You Saw the Grammys, But You Missed the More Important Awards
Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.

The 2018 Stem Cell Action Awards, honoring recipients for advocacy, leadership, and inspiration, presented by the Regenerative Medicine Foundation.
Last week in Miami, more than 450 researchers, physicians, lawyers, ethicists, and executives gathered from far-flung corners of the globe to share the latest updates in stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Sure, a science conference might not seem as glamorous as a celebrity-filled Madison Square Garden, but it's the place to be if you care about breakthroughs that could give you a longer and healthier life. Here are our top ten takeaways about what's hot and what's happening worldwide:
"The places you least expect will turn up to produce some really extraordinary things."
1) The future of stem cell treatment may involve the creation of a universal cell line that is genetically modified so every patient's immune system will accept it.
One of the leading scientists at the convention, Japanese stem cell pioneer Dr. Norio Nakatsuji, dubbed this quest a "very hot topic" right now. Being able to produce one safe cell line for everyone would be much cheaper and faster than having to create and grow patient-specific cells. "It is theoretically possible to genetically modify the lines so everyone can accept them," said Nakatsuji. A Seattle-based biotech company aptly named Universal Cells is leading the way in this promising area.
2) Japan was the world leader in stem cell research 10 years ago, but has since fallen behind the United States for reasons that some researchers find frustrating.
Japan is not a particularly religious society, so their culture does not object on principle to using donated human embryos for the creation of stem cells, and federal money can fund such research, unlike in the U.S. But the irony, according to Nakatsuji, is that the regulations for researchers are still very cumbersome. "We need to clear many probably unnecessary steps," he said. For example, before starting work in the field, new graduate students need special training and ethics lectures, and must be cleared by a committee; the process could take six months before an experiment can start, whereas in a country like Britain, scientists can immediately begin.
Also: back in 2006, a Japanese researcher who later won the Nobel Prize managed to reprogram 4 genes in adult cells and essentially turn back time, reversing the cells back to an embryonic state. The implications of this breakthrough were enormous, because destroying an embryo was no longer required to generate blank cells with unlimited potential—and these cells could now be created directly from a patient.
But then "a very unfortunate situation" happened in Japan, says Nakatsuji. There was a fever for these induced pluripotent (iPS) cells, and many Japanese researchers thought embryonic stem cell research was no longer important.
"This is a misconception," Nakatsuji lamented. "You do need both cell types." Embryonic stem cells, unlike their artificially made alternatives, are still safer and more reliable. A symbolic example, he said, is that groups in the U.S. and Europe are starting trials for Parkinson's disease that require dopamine-secreting neurons from stem cells. The researchers could have chosen iPS cells, but went with embryonic stem cells.
The main advantage now of iPS cells, Nakatsuji said, is not for therapeutic purposes, but for drug discovery and creating models of disease based on specific patient profiles.
Dr. Norio Nakatsuji receiving an award for international leadership from Bernard Siegel, the founder and director of the Regenerative Medicine Foundation.
3) In China, rampant stem cell tourism in 2009 led to disaster and a total government shutdown, from which the research field is only recently starting to recover.
Stem cell therapy in China "used to be totally unethical but then took a shock and is still recovering from that shock," said Dr. Wenchun Qu, a physician-researcher at the Mayo Clinic. Scam clinics profited off unapproved and unproven treatments which killed some patients until the total ban set in. Now, the research field is slowly coming back on board under strict regulation; there were only 35 clinical trial with stem cells in 2016, whereas in the U.S, there were more than 2000.
"A lack of public trust and deception is the number one factor" in China's falling behind, said Dr. Yen-Michael Hsu of Weill Cornell. "China is catching up trying to rebuild trust with the taxpayers."
As of last November, 102 designated institutions in China can conduct stem cell research only--not offer commercialized treatments. Bottom line: China is advancing fast in basic science and even leading in some areas, yet is trailing other countries in translational studies and clinical practice.
4) The Bahamas is emerging as a hub of legitimate research that is attracting innovative new trials.
A regulatory framework and National Stem Cell Ethics Committee were established around 2013, and since then, clinical research in the Bahamas has begun; the focus is on safety and efficacy, with standards high enough to satisfy the FDA, but also streamlined enough to allow for trials to proceed faster than they might in other countries.
One U.S.-based company, Advanced Regen Medical Technologies, is pursuing a proprietary cell culture that rejuvenates old cells by exposing them to young donor cells, with the goal of extending healthy living. On May 24th, 2017, the company presented to the National Stem Cell Ethics Committee, and on December 15th, they treated their first patient.
