Today we talk to Dr. Ya'el Courtney, PhD.

Dr. Courtney is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, She currently studies why some people are vulnerable to long-term disorders like long COVID. We discuss her unconventional path towards a career in science and how she switched from studying neuroscience to immunology. We also explain what indirects are, why they are important, and why trying to cut them to 15% may actually backfire in terms of efficiency. Lastly, we talked about why its hard to know which research projects will turn into huge therapeutic advances and why funding some "silly" sounding projects might actually be really important for finding the next big cure.

All that and more on this episode of Science Amplified.

Today we talk to Dr. Paul Bieniasz, PhD. Dr. Bieniasz is the Purnell W. Choppin Professor Investigator at the Rockefeller University and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

We discuss Dr. Bieniasz's scientific journey, and specifically why he decided to come to the United States to pursue his scientific career. We also discuss how his scientific research shifted during the pandemic from primarily studying HIV biology to also looking at SARS-CoV-2. We talk about why his research on coronaviruses is important for preparing for the next pandemic and why the SARS-CoV-2 became an important tool for virologists to understand how viruses evade antibodies and keep making us sick. We touch on his intuition on the lab leak theory, and his opinions on why the public has lost trust in science and what can be done to get that trust back.

Finally, we talk about the difference between applied and fundamental research, and why reducing scientific funding for fundamental research will impact the US's place at the forefront of scientific advances.