Laurel A. Coons, PhD

A scientist with a background in genomics and biomedical research.

10 articles on KevinMD · Listed in Experts by KevinMD

About

Laurel A. Coons is a scientist with a background in genomics and biomedical research. She completed her doctoral training in pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University and conducted research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Her work has focused on genomic regulation, endocrine signaling, and translating complex scientific data into insights relevant to medicine and patient care.

She shares professional updates on X at laurelcoons.

Latest articles

Health policy

What a baby’s gene therapy owes to curiosity-driven research

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

October 14, 2026Oct 14, 2026

Some research starts with an obvious destination: a disease to treat, a test to build, a technology to improve. Other research begins much earlier, with a question about how nature works and no clear application in sight. The difference can make the first kind of research seem more useful and the second more difficult to justify. But by the time a scientific problem has a recognizable clinical or technological solution, …

Conditions and diseases

Lethal injection and pulmonary edema: a lesson for the ICU

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

October 7, 2026Oct 7, 2026

Before Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Gail Pike on September 30, 2026, she wrote something that captured an important distinction between death and dying. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of nineteen-year-old Colleen Slemmer, wrote, “I am not afraid to die. I am only nervous about the process.” What made her nervous was not the fact of death itself, but what she might consciously experience …

Conditions and diseases

Regulatory T cell reprogramming heads to trial in 2026

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

August 29, 2026Aug 29, 2026

Most people have heard of cancer immunotherapy by now. These treatments help a patient's own immune system recognize and attack cancer. The best-known examples are immune checkpoint inhibitors such as pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo). These drugs release certain "brakes"…

Most people have heard of cancer immunotherapy by now. These treatments help a patient’s own immune system recognize and attack cancer. The best-known examples are immune checkpoint inhibitors such as pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo). These drugs release certain “brakes” that normally keep the immune system from becoming overactive. Another approach, called CAR-T therapy, is more involved. Doctors remove some of a patient’s T cells, a type of white blood …

Conditions and diseases

The limits of psychiatric diagnosis require honesty

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

Imagine practicing oncology without pathology. No biopsy, no receptor status, no molecular profiling, no circulating tumor DNA, no tissue specimen that can be reexamined later. Instead, the physician asks a series of questions, observes the patient, determines whether enough findings have persisted long enough, and assigns a diagnosis. Modern oncology would consider such a system radically incomplete. Something resembling it remains ordinary practice across much of psychiatry.

This is not a …

Conditions and diseases

What Lindsey Graham’s death reveals about aortic dissection

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

July 16, 2026Jul 16, 2026

Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday, July 11, at his home in Washington, D.C., at 71. Emergency responders had been called to his home for a cardiac arrest. His office initially described only a “brief and sudden illness”; the next day it released preliminary findings from the District’s chief medical examiner: aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Nothing in the public reporting suggests Graham’s care was delayed or that anyone …

Conditions and diseases

Recording medical visits is your legal right

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

June 11, 2026Jun 11, 2026

Patients are not guests in their own medical care. Their bodies are examined, their symptoms interpreted, their diagnoses explained, their treatment risks discussed, their consent sought, and their lives affected by the plan that follows. Yet when patients try to lawfully document those care conversations, they are too often treated as if they are doing something improper. They are told they are “not allowed” to record. They are told it …

Conditions and diseases

Prenatal testing for Down syndrome is not a verdict

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

June 7, 2026Jun 7, 2026

Recently, a popular YouTuber and his wife shared a deeply personal and painful decision with their large online audience. After announcing their pregnancy earlier in 2026, routine screening tests indicated a high likelihood that their baby had Down syndrome, also known as Trisomy 21. They reportedly followed up with amniocentesis, a diagnostic test that confirmed the diagnosis. In an emotional video, they reacted to the results live on camera, clearly …

Conditions and diseases

When difficulty swallowing pills looks like noncompliance

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

June 4, 2026Jun 4, 2026

An older patient tells the health care team that swallowing medications is difficult. Pills get stuck in the throat. Some trigger gagging. Others are skipped altogether because taking them has become an ordeal. The concern is documented, the difficulty is acknowledged, and in some cases, a swallowing assessment is even performed. Yet the prescription remains unchanged.

Weeks later, the patient has missed doses or stopped the medication altogether. The medical record …

Conditions and diseases

IVF insurance coverage depends on your ZIP code

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

April 22, 2026Apr 22, 2026

Two patients can have the same infertility diagnosis, need the same treatment, and see the same specialist. Yet one may move forward with insurance coverage while the other is left staring at a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. In the United States, that difference is often not medical. It is geography. As a biomedical scientist, I’ve seen how evidence should guide care. Yet for infertility, your ZIP code …

Health policy

Evaluating the credibility of major medical journals today

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

April 20, 2026Apr 20, 2026

In recent months, a heated debate has emerged about the credibility of major medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet. Critics, including United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior, have argued that these journals are compromised by pharmaceutical industry influence and therefore cannot be trusted. At first glance, the claim may sound extreme. …