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.
-
Though infections are still sky-high, the U.S. may be turning a corner, according to a consortium of researchers who forecast the pandemic. And we may well be spared a winter surge. -
During an online forum sponsored by Harvard, Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses how his high-profile position has affected his family personally.
-
The National Institutes of Health is giving $248.7 million dollars to seven companies developing new technologies for testing, including use of the revolutionary gene-editing technique CRISPR.
-
With the coronavirus spreading out of control in many parts of the U.S., some experts say the strategy of testing and tracing can't contain the pandemic until lockdowns bring case numbers down.
-
Why is the US suffering such a shortage of testing? The Trump administration is promising to perform 100 million tests by September. Is that realistic?
-
A new NPR/Harvard analysis finds most states' testing efforts still fall far short of what's needed to beat back the pandemic. Find out how your state is doing.
-
Since receiving a landmark treatment with the gene-editing tool CRISPR, a sickle cell patient has the strength to care for herself and her children — while navigating the pandemic.
-
The federal government says that as of Aug. 1, all laboratories must include detailed demographic data when reporting test results in order to help fight the pandemic nationally.
-
CDC chief Robert Redfield says that earlier testing for the coronavirus would have been like "looking for a needle in a haystack." But other health experts dispute his assertion.
-
As more and more people get tested for antibodies to the coronavirus, infectious disease specialists worry that those tested — and their employers — may not understand the limits of the results.
-
New estimates say the U.S. needs to triple its testing. But how much testing does each state need? Here's how states compare to each other, and to targets experts say they should hit.
-
An antigen test could be quick, and much simpler and cheaper than the PCR tests now used to spot people infected with the novel coronavirus. But some scientists worry about an antigen test's accuracy.
