Op-ed: Tufts must ensure that academic dialogues remain productive and accountable tuftsdaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tuftsdaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Garlick is known especially for developing stem cells for tissue engineering, specifically for advanced treatments for oral health, cancer, scleroderma and complications of diabetes. He established the Center for Integrated Tissue Engineering at Tufts to accelerate the discovery and clinical application of new drugs using 3D tissues. Dr. Garlick has been equally committed to communicating science to the public. This discussion covers his pioneering stem cell research and how that led to his leadership in science communication.
To the Editor:
(Op-Ed, nytimes.com, Dec. 7):
Of all of the ways to improve access to critical medication or vaccines, elimination of intellectual property rights is one of the worst. Our intellectual property system is designed to reward research and development innovation.
Tampering with that sends a chilling signal about the rewards of corporate funding of the development and manufacture of new drugs, and tears down a system that has allowed the U.S. government to realize an enormous return on its investment into biomedical research.
The government has many other options to achieve the important public policy goal of providing broad access to vaccines. It can encourage and reward out-licensing and technology transfer, negotiate preferential pricing or simply provide volume purchasing guarantees options that would not have the unfortunate effect of discouraging pharmaceutical innovation. We need effective vaccines not just for this emergency, but for the next one as well.
People You’ll Hear in This Episode
Tufts Now.
Michael Reed, professor of biology, studies avian ecology and conservation biology. He looks at how habitat loss and fragmentation affect extinction risk and population viability, as well as the role of animal behavior in extinction risk and conservation. To get a feel for why species regeneration is so urgent, read about the UN report on species extinction rates, the report on species population size decline, and the 3 billion North American birds that have vanished since 1970.
Erica Smithwick, J95, majored in geology and environmental studies at Tufts. She is now a professor of geography at Penn State, where she is director of the Ecology Institute. A landscape and ecosystem ecologist, she is involved in understanding how a wide range of disturbances, especially fire, affect ecosystem function.