between 2020 and 2024.
A screenshot of an article published in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). Headline: China's biotech industry is on the rise. Will it reshape US pharma? Dek: Some see molecules from China as an opportunity. Others see a threat to US biotech. Image below text: a hand holding an orange tamper-safe bottle filled with white oblong pills against a red-tinted backdrop of Chinese yuan
A bar graph titled TERMINATED GRANT TALLY. Subhead: Under President Donald Trump, the US National Institutes of Health has cancelled roughly 770 active research grants as of 7 April. Nearly 29% of the grants terminated were for research that mentioned HIV/AIDS, and about one-quarter of the grants terminated were related to the health of transgender people. Other topic areas that the Trump team has deemed no longer in the interests of the agency are COVID-19 and the effects of climate change on health. Proportion of grants terminated HIV/AIDS related: 28.7% Trans health related: 24.3% COVID-19 related: 17.1% Climate related: 3.5% *Percentages are calculated by searching NIH grant titles and abstracts for key terms such as 'transgender,' 'gender diversity,' 'climate' and 'SARS-CoV-2.' Percentages do not sum to 100% because these topic do not cover all grants cancelled and because there is some overlap between them.
"I didn’t get a prom; I didn’t get my high school graduation; my freshman year of college was fully online. . . . It feels really cruel that these next 4 years, we’re kind of going through a situation that’s limiting us." Anonymous student, applicant who was accepted to a PhD program and then moved to a waitlist
"Students who were told they were about to be admitted into a doctoral program . . . are seeing their admissions rescinded and throwing the entire possibility of pursuing advanced study into doubt." Keivan Stassun, physicist, Vanderbilt University
An illustration including a university in the background, two scientists talking while wearing lab coats, and a pair of hands shaking, with red, blue, yellow, and cream lines overlaid to partially obscure them.
None of our understanding about Long COVID today could exist without people with the disease. We filled out thousands of surveys, showing the disease has more than 200 different symptoms. We gave blood and organ samples to researchers. We informed clinicians on what interventions have moved the needle, leading to important clinical trials. We made life-saving support groups and groundbreaking advocacy organizations. We even set up our own research collaborations that have led to scientific breakthroughs.
The chemical structure of ibuzatrelvir.
A rotating image of a SARS-CoV-2 molecule with the text "The Next 5 Years of COVID-19"
That kind of turnover, and the accompanying loss of institutional knowledge, could undermine Trump and Kennedy's goals, according to Stuart Pape, former associate chief counsel for food at the FDA, who now chairs the FDA practice at the law firm Polsinelli. "If you have a diminished workforce, by definition, you have fewer people who can execute on any strategy, whether conventional or otherwise," Pape says. "The likelihood that you would succeed would also be diminished, because if you're going to try something unconventional, you need experienced people who can help you identify the traps so that you don't walk into them."
A slide from Geerling showing the types of drugs submitted. 45% were immunomodulatory, 24% were neurological agents, 21% were antiviral agents, 8% were host-directed, and 2% were other.
Another screenshot of Geerling presenting a slide, this time breaking down what types of therapeutic agents were submitted. There were 207 drugs, 33 nutrition and diet, 25 manual and physical therapies, 20 devices, and 16 complementary and integrative health approaches.
A screenshot of a Zoom presentation. Lizzie Geerling is presenting a slide showing submitter data and insights from RECOVER-TLC's online portal. There were 225 submissions from patients, 35 from universities, 26 from caregivers, 15 from companies, and 12 from research institutes.