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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The group of experts, assembled under the agency run by Dr. Anthony Fauci, warns that using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin could result in potential toxicities. -
Several new types of tests for coronavirus infection are being developed. One uses the revolutionary gene-editing tool called CRISPR; another measures responses from cells in saliva.
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Researchers are racing to develop quick, home-based tests for the virus that could deliver test results in minutes. None do that yet, but several under development hold promise, scientists say. -
Pharmaceutical companies GSK and Sanofi are partnering to work on several vaccine candidates to fight the coronavirus. -
President Trump continues to promote hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has not been proved to work against coronavirus and COVID-19. He's relying on anecdotes, not science.
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The best protection against the coronavirus would be a vaccine. But that's probably at least a year away, even if crash development programs succeed. What can be done in the meantime? -
The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it will take charge of a program that includes the and the American Red Cross with funds from the federal government. -
At least one team of scientists hopes to determine if hydroxychloroquine — touted by President Trump as a possible treatment for COVID-19 — could actually work to prevent the disease. -
A treatment strategy that identifies particularly potent immune system proteins, then gins up mass quantities for a single dose might help prevent infections or quell symptoms, scientists say. -
Scientists are rolling out an old-fashioned approach they hope will help treat COVID-19. The treatment involves giving patients plasma from people who have recovered from the virus.
