* One of the issues raised by the Patriots is that Wells law firm has close ties to the NFL and therefore his report is something other than unbiased. As another part of their response, the Patriots offered a rebuttal of the science cited in the Wells Report via Professor Roderick MacKinnon, a 2003 Nobel laureate in chemistry.
* Without getting overly academic, MacKinnon refuted the science as it was laid out in the Wells Report as it pertained to deflation of footballs in weather, and the Patriots described MacKinnon as someone with no business or personal relationship with the Patriots who offered his scientific expertise to the team once news of the investigation went public.
* Noah Gray of Nature magazine subsequently wrote that MacKinnon actually is the scientific co-founder and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of a company called Flex Pharma that counts The Kraft Group among its investors.
