Dear Research Advocate: At our post-election briefing this morning at AAAS in Washington, DC, the discussion focused on opportunities for advocacy given the composition and characteristics of the new Congress, and the importance of building new champions from among the nearly 100 new members of Congress. Of note — at last count, there are seven science-trained new members, a very welcome development! There is no doubt that a divided Congress can cause gridlock, but inaction is not a foregone conclusion, as was emphasized by our Chair, the Hon. Michael N. Castle. There are important, science-relevant issues, such as infrastructure, STEM education, and the opioid crisis, that both parties...

The November 2018 newsletter is now online . Highlights from this month include: Research!America's will host a Post-Election Briefing on November 8, 2018. Reid Wilson will provide remarks and Mary Woolley will discuss the Bipartisan Civic Engagement Initiative and Rachel Owen from the Missouri Science and Technology Fellows Program will share her group's experience. Yamiche Alcindor will moderate a panel including The Honorable John Edward Porter, The Honorable Michael N. Castle, The Honorable Bart Gordon and Sudip Parikh, PhD . The panel will explore implications of the election for medical and health research and development. Public Health Thank You Day is November 19, 2019! Mark your...

This is the second installment in a blog series about awareness of antibacterial resistance that will lead to World Antibiotic Awareness Week, November 12-18, 2018. Check back for more blog posts throughout the coming weeks! Antibiotics are rarely heralded as medical innovations in news headlines. However, the reality is that antibiotics have represented the hidden backbone of modern medicine for several decades – enabling physicians to perform complex surgeries, and curing infections that were once considered life-threatening. Alarmingly, the future of antibiotics is now under threat due to the rise of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR. AMR refers to the process by which microbes mutate and...

Dear Research Advocate: News broke this week that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is struggling with a still-rising death toll due to Ebola, claiming more than 139 lives since July and spreading beyond the DRC. Meanwhile in the U.S., public health experts are working day and night to understand and overcome acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), now affecting children in 22 or more states. Ebola and AFM are public health crises today. It is predictable that there will be more unexpected crises on top of ongoing threats like the opioid epidemic, the increasing prevalence of obesity, chronic diseases and more. Which is why it defies common sense that investment in global health and in our...