Robert W. Malone
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Robert Wallace Malone is an American virologist and immunologist. His work has focused on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been criticized for promoting misinformation about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines
Early life and education edit
Robert Malone received his BSc in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis in 1984, his MSc in biology from the University of California, San Diego in 1988, and his MD from Northwestern University in 1991. He also attended Harvard Medical School for a year-long postdoctoral studies program
Carrer edit
In the 1980s, while a graduate student researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, Malone conducted studies on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, discovering that it was possible to transfer mRNA protected by a liposome into cultured cells to signal the information needed for the production of proteins.
In 1987, Malone performed a landmark experiment on transfection of RNA into human, rat, mouse, Xenopus, and Drosophila cells.
In the early 1990s, he collaborated with Jon A. Wolff, Dennis A. Carson, and others on a study that first suggested the possibility of synthesizing mRNA in a laboratory to trigger the production of a desired protein. In 1996 he was denied funding by California for developing an mRNA coronavirus vaccine. Malone claims to be the inventor of mRNA vaccines, though credit for the distinction is more often given to later advancements by Katalin Karikó or Derrick Rossi, and was ultimately the result of the contributions of hundreds of researchers, including Malone.
Malone has served as director of clinical affairs for Avancer Group, a member of the scientific advisory board of EpiVax, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore school of medicine, and an adjunct associate professor of biotechnology at Kennesaw State University. He was CEO and co-founder of Atheric Pharmaceutical, which in 2016 was contracted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to assist in the development of a treatment for the Zika virus by evaluating the efficacy of existing drugs. Until 2020, Malone was chief medical officer at Alchem Laboratories, a Florida pharmaceutical company.
COVID-19 edit
In early 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Malone was involved in research into the heartburn medicine famotidine (Pepcid) as a potential COVID-19 treatment following anecdotal evidence suggesting that it may have been associated with higher COVID-19 survival. Malone, then with Alchem Laboratories, suspected famotidine may target an enzyme that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) uses to reproduce, and recruited a computational chemist to help design a 3D-model of the enzyme based on the viral sequence and comparisons to the 2003 SARS virus. After encouraging preliminary results, Alchem Laboratories, in conjunction with New York's Northwell Health, initiated a clinical trial on famotidine and hydroxychloroquine. Malone resigned from Alchem shortly after the trial began and Northwell paused the trial due to a shortage of hospitalized patients.
Malone received criticism for propagating COVID-19 misinformation, including making unsupported claims about the toxicity of spike proteins generated by some COVID-19 vaccines; using interviews on mass media to popularize medication with ivermectin; and tweeting a study by others questioning vaccine safety that was later retracted. He said that LinkedIn temporarily suspended his account over a post stating that the Chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation was also a board member at Pfizer, and other posts questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines. Malone has also claimed that the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19 infections.
With another researcher, Malone successfully proposed to the publishers of Frontiers in Pharmacology a special issue featuring early observational studies on existing medication used in the treatment of COVID-19, for which they recruited other guest editors, contributors, and reviewers. The journal rejected two of the papers selected: one on famotidine co-authored by Malone and another submitted by physician Pierre Kory on the use of ivermectin. The publisher rejected the ivermectin paper due to what it stated were "a series of strong, unsupported claims" which they determined did "not offer an objective nor balanced scientific contribution." Malone and most other guest editors resigned in protest in April 2021, and the special issue has been pulled from the journal's website.
Malone has also been criticized for falsely claiming that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had not granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine in August 2021.
On December 29, 2021, Twitter permanently suspended Malone from its platform, citing "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy".