RESUMEN
For over 12 years, spanning three administrations, Dr. Francis Collins has served as the director of the National Institutes of Health. During that time, he and the NIH launched ambitious programs to spur research in diverse topic areas, with important successes. He has also confronted issues facing science and scientists. Dr. Collins recently stepped down as director. Before his departure, he had a conversation with John Pham, reflecting on his time leading the NIH and sharing his perspectives and his hopes for the NIH and the scientific community moving forward.
Asunto(s)
Liderazgo , National Institutes of Health (U.S.) , Investigación Biomédica/economía , COVID-19 , Organización de la Financiación/economía , Humanos , Cooperación Internacional , Investigadores , Apoyo a la Investigación como Asunto/economía , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revealed that Africa needs a new public health order to be resilient, to adapt, and to cope with 21st-century disease threats. The new order will need strengthened continental and national public health institutions; local manufacturing of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics; attraction, training, and retention of a public health workforce; and fostering of respectful local and international partnerships.
Asunto(s)
Enfermedades Transmisibles/terapia , Salud Pública , África , Control de Enfermedades Transmisibles , Enfermedades Transmisibles/diagnóstico , Empleos en Salud/educación , Fuerza Laboral en Salud , Humanos , Cooperación Internacional , Salud Pública/educación , Administración en Salud PúblicaRESUMEN
In response to recent anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, Sunney Xie uses his own experiences to assert that American ideals should not be replaced by nationalism and populism and that everybody wins in Sino-US scientific collaborations, contrary to what Americans are led to believe: that China is the sole beneficiary.
Asunto(s)
Cooperación Internacional , Política , Investigación , China , Fertilización In Vitro/métodos , Pruebas Genéticas/métodos , Salud Global , Humanos , Medicina de Precisión/métodos , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
This year's Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award goes to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines around the globe, saving millions of lives, and highlighting the power of immunization to prevent disease.
Asunto(s)
Cooperación Internacional , Vacunación/economía , Vacunación/historia , Vacunas/historia , Vacunas/provisión & distribución , Niño , Salud Global , Historia del Siglo XVII , Historia del Siglo XVIII , Historia del Siglo XIX , Historia del Siglo XX , Historia del Siglo XXI , Humanos , Programas de Inmunización , Inversiones en Salud , Pobreza , Medicina Preventiva/métodos , Vacunas/economíaRESUMEN
Neuroscience is entering a collaborative era in which powerful new technologies, generated by large scientific projects in many countries, will have a dramatic impact on science, medicine, and society. Coordinating these international initiatives and ensuring broad distribution of novel technologies and open accessibility of the generated data will multiply their value, while tapping creativity and expertise from every source.
Asunto(s)
Mapeo Encefálico , Neurociencias/métodos , Animales , Encéfalo/citología , Encéfalo/fisiología , Humanos , Cooperación Internacional , Neurociencias/educación , Neurociencias/tendenciasRESUMEN
The Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak has stimulated collaborations between Brazilians, researchers from other South American countries, and scientists from around the world. The Brazilian response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic demonstrates capabilities that can be applied to the study of ZIKV and provides lessons for developing effective international infectious disease research collaborations.
Asunto(s)
Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/virología , Investigación Biomédica , Infección por el Virus Zika/virología , Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/epidemiología , Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/fisiopatología , Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida/terapia , Brasil/epidemiología , Humanos , Cooperación Internacional , Infección por el Virus Zika/epidemiología , Infección por el Virus Zika/fisiopatologíaRESUMEN
Recent infectious disease epidemics illustrate how health systems failures anywhere can create disease vulnerabilities everywhere. We must therefore prioritize investments in health care infrastructure in outbreak-prone regions of the world. We describe how "rooted" research collaborations can establish capacity for pathogen surveillance and facilitate rapid outbreak responses.
