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.
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Some public health experts hope the growing availability of faster, cheaper tests could lead to a new strategy of widespread testing — one that could finally get the pandemic under control. -
The U.S. has reached another dire landmark in its fight against COVID-19, surpassing 2 million confirmed cases on Wednesday.
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The CDC combines results of a test that spots people who are actively infected with results from another one that looks for antibodies.
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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.
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New research suggests the Abbott ID NOW test, which produces results in less than 15 minutes, is the most likely among common tests to reassure people they are not infected when they really are.
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President Trump admitted that it will be up to governors when to lift quarantine measures. NPR correspondents discuss what lies ahead for the states as they slowly reopen businesses.
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The White House is recommending a three-phase approach for states and regions to restart their economies, according to a copy of the guidelines obtained by NPR.
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We're in shutdown mode for now, but what comes next? Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is working on a plan to safely reopen the country.
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Scientists have been able to keep human embryos alive twice as long as before. The technique is reopening a debate over a rule limiting research on human embryos to 14 days.
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The federal agency will start producing a weekly update based on testing and reports from doctors and hospitals around the country of people being getting pneumonia and diagnosed with COVID-19.
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One big commercial testing lab revealed a backlog of at least 115,000 tests, illustrating the scope of the coronavirus testing problems.
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One of the nation's biggest medical testing companies acknowledged a backlog of at least 115,000 coronavirus tests, illustrating how the nation is struggling to test effectively during the pandemic.
