Joe Palca
Joe Palca is a science correspondent for NPR. Since joining NPR in 1992, Palca has covered a range of science topics — everything from biomedical research to astronomy. He is currently focused on the eponymous series, "Joe's Big Idea." Stories in the series explore the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors. Palca is also the founder of NPR Scicommers – A science communication collective.
Palca began his journalism career in television in 1982, working as a health producer for the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC. In 1986, he left television for a seven-year stint as a print journalist, first as the Washington news editor for Nature, and then as a senior correspondent for Science Magazine.
In October 2009, Palca took a six-month leave from NPR to become science writer in residence at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Palca has won numerous awards, including the National Academies Communications Award, the Science-in-Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers, the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Prize, and the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Writing. In 2019, Palca was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism.
With Flora Lichtman, Palca is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011).
He comes to journalism from a science background, having received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he worked on human sleep physiology.
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Adjuvants play a crucial role in many vaccines' effectiveness. Some scientists say there needs to be more research into developing a wider variety of adjuvants because of how important they are. -
A COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the U.S. company Moderna and the National Institutes of Health starts its final phase of testing. It's one of a handful of candidates to reach this stage. -
NASA is sending a six-wheeled rover to Mars to look for signs of microbial life stored in the rocks at Jezero crater. The rover is also the first step in bringing samples of Martian rock to Earth. -
Dr. Elias Zerhouni was head of the National Institutes of Health under President George W. Bush. He says the Trump administration's response to the pandemic has not protected the American people. -
Some of the technology behind coronavirus vaccine development dates back to the first vaccines; other techniques are much newer. Here are eight top strategies scientists are pursuing. -
Cattle may turn out to be of help in the coronavirus pandemic. A South Dakota biotech company is using cows to create antibodies that could then be used for disease prevention or treatment. -
A low-cost anti-inflammatory drug appears to reduce the risk of death in patients with COVID-19. The promising result comes from a large study of therapies being conducted in the U.K. -
Emergency use authorization makes it easier for doctors to use a drug in a manner not specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA granted these drugs this status in March. -
While only remdesivir has been scientifically shown to help treat COVID-19, it is not a particularly effective drug. More drugs like it and fundamentally different ones are in the pipeline. -
There is only one drug that researchers say has been scientifically shown to help COVID-19: remdesivir. But it is not proven to reduce mortality. So, researchers keep looking for other treatments.