Asunto(s)
Investigación Biomédica , Brotes de Enfermedades , Fiebres Hemorrágicas Virales/epidemiología , África Occidental/epidemiología , Monitoreo Epidemiológico , Fiebre Hemorrágica Ebola/epidemiología , Fiebre Hemorrágica Ebola/fisiopatología , Fiebre Hemorrágica Ebola/virología , Fiebres Hemorrágicas Virales/fisiopatología , Fiebres Hemorrágicas Virales/virología , Cooperación Internacional , Virología/educaciónRESUMEN
Taking stock of global progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement requires consistently measuring aggregate national actions and pledges against modelled mitigation pathways1. However, national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) and scientific assessments of anthropogenic emissions follow different accounting conventions for land-based carbon fluxes resulting in a large difference in the present emission estimates2,3, a gap that will evolve over time. Using state-of-the-art methodologies4 and a land carbon-cycle emulator5, we align the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-assessed mitigation pathways with the NGHGIs to make a comparison. We find that the key global mitigation benchmarks become harder to achieve when calculated using the NGHGI conventions, requiring both earlier net-zero CO2 timing and lower cumulative emissions. Furthermore, weakening natural carbon removal processes such as carbon fertilization can mask anthropogenic land-based removal efforts, with the result that land-based carbon fluxes in NGHGIs may ultimately become sources of emissions by 2100. Our results are important for the Global Stocktake6, suggesting that nations will need to increase the collective ambition of their climate targets to remain consistent with the global temperature goals.
Asunto(s)
Dióxido de Carbono , Congresos como Asunto , Objetivos , Gases de Efecto Invernadero , Cooperación Internacional , Temperatura , Benchmarking , Ciclo del Carbono , Dióxido de Carbono/análisis , Congresos como Asunto/legislación & jurisprudencia , Gases de Efecto Invernadero/análisis , Actividades Humanas , Cooperación Internacional/legislación & jurisprudencia , Paris , Política Ambiental/legislación & jurisprudenciaRESUMEN
Coral reef ecosystems are being fundamentally restructured by local human impacts and climate-driven marine heatwaves that trigger mass coral bleaching and mortality1. Reducing local impacts can increase reef resistance to and recovery from bleaching2. However, resource managers lack clear advice on targeted actions that best support coral reefs under climate change3 and sector-based governance means most land- and sea-based management efforts remain siloed4. Here we combine surveys of reef change with a unique 20-year time series of land-sea human impacts that encompassed an unprecedented marine heatwave in Hawai'i. Reefs with increased herbivorous fish populations and reduced land-based impacts, such as wastewater pollution and urban runoff, had positive coral cover trajectories predisturbance. These reefs also experienced a modest reduction in coral mortality following severe heat stress compared to reefs with reduced fish populations and enhanced land-based impacts. Scenario modelling indicated that simultaneously reducing land-sea human impacts results in a three- to sixfold greater probability of a reef having high reef-builder cover four years postdisturbance than if either occurred in isolation. International efforts to protect 30% of Earth's land and ocean ecosystems by 2030 are underway5. Our results reveal that integrated land-sea management could help achieve coastal ocean conservation goals and provide coral reefs with the best opportunity to persist in our changing climate.
Asunto(s)
Antozoos , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales , Arrecifes de Coral , Calor Extremo , Calentamiento Global , Océanos y Mares , Agua de Mar , Animales , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales/métodos , Calor Extremo/efectos adversos , Peces , Calentamiento Global/estadística & datos numéricos , Objetivos , Hawaii , Actividades Humanas , Cooperación Internacional , Agua de Mar/análisis , Agua de Mar/química , Aguas Residuales/análisis , Factores de TiempoRESUMEN
Theories of innovation emphasize the role of social networks and teams as facilitators of breakthrough discoveries1-4. Around the world, scientists and inventors are more plentiful and interconnected today than ever before4. However, although there are more people making discoveries, and more ideas that can be reconfigured in new ways, research suggests that new ideas are getting harder to find5,6-contradicting recombinant growth theory7,8. Here we shed light on this apparent puzzle. Analysing 20 million research articles and 4 million patent applications from across the globe over the past half-century, we begin by documenting the rise of remote collaboration across cities, underlining the growing interconnectedness of scientists and inventors globally. We further show that across all fields, periods and team sizes, researchers in these remote teams are consistently less likely to make breakthrough discoveries relative to their on-site counterparts. Creating a dataset that allows us to explore the division of labour in knowledge production within teams and across space, we find that among distributed team members, collaboration centres on late-stage, technical tasks involving more codified knowledge. Yet they are less likely to join forces in conceptual tasks-such as conceiving new ideas and designing research-when knowledge is tacit9. We conclude that despite striking improvements in digital technology in recent years, remote teams are less likely to integrate the knowledge of their members to produce new, disruptive ideas.
