Trump’s war against science beats her cancer research

It’s really a day to celebrate. Miriam Merad sits finely dressed in an armchair behind the stage at the Karolinska Institute’s auditorium and talks about the cells she spent decades.

In a couple of hours she will stand in front of the audience and receive the Sjöberg Prize of a million dollars. She will tell you that her team is close now. On the way to gentle treatment for cancer tumors.

But Miriam Merad is angry.

– We’re on the verge of huge breakthroughs, instead we’re wasting our time at thisshe says with a razor blade sharpness in her voice.

« This » is the cuts and restrictions that have affected the American science community since the change of government. It like some begun to resemble at a war against science.

The efficiency machinery, Dogge, which Elon Musk leads, wants with the motto of the tech industry – « Move Fast and Break Things » – dismantle the country’s research institute. This includes huge cuts at the National Institute of Health, NIH, which is the world’s largest financier of biomedical research.

Miriam Merad Uses words « brutal », « chaotic » and « amateurish » when she describes what happens at NIH. She may be in Sweden to talk a cure for cancer, but at the same time wants to tell what is happening at home.

– How could I avoid? It is important that we researchers raise voice to protect science, she says.

– The cancer treatments were so limited, a cancer with metastases was a death sentence. It was awful to be a doctor in a field where all your patients died, says Miriam Merad, today professor of cancer immunology at the University Hospital Mount Sinai in New York.

After training To the oncologist in Algeria and France, she began her research career at Stanford University (in the middle of the silicon Valley to which she is now being raised) and caught her eye for the body’s immune system.

– When you have the flu, the immune system kills the sick cells and leaves the others alone, says Miriam Merad.

« Our immune system has been developed to fight infections, if you believe in evolution – but we must no longer do that in the United States. »

Fighting cancer is much more brutal. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy beating broadly and hard on patients. These are treatments that save lives, but at a high price.

– The dream is to say to our own immune system: kill the cancer cells and leave the others alone. It has been developed to fight infections, if you believe in evolution – with that we must no longer do in the United States.

Sarcasm is one of many that Miriam Mir tabs in. She returns to how the scientific community in the United States is now rocking. State research institutes are slimmed, staff are fired and research related to vaccines, gender and ethnicity are stopped.

The worst battle perhaps Against drug development is the dismantling of NIH – of the 356 new drugs approved in the United States during the last decade built 354 on research that received grants from NIH.

– It is an extraordinary organization. See how many of the Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine working in the United States, which is because we have a unique system, says Miriam Merad.

NIH’s signum is a big grant that gives money for many years, so that established researchers can devote themselves to research instead of constantly demanding money.

Since the change of government, the authority has been paralyzed. Personnel are kicked right and left, while hundreds of grants granted have been withdrawn – and some new ones are not currently divided.

In addition, Elon Musk and Dogge want to strongly limit NIH’s contribution to what is called indirect costs. Silicon Valley loves to cut unnecessary expenses, but research does not work as a company.

For Miriam Merad, the indirect costs include the management of laboratory animals and a large part of the costs of conducting clinical studies. Things that are absolutely necessary for a treatment to go from lab to finished drugs.

– We have ended up in a situation where people who are not researchers decide what it takes to be able to conduct our research, says Miriam Merad.

« We could cure cancer … But here we are, » it says on the poster that gleams in the sun. A young woman in a black sweater with the pressure « Save Nih » on her chest extends the sign high in the cold air in Washington Square Park in Manhattan.

The seventh March takes Researchers around the United States to the streets to protest against the cuts. One of Miriam Merad’s colleagues has made a sign with the text « No science, no cure » that the staff from the lab takes turns to hold.

-Today we stand up for science, says Nobel Laureate Harold E. Vamus from the stage where he is joined by AI-Guru Yann Lecunn.

Miriam Merad is pleased with the support; To see young and old, researchers and the general public stand side by side and say.

At the same time, she is frustrated. It’s Friday afternoon and she should sit in the lab and analyze data.

– We are so close, not just new cancer treatments, we have had so many exceptional breakthroughs in the lab. It is terrible that we have to waste our time protesting instead, she says.

The cells that Miriam Merads devote their professional life is called macrophages, part of our innate immune system. In experiments on mice and humans, her research group has shown that it is possible to manipulate the macrophages so that they attack cancer tumors. They stop growing or even decreases in size, without chemotherapy or the side effects of radiation therapy.

– We are close to a drug, we have found the key. I think I will see it happen during my lifetime. If we can only continue to work undisturbed, says Miriam Merad.

But without funding From NIH, it will be difficult to afford the clinical studies required to take treatment to the care.

« We are sending an SOS signal with a clear warning: the country’s scientific activities are being decimated, » says a line in a letter as Miriam Merad and 1,900 other researchers from the US national academies have signed.

They warn that the government’s cuts can risk the lives of Americans if medical research is stopped.

– They prevent new drugs, which could help them if they get sick. What is the point of being rich if you can’t be healthy?, Asks Miram Merad.

Miriam Merat also worries over an American Brain drain. It is institutions like NIH that have attracted researchers to the United States – now the government wants to dismantle them.

– Researchers are like elite athletes, they go where the money is, she comments.

Her colleagues in the lab is already discussing to apply to Europe, and in a reader survey from the magazine Nature Seems the same tendency. Of 1,600 researchers, three -quarters responded that they are considering leaving the country because of Trump.

Miriam Miria himself wants to stay and continue his work. She has a responsibility, she says.

But the future in the United States is uncertain. There is concern about funding, for research freedom, and for skepticism about science to gain even stronger attachment.

– Some day I might end up here at Karolinska instead, says Miriam Merad.

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