"Here's an indication that would be frankly impossible to get through the FDA and certainly not without many years of pain," said Marc Penn, a leader of the company's executive team. "We were able to get through the National Stem Cell Ethics Committee with all of us feeling good about the level of rigor within a seven-to-eight month span."
Desiree Cox, the chairwoman of the Committee, stressed the selectiveness and rigor with which the Bahamas is approaching new trial applications. Of 20 proposed stem cell trials, they have approved only four.
"We're interested in first-in-man studies, things that are breaking the boundaries, going beyond what is already done elsewhere, linking to predictive analytics," she said. "The places you least expect will turn up to produce some really extraordinary things."
Another active clinical trial there is a phase 1 study for Aging Frailty run by a Miami-based start-up called Longeveron. "Our experience is it comes as a huge relief to many people to have the opportunity to go to such a program rather than wait for a drug to be approved in the U.S.," said Dr. Joshua Hare, the director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami and the co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Longeveron.
"The challenge right now is the effective translation and development of viable stem-cell based therapies."
5) Researchers are working on building an artificial heart with stem cells, but technology is not the only hurdle.
A group at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston is experimenting with this strategy: stripping a real heart organ of its cells, then repopulating it with blood-forming stem cells, and implanting it. In cows, this approach has worked successfully. But one problem, said Dr. Doris Taylor, the director of Regenerative Medicine Research at the Institute, is educating regulators, since this kind of treatment is not a drug and not a device.
That said, when will we see someone order a heart off the shelf?
"I think in the next two years," she said, "you will see exciting things happening at least at the level of congenital heart disease, if not adult hearts."
6) Cost is a major barrier to regenerative medicine's success.
"It's not about whether you can get enough of the cells you need, it's about whether you can get them for less than one million dollars," Taylor said wryly.
Cell therapies intended for patients must be manufactured in a special facility to generate the quantity necessary for treatment. Some experts expressed concerned that these bio-manufacturing facilities are like "the Wild West" right now because there is no standard for pricing.
Some companies are "getting away with murder," said Dr. Camillo Ricordi, director of the Diabetes Research Institute. "This doesn't happen in most of the rest of the world."
7) Media hype has caused the premature (and potentially dangerous) commercialization of unproven stem cell therapies.
There are now over 570 such clinics operating in the U.S., with hot spots in Florida and California, which offer up stem cells for everything from sports medicine and vitamins to beauty products and pet health.
In fact, according to the FDA, the only stem cell-based products currently approved for use consist of blood-forming stem cells derived from cord blood. Everything else, for now, is still experimental.
While plenty of legitimate research is moving ahead in clinical trials, consumers may be confused by the plethora of scam clinics. But since last August, the FDA has begun cracking down, issuing three enforcement actions.
Also worth noting: what the marketplace refers to as "stem cells" are in fact products that contain a very low amount of concentrated adult stem cells derived from fat or bone marrow. There are no pure stem cell products out there.
"The challenge right now is the effective translation and development of viable stem-cell based therapies," said Dr. Shane Shapiro, a sports medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic.
What constitutes a genetically modified organism? Europe is in the process of deciding.
8) An exciting coming trend is induced tissue regeneration.
The company AgeX, run by gerontologist and stem cell pioneer Dr. Mike West, is in preclinical trials for a treatment that can reset the regenerative potential of mature tissue.
This ability is lost in the early stages of life to help prevent cancer, but AgeX is interested in figuring out a way to restore it with pluripotent stem cells in adult tissue, to correct the damage incurred by aging. West said he expects the program to reach human clinical trials in the next five years.
9) Stem cells alone are not the whole story.
The future of cell therapy will involve cell derivatives—the things that cells secrete, like exosomes, microRNA, and viruses, that can be better controlled than the cells themselves.
Exosomes, which are extracellular vesicles released from cells, act as fingerprints that are useful for diagnosis and therapy, said Dr. Li Chen, the head of the Human Liver Cell Lab at the University of California-San Diego. Because exosomes are smaller than cells, they can also cross the blood-brain barrier.
Europe is the leading place for exosome research. Recently, a 21-year-old boy suffering from brain cancer there was treated with stem cell therapy, which failed, but then subsequently he received surgery with exosomes applied to his tumor, and he survived.
10) The European Union is in the process of deciding what legally constitutes a "genetically modified organism" – and the stakes are high.
