Bandwagoning

Abstract

COVID‐19 has caused a “Hunger Games” like run for emergency funding that risks detracting away from other diseases that ravage humanity.

Ibecame interested in studying bacteria because I find them fascinating and because research on bacteria does have an added bonus by, directly or indirectly, affecting human health. Nearly 30 years after I did my first experiment, the concept of wanting to help others seems almost trite given the joy of science is in breaking down biological systems into their fundamental parts in order to understand how they work. I study Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes the disease tuberculosis (TB). It is the deadliest pathogen on the planet and has been plaguing humans for millennia despite all our efforts to fight it. In addition to M. tuberculosis, there are many other pathogens that have become resistant to front‐line drugs or are recalcitrant to vaccine development. Given that it will take many laboratories and years of steady and patient research to battle these bacterial menaces, I have always been puzzled by academic scientists who quickly abandon their primary research projects to jump on studying the disease du jour without any prior interest or experience. The current ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic that has paralyzed life as we know it is such a case.

The disease is caused by the coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2, which produces a wide range of manifestations in humans from no symptoms at all to severe respiratory failure and death. Quite likely, there will be various sequelae associated with COVID‐19 for years to come, but what is needed right now are fast and reliable diagnostic tests, drugs to treat the severe side effects, and a vaccine. Fortunately, many scientists have essential experience and facilities to contribute to fighting the viral pandemic. For example, institutions with biosafety level 3 laboratories are now analyzing the pathogenicity of the virus using animal models of infection. Others are testing existing and new compounds as possible treatment options or contribute their unique expertise to vaccine development. Other laboratories have developed specific technologies that can improve the diagnostic testing or delivery of potential vaccines. All of these efforts are welcome efforts to address the global COVID‐19 pandemic.

What has been frustrating are those scientists who are making a “Hunger Games”‐like run for a cornucopia of emergency funding for SARS‐CoV‐2 research or reporting minimal publishable units of data as long as it is somehow related to the virus. Even more disheartening is that many of these scientists have never expressed an interest in infectious diseases, let alone virology. I refer to these researchers as “bandwagoners”. They jump on the bandwagon of COVID‐19 in order to get grants or high‐profile journal articles irrespective of whether or not their data will make an obvious or immediate impact on human health. Many bandwagoners have technological hammers in need of nails, so why not hit SARS‐CoV‐2? As a result, various papers have been retracted, and even high‐impact journals, despite presumed vigorous peer review, have not been spared (for a more thorough scorching of this topic, I urge the reader to read Frank Gannon's column: Gannon, 2020). Of course, it is the prerogative of laboratories to do as they see fit, and there are surely many laboratories who have a pure, genuine curiosity on studying SARS‐CoV‐2, but do government funding agencies need to support it right now? Should high‐impact factor journals accept submissions, just because they are about SARS‐CoV‐2? Reader, I think you know the answer.

In the USA, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has steadily funded scientists to study deadly and not‐so‐deadly microbes for decades. During extraordinary times such as now, millions if not billions of tax dollars are funneled into emergency causes, but at what cost to other research? While the world looks at COVID‐19, diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and TB continue to ravage humanity and might even be on the rise owing to lockdowns that prevent timely testing and treatment.

I was therefore heartened to see that the NIAID put an end date for research proposals related to COVID‐19. I am also relieved that there was no call (yet) for building new Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) on COVID‐19 akin to the monumental waste of funding after the attacks on September 11, 2001. Perhaps the lesson was learned that building new centers, rather than funding existing laboratories, was not the best use of tax dollars or the available intellect in place—although one could argue the RCE provided facilities for studying future pandemics. My hope is that the majority of government and private funding support immediate and relevant efforts to improve testing, treatment, and vaccine development and that journals push back on public pressure to report sub‐par research. In the age of preprint servers, the excuse to quickly publish potentially clinically relevant data in peer‐reviewed journals no longer exists.

I hope the NIH will continue to fund epidemiologists such as Ralph Baric, who has been steadily publishing papers in less “flashy” journals, warning us for years of the pandemic potential of coronaviruses. Where would we be now without virologists such as Christian Drosten who kept working on coronaviruses and developed the diagnostic tests that now help to curtail the pandemic? And should we divert funding away from studying harmless microorganisms like E. coli or Saccharomyces cerevisiae just because they are not pathogens? I would strongly disagree: All areas of basic science contribute to our understanding of fundamental processes in all living organisms. The more we understand about biology, the better we are equipped to meet sudden public health challenges such as the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic. After all, if it were not for the “fundamentalists”, where would the translational science be? I, for one, will continue to work on my favorite system M. tuberculosis, and hope that others, too, will continue to work on their passion projects rather than jumping on whatever bandwagon comes along.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

EMBO Reports (2020) 21: e51765