What will happen with all of the research funding is cut? Where will all the early career researchers go? Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, the director of the Duke Global Health Institute, in Durham, N.C., spoke with Infectious Disease Special Edition about his worries for the next generation in this climate of budget cuts.
This transcription was made with Temi.
Meaghan Lee Callaghan: What do you think you're going do moving forward?
Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH: Well, I'm most concerned about junior colleagues. Someone like myself, I have a senior leadership position here at Duke University. I have an endowed professorship. I'm the Gary Hock Distinguished Professor in Global Infectious Diseases. Those are the kinds of things that allow people who are more senior in our field to weather these kinds of storms. What we're much more concerned about, of course, is people, early stage career investigators, people really just beginning their research careers. People who want, for example, to have a research career and [try to answer] some of the great unanswered questions. We don't have an HIV vaccine. We don't have a functional cure. We have no way of sustainably inducing remission in HIV infection. So, we're still in a place where we essentially have a commitment, although the United States is backing away from that commitment to treat some almost 40 million people worldwide over the next many decades with daily oral therapy. We need a vaccine and we need a cure.
And so, I think those are the two great remaining research areas in the HIV field. And you know, the people who've been at this for a long time, like myself, are an aging cohort. And we really have been, all of us have been engaged in nurturing new talent and getting people into the field. And the NIH funding has been essential to do that. It's been absolutely essential to ensuring that people with fresh ideas and new energy have the resources they need to make the breakthroughs.
