After COVID-19 We Will Need a New Research System. We Need To Start Planning Now.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal orof ASM. The world after COVID-19 will be significantly different than the one we thought we knew so well only months ago. Only one thing is clear to us about the post-COVID-19 future, the scientific research system will change and we must start planning for that change now. COVID-19 has revealed a biomedical research enterprise at once powerful and yet remarkably vulnerable. On one hand, drawing from a bedrock of coronavirus research, in practically no time the enterprise has registered well over 300 interventional clinical trials and over 100 vaccine trials. Thanks to vaccine platform technology, we have seen the fastest first in human test for a vaccine ever and preliminary results from two Phase III clinical trials, concluded in record time, indicate extremely encouraging results. On the other, this novel, highly contagious virus has made a mockery of advanced scientific countries around the world with its unpredictability and atypical outcomes in different human populations. So far, the most effective strategy has been to wear a mask, “stay home and wash your hands frequently.” This is essentially the same advice our grandmothers, who survived the 1918 pandemic flu, used to give us all the time. However this pandemic plays out, we think that the scientific ecology that once supported the “old” research system will be vastly different afterward. We do not mean merely the scientific knowledge we gain about pandemics or even the field of microbiology, but the whole niche in our society where basic and applied research has flourished for decades. Funding, education, institutional stability, government policy, international cooperation, …