The COVID-19 Pandemic has Shown that (Basic) Science Does Work
By Brandon McMurtry
If the US is ever going to beat the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be because of an underfunded and underappreciated field of study: the basic sciences, a field focused on fundamental properties of the universe, often without a specific commercial application in mind.
But the basic sciences are in peril. In the US the basic sciences are significantly underfunded compared to the applied and developmental sciences — fields that use basic science discoveries for the production of new or better products, services and methods. The US government allots four times more funding to applied and developmental research than basic science research.
This discrepancy is fueled by an applications-driven approach to discovery. The public takes notice of the faster cell phones, the more effective cancer drug, the higher efficiency solar cell. What the public does not notice are the countless studies on the reactivity of the specific chemicals that facilitate those technological advancements.
Across history, research in the basic sciences has laid the foundation for our understanding of the world around us. Moreover, many of these discoveries have been essential in building the modern world we live in. For instance, the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thompson, originally just an academic exercise, allowed for the invention of everything from microwaves to high speed computers. More broadly, this form of science has produced some of the most important developments in society’s understanding of the world: Curie’s discovery of radioactivity and Galileo’s confirmation that the planets orbit the sun — just to name a couple.
Lack of appreciation for the basic science underlying technological advancements would be innocuous if not for efforts to remove funding from science in general. Since 1976, federal funding for research and development as a percentage of the US’s GDP has fallen by nearly half. In an environment where science funding is increasingly scarce, programs lacking public support are sure to be the first to suffer.
Despite these obstacles, basic science has provided some of the most important developments in the race to understand COVID-19.
Since the beginning of 2020, over 100,000 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals (the gold standard for reporting scientific findings) with another 26,000 published by preprint services. The vast majority of these studies have focused on the basic science of COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it: its structure, its impacts on the body, how it moves through air, and more.
The global push to understand COVID-19 has been a herculean effort. It has required hard work, dedication, and efficiency from individuals at all levels of the scientific spectrum. None of this would have been possible without a vast infrastructure of researchers dedicated to studying the basic science of viruses exactly like the coronavirus causing COVID-19. Indeed, basic science’s determination of the genome sequence for the COVID-19 coronavirus has laid the foundation for all attempts at a vaccine.
In all likelihood, the end to the pandemic will be governed by the research of these basic science laboratories. A microcosm for the incalculable importance of basic science in solving the world’s worst calamities. However, for scientists to continue innovating, our society must increase funding and public support for the basic scientists.
Opponents of such measures will argue that the allocation of money toward basic science is wasteful and often does not lead to real-world applications.
However, this view largely ignores the importance of knowledge gained from basic science in medical, technological, and public health advancements.
Over the next several years our lives will be dictated by science’s ability to produce a vaccine for COVID-19. This will only happen with support for the groundbreaking work done by basic scientists all around the globe.
This pandemic has shown that funding the basic sciences is more than an academic exercise, it is a matter of life and death.
Brandon M. McMurtry is a PhD candidate in Chemistry at Columbia University in New York, NY.
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