Ear­li­er this week we asked our read­ers to chime in on a con­ver­sa­tion in­spired by for­mer NIH di­rec­tor and Sanofi R&D chief Elias Zer­houni, who was con­cerned that re­cent purges of Chi­nese Amer­i­can sci­en­tists at top bio­med­ical in­sti­tu­tions could spell trou­ble for the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. While ground­ed in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, he ar­gues, the US risks los­ing valu­able tal­ent and col­lab­o­ra­tions if it doesn’t han­dle the sit­u­a­tion prop­er­ly.

The re­sults to our snap poll, which gath­ered 220 re­spons­es, re­flects a lack of con­sen­sus on the three key ques­tions: How se­ri­ous is the prob­lem of aca­d­e­m­ic es­pi­onage? In try­ing to fix that is­sue, are we hurt­ing Chi­nese Amer­i­can sci­en­tists? And what, if any­thing, should be done about it?

More re­spon­dents be­lieve that wor­ries about aca­d­e­m­ic es­pi­onage are at least “some­what” well-found­ed, con­sti­tut­ing al­most 60%. On the oth­er side, 30% say “not re­al­ly” or “ab­solute­ly not,” with 10% stand­ing in the mid­dle.

“Ma­jor­i­ty of aca­d­e­m­ic find­ings are of no val­ue,” one read­er com­ments.

An­oth­er raised the con­cern that aca­d­e­mics don’t al­ways know where the line is be­tween friend­ly shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion and IP theft:

In­sti­tu­tions don’t al­ways train their fac­ul­ty and staff on ac­cept­able/un­ac­cept­able col­lab­o­ra­tion poli­cies, and there’s a fast-and-loose cul­ture in acad­e­mia on many top­ics (da­ta re­pro­ducibil­i­ty, HR, lab safe­ty, IP) that goes be­yond so-called aca­d­e­m­ic es­pi­onage.

But even for those con­cerned with some lev­el of es­pi­onage, there is a di­vide as to whether it’s a sys­temic ef­fort com­ing specif­i­cal­ly from Chi­na or bad ac­tors that are bound to pop up, re­gard­less of na­tion­al­i­ty.

A slight ma­jor­i­ty agrees that the dis­missals at MD An­der­son and Emory threat­en the en­tire Chi­nese Amer­i­can sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty in the US — in par­tic­u­lar, the bio­med­ical re­search field, not least be­cause it shapes the pub­lic dis­course about sci­en­tists with roots in Chi­na.

Com­bine the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s an­ti-im­mi­grant stance with these re­cent events and even Amer­i­can born Chi­nese sci­en­tists like me feel threat­ened. It adds to a cli­mate of fear – who’s look­ing over our shoul­ders and mis­in­ter­pret­ing our ac­tions?

Those who hold the op­po­site view, though, say iso­lat­ed cas­es — in which in­di­vid­u­als were al­leged­ly pun­ished for shar­ing con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion and vi­o­lat­ing con­flict of in­ter­est poli­cies — don’t make a con­spir­a­cy against an en­tire eth­nic group.

Along the same lines, while 60% of re­spon­dents say they share an ur­gency to ad­dress the fears of Chi­nese Amer­i­can sci­en­tists, 20% do not and the rest are ei­ther neu­tral or haven’t formed an opin­ion.

Many in sup­port wor­ry about a re­verse brain drain, es­pe­cial­ly as they have had a pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing with Chi­nese-born col­leagues: “In the ab­sence of pos­i­tive in­for­ma­tion, in­di­vid­u­als will make there own de­ci­sions, and well-fund­ed Chi­nese com­pa­nies are push­ing hard for tal­ent al­ready.”

Oth­ers main­tain the prob­lem is overblown.

“It should be clear to all that there is noth­ing to be con­cerned about if sci­en­tists are not par­tic­i­pat­ing in ques­tion­able part­ner­ships with for­eign gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies or com­pa­nies, etc. It seems crazy to sug­gest that sci­en­tists who work with­in the nor­mal con­fines of acad­e­mia or in­dus­try would be at risk with­out ad­di­tion­al ac­tion.”

What about Zer­houni’s pro­pos­al to set up a blue-rib­bon com­mit­tee to draft a new set of clear­ly de­fined rules to gov­ern for­eign sci­en­tif­ic en­gage­ment?

The idea is clear­ly still in its in­fan­cy, with more than half re­spond­ing “neu­tral” or “no opin­ion” and some pro­fess­ing lack of un­der­stand­ing as to what that en­tails. Sup­port and dis­agree­ment are split right down the mid­dle.

Go­ing back to the ex­pul­sions that trig­gered the con­ver­sa­tion, a re­spon­dent sug­gests the so­lu­tion will be more in­for­ma­tion.

The best way for­ward is for the gov­ern­ment to spell out ex­act­ly what the ev­i­dence against these in­di­vid­u­als was. If it is con­vinc­ing to sci­en­tists that their in­ten­tions re­al­ly were to hurt Amer­i­can sci­ence and ben­e­fit Chi­nese, the ac­tions will be ac­cept­ed and will serve as a warn­ing to oth­ers per­haps con­sid­er­ing sim­i­lar ad­ven­tures. On the oth­er hand, if the ev­i­dence is weak or they mis­in­ter­pret­ed the in­tent of the ac­tions of these peo­ple, then wide­spread pan­ic will en­sue, with or with­out a “blue rib­bon pan­el”.

So­cial im­age: Shut­ter­stock

After a more than 15-year run, a California-based biotech is exploring options, including a sale, after its lead experimental therapy failed an exploratory mid-stage study in patients with middle ear infections characterized by a build-up of fluid behind the eardrum.

The company, initially called Tokai Pharmaceuticals but which subsequently changed its name to Novus Therapeutics in 2017, saw its shares more than halve on Monday after the drug — OP0201— did not pass muster as an adjunct therapy to oral antibiotics in infants and children aged 6 to 24 months with acute otitis media (OM).

Among all the limitations of using an adeno-associated virus as a vector to deliver a gene — still the most established modality in gene therapy given years of trial and error and finally success — the presence of neutralizing antibodies, whether pre-existing or induced, looms large.

“When I think about the immune responses in AAV, I try to sort of layer them,” Federico Mingozzi, the CSO at Spark Therapeutics, told Endpoints News. “The antibody is the first layer. It’s the first block that you find when you’re trying to do gene transfer.”