Asunto(s)
Difusión de Innovaciones , Cooperación Internacional , Invenciones , Inventores , Patentes como Asunto , Investigadores , Informe de Investigación , Conjuntos de Datos como Asunto , Procesos de Grupo , Conocimiento , Patentes como Asunto/estadística & datos numéricos , Investigadores/organización & administración , Investigadores/psicología , Investigadores/tendencias , Informe de Investigación/tendencias , Red Social , Invenciones/clasificación , Invenciones/estadística & datos numéricos , Inventores/organización & administración , Inventores/psicología , Conducta CooperativaRESUMEN
Over the last five years prior to the Glasgow Climate Pact1, 154 Parties have submitted new or updated 2030 mitigation goals in their nationally determined contributions and 76 have put forward longer-term pledges. Quantifications of the pledges before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) suggested a less than 50 per cent chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius2-5. Here we show that warming can be kept just below 2 degrees Celsius if all conditional and unconditional pledges are implemented in full and on time. Peak warming could be limited to 1.9-2.0 degrees Celsius (5%-95% range 1.4-2.8 °C) in the full implementation case-building on a probabilistic characterization of Earth system uncertainties in line with the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report6 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We retrospectively project twenty-first-century warming to show how the aggregate level of ambition changed from 2015 to 2021. Our results rely on the extrapolation of time-limited targets beyond 2030 or 2050, characteristics of the IPCC 1.5 °C Special Report (SR1.5) scenario database7 and the full implementation of pledges. More pessimistic assumptions on these factors would lead to higher temperature projections. A second, independent emissions modelling framework projected peak warming of 1.8 degrees Celsius, supporting the finding that realized pledges could limit warming to just below 2 degrees Celsius. Limiting warming not only to 'just below' but to 'well below' 2 degrees Celsius or 1.5 degrees Celsius urgently requires policies and actions to bring about steep emission reductions this decade, aligned with mid-century global net-zero CO2 emissions.
Asunto(s)
Política Ambiental , Calentamiento Global , Cooperación Internacional , Temperatura , Planeta Tierra , Política Ambiental/legislación & jurisprudencia , Calentamiento Global/legislación & jurisprudencia , Calentamiento Global/prevención & control , Calentamiento Global/estadística & datos numéricos , Historia del Siglo XXI , Cooperación Internacional/legislación & jurisprudencia , Paris , Estudios Retrospectivos , Factores de Tiempo , Naciones Unidas/legislación & jurisprudenciaRESUMEN
Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic1,2. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 response from 112 countries and territories to recommend specific actions to end this persistent global threat to public health. The panel developed a set of 41 consensus statements and 57 recommendations to governments, health systems, industry and other key stakeholders across six domains: communication; health systems; vaccination; prevention; treatment and care; and inequities. In the wake of nearly three years of fragmented global and national responses, it is instructive to note that three of the highest-ranked recommendations call for the adoption of whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches1, while maintaining proven prevention measures using a vaccines-plus approach2 that employs a range of public health and financial support measures to complement vaccination. Other recommendations with at least 99% combined agreement advise governments and other stakeholders to improve communication, rebuild public trust and engage communities3 in the management of pandemic responses. The findings of the study, which have been further endorsed by 184 organizations globally, include points of unanimous agreement, as well as six recommendations with >5% disagreement, that provide health and social policy actions to address inadequacies in the pandemic response and help to bring this public health threat to an end.
Asunto(s)
COVID-19 , Técnica Delphi , Cooperación Internacional , Salud Pública , Humanos , COVID-19/economía , COVID-19/epidemiología , COVID-19/prevención & control , Gobierno , Pandemias/economía , Pandemias/prevención & control , Salud Pública/economía , Salud Pública/métodos , Organizaciones , Vacunas contra la COVID-19 , Comunicación , Educación en Salud , Política de Salud , Opinión PúblicaRESUMEN
Biomedical research budgets are frozen or falling in developed countries. Can expansion in developing nations continue as economic contagion spreads?
Asunto(s)
Investigación Biomédica/economía , Recesión Económica , Presupuestos , Países en Desarrollo , Cooperación Internacional , Estados Unidos , Mundo OccidentalRESUMEN
The amount of carbon stored in deadwood is equivalent to about 8 per cent of the global forest carbon stocks1. The decomposition of deadwood is largely governed by climate2-5 with decomposer groups-such as microorganisms and insects-contributing to variations in the decomposition rates2,6,7. At the global scale, the contribution of insects to the decomposition of deadwood and carbon release remains poorly understood7. Here we present a field experiment of wood decomposition across 55 forest sites and 6 continents. We find that the deadwood decomposition rates increase with temperature, and the strongest temperature effect is found at high precipitation levels. Precipitation affects the decomposition rates negatively at low temperatures and positively at high temperatures. As a net effect-including the direct consumption by insects and indirect effects through interactions with microorganisms-insects accelerate the decomposition in tropical forests (3.9% median mass loss per year). In temperate and boreal forests, we find weak positive and negative effects with a median mass loss of 0.9 per cent and -0.1 per cent per year, respectively. Furthermore, we apply the experimentally derived decomposition function to a global map of deadwood carbon synthesized from empirical and remote-sensing data, obtaining an estimate of 10.9 ± 3.2 petagram of carbon per year released from deadwood globally, with 93 per cent originating from tropical forests. Globally, the net effect of insects may account for 29 per cent of the carbon flux from deadwood, which suggests a functional importance of insects in the decomposition of deadwood and the carbon cycle.
