iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Heads up: I'll be away the weeks of 9/21 and 9/28. I trust that my sharp C&EN colleagues will capably handle anything that comes up in my absence. I return 10/5, so if you need something from me specifically, I'd reach out or re-up then!

A sunset view out an airplane window. Overlaying the image is text that reads "out of office" in a mix of script and serif fonts.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The coolest part, IMO, is this "build your own city ranking" tool. You can use sliders to adjust how much weight you'd give to one dimension, like VC funding or lab space, and see what cities come out on top.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Boston & Massachusetts may not house the headquarters of top US pharmaceutical companies, but they commands the most chemistry-related VC investment and the third-highest chemistry article output, reflecting their status as a life sciences hub spanning start-ups, academia, and research hospitals.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Houston, long the stronghold of the petrochemical industry, is now establishing itself as the geographic cornerstone of the US energy transition.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Precision-medicine approaches show promise, but researchers need buy-in from drugmakers. And that buy-in is not really happening. 11/

"The reason why so many trials get stopped or paused is because of mediocre results."

Sadie Whittaker, chief scientific officer, Solve ME

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The trial would ultimately throw Delli Gatti into the unstable world of long COVID research and development, showing how a tangle of competing corporate and scientific priorities—and regulatory catch-22s—have hamstrung experimental treatments for postinfectious conditions. 5/

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Me the other night: “here, let me take a photo of the can since we liked this beer” The photo in the cold light of day:

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

The FDA recently described a new regulatory framework that would let personalized medicines with a “plausible mechanism” of action bypass randomized clinical trials. But recent decisions about rare disease drug applications raise doubts about what the pathway means for patients. #chemsky #biosky

"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

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Artur Mylin was unfazed when his friend called him in the middle of the night to tell him that the war had begun.

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

By value, 32% of pharmaceutical out-licensing deals worldwide in the first half of 2025 involved China-made assets, up from 21% in 2023 and 2024 and single-digit percentages before that, according to a recent report from the investment firm Jefferies.

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

It's no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention that China's biomedical engine is churning out more and more new molecules -- and innovative ones, not just "me-too" drug candidates. 🧵 #chemsky #biosky

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

Key Insights
US and European pharmaceutical firms are licensing new drug candidates developed in China at an increasing clip.
Some industry watchers see opportunity in China’s biomedical market; others see a threat to biotech.
Collaboration may be threatened by geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Stifel Biopharma Market Update, April 14, 2025 www.stifel.com/newsletters/...

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

HIV, Trans Health, and Covid Research Targeted by Trump Cuts to NIH www.scientificamerican.com/article/hiv-...

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Today's undergraduate seniors already weathered the COVID-19 pandemic as high school students 5 years ago.

"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

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Not one student graduating from Vanderbilt's Keivan Stassun's lab--nor his colleagues’ labs--has received an offer of admission to a PhD program that has lasted.

"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

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Uncertainty about federal funding and cuts to university research are already shaping the careers of young people entering the field of chemistry. @cenmag.bsky.social #ChemSky 🧪 🧵

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

@mileswgriffis.bsky.social wrote it best, in my opinion, in this recent essay for @thesicktimes.bsky.social chronicling half a decade of Long COVID. thesicktimes.org/2025/03/07/h...

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

@bethanyhalford.bsky.social chronicles a profile in medicinal chemistry. Pfizer scientists are closing in on a new COVID antiviral called ibuzatrelvir, designed to improve upon Paxlovid's drawbacks. cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Tomorrow will have been 5 years since WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Today, @cenmag.bsky.social is publishing a cover package we're ambitiously describing as The Next 5 Years of COVID-19. 🧵

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Academic researchers want to repurpose drugs for #LongCOVID. Manufacturers aren’t supplying them. 🧵 #chemsky #scisky #biosky

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

In my @cenmag.bsky.social story about RFK's confirmation -- written before the weekend HHS firings -- a former FDA leader points out that the Trump admin may actually end up shooting itself in the foot with these kinds of cuts.

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."

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

About two-thirds of the drugs proposed as interventions were immunomodulatory agents. The top two were naltrexone (presumably low-dose naltrexone aka LDN) and monoclonal antibodies.

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 slide from Geerling showing the most commonly submitted interventions. 14 were naltrexone, 14 were covid monoclonal antibodies, 6 were nicotine, 6 were rintatolimod, 5 were stellate ganglion nerve block, 4 were plasmapheresis, 4 were IVIG, 4 were hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 4 were rapamycin, 4 were MCAS treatment, and 4 were metformin.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Most proposed interventions were drugs. No surprise there -- people with Long Covid have been clamoring for trials of pharmaceutical interventions (not exercise therapy, not CBT).

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.

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Rowan Walrath @rowanwalrath.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

A few interesting takeaways from NIH's first RECOVER-TLC meeting about #LongCovid clinical trials since the 3-day workshop in September. More than 300 submissions to RECOVER-TLC's online portal. Overwhelmingly patients! 🧵

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.

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