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, marked what would have been the 100th birthday of Henrietta Lacks, the Black woman whose cervical cancer cells gave rise to the immortal HeLa cell line. HeLa cells have played an extraordinary role in scientific research, underlying multiple Nobel Prize-winning discoveries and enabling medical advances for polio, cancer, Ebola virus disease, sickle cell disease, and countless other conditions. However, the bright biomedical legacy of HeLa cells is tarnished by the injustice of this biospecimen being preserved without the consent of Lacks or her family, whose identity was revealed decades ago. 1 This failure, while permitted by the ethical norms of the time, has affected the Lacks family in profound ways, including limiting the comfort, pride, and satisfaction that comes with knowing a deceased loved one made an important contribution to science. Today's current events provide an opportune time to reflect on the experiences of Lacks and other African Americans in the context of biomedical research, and to look ahead to what can be done to make that future far more just and equitable. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other similar events, the US may have reached an inflection point in challenging systemic racism and a long history of injustices against Black individuals. The research

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After a decade of intensive policy discussions on the topic of dual-use research of concern (DURC) in the life sciences, there has been a lack of consensus on how to practically define DURC; whether it is feasible to identify and regulate DURC experiments; how to address the risks associated with DURC; and how to balance this risk with the necessity of fostering life sciences research for public health and biodefense. The publication of two avian influenza studies has brought the DURC issue back into sharp focus and has resulted in a new set of federal guidelines. However, the new DURC policy raises questions regarding whether this is the best policy solution to a complicated biosecurity concern.

This Viewpoint cites the data collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of unprecedented vaccine results and points to the NIH’s Policy for Data Management and Sharing to foster shared data as a routine part of grant applications.