Shelby Bradford, PhD

Shelby Bradford, PhD

Assistant editor at The Scientist

Shelby is an Associate Editor at The Scientist. She earned her PhD in immunology and microbial pathogenesis from West Virginia University, where she studied neonatal responses to vaccination. She completed an AAAS Mass Media Fellowship at StateImpact Pennsylvania, and her writing has also appeared in Massive Science. Shelby participated in the 2023 flagship ComSciCon and volunteered with science outreach programs and Carnegie Science Center during graduate school. 

Articles by Shelby Bradford, PhD

Illustration of a scientist (right) demonstrating to an actor (left, in a white lab coat) how to pipette and explaining something (depicted by a virus and strand of DNA in a text bubble). Behind them is a movie set created to look like a laboratory, with stage lighting above and a film camera pointed at the set from the left side and straight ahead from a camera in the foreground. A director sits in a chair facing the set at the bottom left of the image.

The Guardians of Science in Sci-Fi Movies

Illustration of multiple blue and yellow neurons connected into a complex network.

Exploring New Ways that the Brain Rewires

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A Gene Drive with a Disappearing Act Can Aid Pest Control

3D illustration of blue and yellow ribosomes translating red mRNA into purple polypeptides.

Ribosomes Team Up to Translate Tricky mRNA Segments

3D illustration of a tumor on a black background. The tumor has recruited blood vessels to grow into it from a main artery running at the bottom of the photo. Around the tumor, purple, pink, and blue immune cells try to enter the tumor microenvironment but are stopped.

Inducible CAR T Cells Target Solid Tumors Better

3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

Two people sit across from each other at a desk looking at a computer monitor with a simple data figure. The farther person thinks about multiple more complicated data sets.

Unearthing Stories from the Data Ecosystem

3D illustration of a blue cancer cell secreting tiny blue exosomes. On the right and left, two purple immune cells flank the cancer cell.

An Exosome Protein Sets the Stage for a Cancer Biomarker

Tktk

Phage Proteins Help Improve Drug Delivery

Up close photograph of a red-eyed fruit fly standing on white sugar grains.

A Sweeter Living Space Promoted Bacterial Survival in Flies

Image of a person in a white shirt on a black background holding and activating a white nasal spray bottle to make a plume.

Clearing the Way for Nasal Vaccines

Illustration of a mosquito ingesting blood with bright green circles representing parasites entering its abdomen with the blood. A depiction of a white blood clot with red blood cells makes up the background.

Targeting Mosquito Spit Could Stop Parasites in Their Tracks

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October 2026

Antarctica’s Blood Falls Teems With Mysterious Microbial Life

Miles away from the closest ocean, marine microbes thrive in the red ice and mud around Blood Falls, offering clues to microbial adaptation and past climate events.

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