The European Court of Justice, the EU's highest court, is considering this question: If a modification brought about by genetic engineering technology could also have occurred naturally, should the resulting organism be considered a GMO?
Just last week, an advocate general of the court proposed that whenever an organism is manmade that could theoretically occur naturally, it should not be considered a GMO, and therefore should not be subjected to such regulations.
If the Court agrees with the advice of its advocate general later this year, then the decision would have huge implications for biotech agriculture across Europe, paving the way for gene-edited crops to hit the market.
Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.
Disability advocates see remote work as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike.
Any corporate leader would jump at the opportunity to increase their talent pool of potential employees by 15 percent, with all these new hires belonging to an underrepresented minority. That’s especially true given tight labor markets and CEO desires to increase headcount. Yet, too few leaders realize that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in this country, numbering 50 million.
Some executives may dread the extra investments in accommodating people’s disabilities. Yet, providing full-time remote work could suffice, according to a new study by the Economic Innovation Group think tank. The authors found that the employment rate for people with disabilities did not simply reach the pre-pandemic level by mid-2022, but far surpassed it, to the highest rate in over a decade. “Remote work and a strong labor market are helping [individuals with disabilities] find work,” said Adam Ozemik, who led the research and is chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group.
Disability advocates see this development as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike. For decades before the pandemic, employers had refused requests from workers with disabilities to work remotely, according to Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute. During the pandemic, "we all realized that...many of us could work remotely,” Foley says. “[T]hat was disproportionately positive for people with disabilities."
Charles-Edouard Catherine, director of corporate and government relations for the National Organization on Disability, said that remote-work options had been advocated for many years to accommodate disabilities. “It’s a little frustrating that for decades corporate America was saying it’s too complicated, we’ll lose productivity, and now suddenly it’s like, sure, let’s do it.”
The pandemic opened doors for people with disabilities
Early in the pandemic, employment rates dropped for everyone, including people with disabilities, according to Ozemik’s research. However, these rates recovered quickly. In the second quarter of 2022, people with disabilities aged 25 to 54, the prime working age, are 3.5 percent more likely to be employed, compared to before the pandemic.
What about people without disabilites? They are still 1.1 percent less likely to be employed.
These numbers suggest that remote work has enabled a substantial number of people with disabilities to find and retain employment.
“We have a last-in, first-out labor market, and [people with disabilities] are often among the last in and the first out,” Olzemik says. However, this dynamic has changed, with adults with disabilities seeing employment rates recover much faster. Now, the question is whether the new trend will endure, Olzemik adds. “And my conclusion is that not only is it a permanent thing, but it’s going to improve.”
Gene Boes, president and chief executive of the Northwest Center, a Seattle organization that helps people with disabilities become more independent, confirms this finding. “The new world we live in has opened the door a little bit more…because there’s just more demand for labor.”
Long COVID disabilities put a premium on remote work
Remote work can help mitigate the impact of long COVID. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 19 percent of those who had COVID developed long COVID. Recent Census Bureau data indicates that 16 million working age Americans suffer from it, with economic costs estimated at $3.7 trillion.
Certainly, many of these so-called long-haulers experience relatively mild symptoms - such as loss of smell - which, while troublesome, are not disabling. But other symptoms are serious enough to be disabilities.
Many had to drop out of the labor force due to long COVID. Yet, about 900,000 people who are newly disabled have managed to continue working. Without remote work, they might have lost these jobs.
According to a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, about a quarter of those with long COVID changed their employment status or working hours. That means long COVID was serious enough to interfere with work for 4 million people. For many, the issue was serious enough to qualify them as disabled.
Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found in a just-released study that the number of individuals with disabilities in the U.S. grew by 1.7 million. That growth stemmed mainly from long COVID conditions such as fatigue and brain fog, meaning difficulties with concentration or memory, with 1.3 million people reporting an increase in brain fog since mid-2020.
Many had to drop out of the labor force due to long COVID. Yet, about 900,000 people who are newly disabled have managed to continue working. Without remote work, they might have lost these jobs.
For example, a software engineer at one of my client companies has struggled with brain fog related to long COVID. With remote work, this employee can work during the hours when she feels most mentally alert and focused, even if that means short bursts of productivity throughout the day. With flexible scheduling, she can take rests, meditate, or engage in activities that help her regain focus and energy. Without the need to commute to the office, she can save energy and time and reduce stress, which is crucial when dealing with brain fog.
