Across UC Berkeley, scientists are warning of the dire consequences of federal budget cuts. These fears are felt particularly acutely by zoonotic researchers \u2014 those studying infectious diseases that cross between humans and animals. This area of research gained urgency and notoriety after a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, originally carried by horseshoe bats) caused millions of deaths worldwide.<\/p>\n
Through their fieldwork, zoonotic researchers occasionally discover novel viruses, putting them on the frontline of emerging health threats. Nobody wants another pandemic, but the connections between zoonotic diseases and vaccines, poverty, conservation, and foreign aid have made it more difficult for researchers to get their federal grants approved or renewed over the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s an interesting time to be a virologist,\u201d said Molly Ohainle, who studies HIV. \u201cMany of us got into this business because we want to help people. Having just lived through the SARS\u2011CoV\u20112 pandemic, this idea that all of a sudden a virus can come into our lives and completely upend us feels very raw for many people, myself included.\u201d<\/p>\n
An HIV vaccine has eluded researchers for decades. It takes an enormous, collaborative effort to create life-saving vaccines. Even when vaccines are developed, pathogens can evolve to override our defenses. Many people receive annual booster shots for COVID-19 and influenza, for example.<\/p>\n
While the HIV pandemic was the result of a single cross-species transmission from many years ago, related viruses have jumped between species and into humans multiple times. All these mutations and spillover events can feel like a game of whack-a-mole with dire consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a huge array of viruses in the world,\u201d said Ohainle. \u201cWe’re interacting with these viruses more often than we appreciate. It’s really rare that zoonotic transfers actually take off. It’s virtually impossible to predict. It’s important to figure out how to deal with it when it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across UC Berkeley, scientists are warning of the dire consequences of federal budget cuts. These fears are felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-156772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}