Asunto(s)
Ciclo del Carbono , Bosques , Insectos/metabolismo , Árboles/metabolismo , Animales , Secuestro de Carbono , Clima , Ecosistema , Mapeo Geográfico , Cooperación InternacionalRESUMEN
The ocean contains unique biodiversity, provides valuable food resources and is a major sink for anthropogenic carbon. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an effective tool for restoring ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services1,2, but at present only 2.7% of the ocean is highly protected3. This low level of ocean protection is due largely to conflicts with fisheries and other extractive uses. To address this issue, here we developed a conservation planning framework to prioritize highly protected MPAs in places that would result in multiple benefits today and in the future. We find that a substantial increase in ocean protection could have triple benefits, by protecting biodiversity, boosting the yield of fisheries and securing marine carbon stocks that are at risk from human activities. Our results show that most coastal nations contain priority areas that can contribute substantially to achieving these three objectives of biodiversity protection, food provision and carbon storage. A globally coordinated effort could be nearly twice as efficient as uncoordinated, national-level conservation planning. Our flexible prioritization framework could help to inform both national marine spatial plans4 and global targets for marine conservation, food security and climate action.
Asunto(s)
Biodiversidad , Clima , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales , Abastecimiento de Alimentos , Calentamiento Global/prevención & control , Animales , Secuestro de Carbono , Explotaciones Pesqueras , Sedimentos Geológicos/química , Actividades Humanas , Cooperación InternacionalRESUMEN
Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial times1. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 °C (refs. 2-7). Here we use a global energy systems model8 to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 per cent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2 °C carbon budget9, particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 per cent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 per cent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale.
Asunto(s)
Conservación de los Recursos Energéticos/legislación & jurisprudencia , Combustibles Fósiles/análisis , Combustibles Fósiles/provisión & distribución , Calentamiento Global/prevención & control , Cooperación Internacional/legislación & jurisprudencia , Modelos Teóricos , Temperatura , Aceites Combustibles/análisis , Aceites Combustibles/provisión & distribución , Mapeo Geográfico , Calentamiento Global/legislación & jurisprudencia , Metano/análisis , Metano/provisión & distribución , Paris , Probabilidad , Factores de Tiempo , IncertidumbreRESUMEN
Amid the discourse on foreign influence investigations in research, this study examines the impact of NIH-initiated investigations starting in 2018 on U.S. scientists' productivity, focusing on those collaborating with Chinese peers. Using publication data from 2010 to 2021, we analyze over 113,000 scientists and find that investigations coincide with reduced productivity for those with China collaborations compared to those with other international collaborators, especially when accounting for publication impact. The decline is particularly pronounced in fields that received greater preinvestigation NIH funding and engaged more in U.S.-China collaborations. Indications of scientist migration and broader scientific progress implications also emerge. We also offer insights into the underlying mechanisms via qualitative interviews.
Asunto(s)
National Institutes of Health (U.S.) , China , Estados Unidos , Humanos , Cooperación Internacional , Investigadores/estadística & datos numéricos , Investigación BiomédicaRESUMEN
Mesothelioma affects mostly older individuals who have been occupationally exposed to asbestos. The global mesothelioma incidence and mortality rates are unknown, because data are not available from developing countries that continue to use large amounts of asbestos. The incidence rate of mesothelioma has decreased in Australia, the United States, and Western Europe, where the use of asbestos was banned or strictly regulated in the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrating the value of these preventive measures. However, in these same countries, the overall number of deaths from mesothelioma has not decreased as the size of the population and the percentage of old people have increased. Moreover, hotspots of mesothelioma may occur when carcinogenic fibers that are present in the environment are disturbed as rural areas are being developed. Novel immunohistochemical and molecular markers have improved the accuracy of diagnosis; however, about 14% (high-resource countries) to 50% (developing countries) of mesothelioma diagnoses are incorrect, resulting in inadequate treatment and complicating epidemiological studies. The discovery that germline BRCA1-asssociated protein 1 (BAP1) mutations cause mesothelioma and other cancers (BAP1 cancer syndrome) elucidated some of the key pathogenic mechanisms, and treatments targeting these molecular mechanisms and/or modulating the immune response are being tested. The role of surgery in pleural mesothelioma is controversial as it is difficult to predict who will benefit from aggressive management, even when local therapies are added to existing or novel systemic treatments. Treatment outcomes are improving, however, for peritoneal mesothelioma. Multidisciplinary international collaboration will be necessary to improve prevention, early detection, and treatment.