In fact, the author of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study notes that long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disability Act, depending on the specifics of the condition. That means the law can require private employers with fifteen or more staff, as well as government agencies, to make reasonable accommodations for those with long COVID. Richard Deitz, the author of this study, writes in the paper that “telework and flexible scheduling are two accommodations that can be particularly beneficial for workers dealing with fatigue and brain fog.”
The current drive to return to the office, led by many C-suite executives, may need to be reconsidered in light of legal and HR considerations. Arlene S. Kanter, director of the disability law and policy program at the Syracuse University College of Law, said that the question should depend on whether people with disabilities can perform their work well at home, as they did during Covid outbreaks. “[T]hen people with disabilities, as a matter of accommodation, shouldn’t be denied that right,” Kanter said.
Diversity benefits
But companies shouldn’t need to worry about legal regulations. It simply makes dollars and sense to expand their talent pool by 15% of an underrepresented minority. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance.
Companies that are offering more flexible work options have already gained significant benefits in terms of diverse hires. In its efforts to adapt to the post-pandemic environment, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, decided to offer permanent fully remote work options to its entire workforce. And according to Meta chief diversity officer Maxine Williams, the candidates who accepted job offers for remote positions were “substantially more likely” to come from diverse communities: people with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native, Native American, veterans, and women. The numbers bear out these claims: people with disabilities increased from 4.7 to 6.2 percent of Meta’s employees.
Unfortunately, many leaders fail to see the benefits of remote work for underrepresented groups, such as those with disabilities. Some even say the opposite is true, with JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon claiming that returning to the office will aid diversity.
Having consulted for 21 companies to help them transition to hybrid work arrangements, I can confirm that Meta’s numbers aren’t a fluke. The more my clients proved willing to offer remote work, the more staff with disabilities they recruited - and retained. That includes employees with mobility challenges. But it also includes employees with less visible disabilities, such as people with long COVID and immunocompromised people who feel reluctant to put themselves at risk of getting COVID by coming into the office.
Unfortunately, many leaders fail to see the benefits of remote work for underrepresented groups, such as those with disabilities. Some even say the opposite is true, with JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon claiming that returning to the office will aid diversity.
What explains this poor executive decision making? Part of the answer comes from a mental blindspot called the in-group bias. Our minds tend to favor and pay attention to the concerns of those in the group of people who seem to look and think like us. Dimon and other executives without disabilities don’t perceive people with disabilities to be part of their in-group. They thus are blind to the concerns of those with disabilities, which leads to misperceptions such as Dimon’s that returning to the office will aid diversity.
In-group bias is one of many dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases. They impact decision making in all life areas, ranging from the future of work to relationships.
Another relevant cognitive bias is the empathy gap. This term refers to our difficulty empathizing with those outside of our in-group. The lack of empathy combines with the blindness from the in-group bias, causing executives to ignore the feelings of employees with disabilities and prospective hires.
Omission bias also plays a role. This dangerous judgment error causes us to perceive failure to act as less problematic than acting. Consequently, executives perceive a failure to support the needs of those with disabilities as a minor matter.
Conclusion
The failure to empower people with disabilities through remote work options will prove costly to the bottom lines of companies. Not only are limiting their talent pool by 15 percent, they’re harming their ability to recruit and retain diverse candidates. And as their lawyers and HR departments will tell them, by violating the ADA, they are putting themselves in legal jeopardy.
By contrast, companies like Meta - and my clients - that offer remote work opportunities are seizing a competitive advantage by recruiting these underrepresented candidates. They’re lowering costs of labor while increasing diversity. The future belongs to the savvy companies that offer the flexibility that people with disabilities need.
In this week's Friday Five, attending sports events is linked to greater life satisfaction, AI can identify specific brain tumors in under 90 seconds, LSD - minus hallucinations - raises hopes for mental health, new research on the benefits of cold showers, and inspiring awe in your kids leads to behavior change.
The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.
This episode includes an interview with Dr. Helen Keyes, Head of the School of Psychology and Sports Science at Anglia Ruskin University.
Listen on Apple | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Stitcher | Listen on Amazon | Listen on Google
- Attending sports events is linked to greater life satisfaction
- Identifying specific brain tumors in under 90 seconds with AI
- LSD - minus hallucinations - raises hopes for mental health
- New research on the benefits of cold showers
- Inspire awe in your kids and reap the benefits
Matt Fuchs is the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org and Making Sense of Science. He is also a contributing reporter to the Washington Post and has written for the New York Times, Time Magazine, WIRED and the Washington Post Magazine, among other outlets. Follow him @fuchswriter.
The rise of remote work is a win-win for people with disabilities and employers