Rob Stein
Rob Stein is a correspondent and senior editor on NPR's science desk.
An award-winning science journalist with more than 30 years of experience, Stein mostly covers health and medicine. He tends to focus on stories that illustrate the intersection of science, health, politics, social trends, ethics, and federal science policy. He tracks genetics, stem cells, cancer research, women's health issues, and other science, medical, and health policy news.
Before NPR, Stein worked at The Washington Post for 16 years, first as the newspaper's science editor and then as a national health reporter. Earlier in his career, Stein spent about four years as an editor at NPR's science desk. Before that, he was a science reporter for United Press International (UPI) in Boston and the science editor of the international wire service in Washington.
Stein's work has been honored by many organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. He was twice part of NPR teams that won Peabody Awards.
Stein frequently represents NPR, speaking at universities, international meetings and other venues, including the University of Cambridge in Britain, the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea, and the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.
Stein is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He completed a journalism fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health, a program in science and religion at the University of Cambridge, and a summer science writer's workshop at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.
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The Food and Drug Administration proposes easing many restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood.
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FDA advisers debate the agency's controversial proposal to start handling the COVID vaccines like the flu shots — updating them annually to target the most likely strain to be dominant each winter.
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The new approach would simplify vaccination guidance so that, every fall, people would get a new shot, updated to try to match whatever variant is dominant. -
And what about a cold or RSV? With all the illness spreading, it's virus soup out there these days. Some people feel so sick they're wondering if they're fighting more than one germ at once.
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It would make more sense to screen a plane's wastewater to look for new variants than to screen individual passenger volunteers, some researchers say. Others say any information is helpful.
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The CDC has expanded screening of incoming international air travelers to try to more quickly spot any new variants that might emerge from China's massive COVID outbreak.
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RSV and the flu appear to be receding in the U.S., but COVID is on the rise, new data suggests, driven by holiday gatherings and an even more transmissible omicron subvariant that has become dominant.
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The U.S. has started requiring all travelers from China to test negative for COVID, even though many experts think it won't help much.
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Using CRISPR to modify certain immune cells could make cancer-fighting immunotherapy more potent for a broader set of patients. Two people who went through the treatment share their stories.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association warn that the surge in RSV, flu and COVID is threatening the upcoming holiday season.