Asunto(s)
Antineoplásicos Inmunológicos/uso terapéutico , Biomarcadores de Tumor/análisis , Mesotelioma/terapia , Neoplasias Pleurales/terapia , Neumonectomía/métodos , Amianto/efectos adversos , Australia/epidemiología , Biomarcadores de Tumor/genética , Biomarcadores de Tumor/metabolismo , Carcinogénesis/inducido químicamente , Carcinogénesis/genética , Carcinogénesis/patología , Terapia Combinada/métodos , Errores Diagnósticos , Europa (Continente)/epidemiología , Predisposición Genética a la Enfermedad , Mutación de Línea Germinal , Carga Global de Enfermedades , Humanos , Incidencia , Exposición por Inhalación/efectos adversos , Cooperación Internacional , Mesotelioma/diagnóstico , Mesotelioma/epidemiología , Mesotelioma/etiología , Terapia Molecular Dirigida/métodos , Exposición Profesional/efectos adversos , Pleura/efectos de los fármacos , Pleura/patología , Pleura/cirugía , Neoplasias Pleurales/diagnóstico , Neoplasias Pleurales/epidemiología , Neoplasias Pleurales/etiología , Pronóstico , Proteínas Supresoras de Tumor/genética , Proteínas Supresoras de Tumor/metabolismo , Ubiquitina Tiolesterasa/genética , Ubiquitina Tiolesterasa/metabolismo , Estados Unidos/epidemiologíaRESUMEN
Extensive ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as being central to conserving biodiversity1 and stabilizing the climate of the Earth2. Although ambitious national and global targets have been set, global priority areas that account for spatial variation in benefits and costs have yet to be identified. Here we develop and apply a multicriteria optimization approach that identifies priority areas for restoration across all terrestrial biomes, and estimates their benefits and costs. We find that restoring 15% of converted lands in priority areas could avoid 60% of expected extinctions while sequestering 299 gigatonnes of CO2-30% of the total CO2 increase in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The inclusion of several biomes is key to achieving multiple benefits. Cost effectiveness can increase up to 13-fold when spatial allocation is optimized using our multicriteria approach, which highlights the importance of spatial planning. Our results confirm the vast potential contributions of restoration to addressing global challenges, while underscoring the necessity of pursuing these goals synergistically.
Asunto(s)
Ecosistema , Restauración y Remediación Ambiental/tendencias , Cooperación Internacional , Animales , Biodiversidad , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales/economía , Análisis Costo-Beneficio , Restauración y Remediación Ambiental/economía , Mapeo Geográfico , Calentamiento Global/economía , Calentamiento Global/prevención & controlRESUMEN
Observations show robust near-surface trends in Southern Hemisphere tropospheric circulation towards the end of the twentieth century, including a poleward shift in the mid-latitude jet1,2, a positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode1,3-6 and an expansion of the Hadley cell7,8. It has been established that these trends were driven by ozone depletion in the Antarctic stratosphere due to emissions of ozone-depleting substances9-11. Here we show that these widely reported circulation trends paused, or slightly reversed, around the year 2000. Using a pattern-based detection and attribution analysis of atmospheric zonal wind, we show that the pause in circulation trends is forced by human activities, and has not occurred owing only to internal or natural variability of the climate system. Furthermore, we demonstrate that stratospheric ozone recovery, resulting from the Montreal Protocol, is the key driver of the pause. Because pre-2000 circulation trends have affected precipitation12-14, and potentially ocean circulation and salinity15-17, we anticipate that a pause in these trends will have wider impacts on the Earth system. Signatures of the effects of the Montreal Protocol and the associated stratospheric ozone recovery might therefore manifest, or have already manifested, in other aspects of the Earth system.