House passes bill that would end most U.S.-China academic research collaborations

Last week, Cell published a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute and Chinese universities who analyzed 90 datasets from 8,575 tumors to identify new cancer immunotherapy targets. The collaboration that made the work possible — and hundreds of other U.S.-China partnerships that have advanced scientific frontiers — would be barred under legislation passed Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act (SAFE Research Act) would prohibit federal funding, including NIH grants, for researchers who collaborate with institutions deemed “hostile foreign entities.” ...