ACE2 Elevation in Severe COVID-19

Abstract

in teams to support the development of our emerging scientists are essential to their success. Supporting an interdisciplinary environment with team science and mentorship will require that we realign our culture, values, infrastructure, and investments to reward and promote collaborative accomplishments. Second, we need to invent ways to revitalize chance interactions and support social networking. Virtual scientific conferences should freely include mentoring and networking sessions, and after a period of time, these conferences should be made universally accessible. However, we need to advance novel approaches to stimulate spontaneity in our professional lives. Third, we need to recognize that additional responsibilities at home represent key drivers that not only limit career development but force some of our colleagues to leave medicine and science. Programs addressing childcare, home schooling, cleaning services, and eldercare are needed to restore balance to home and work. We also need to think more creatively about flexible work expectations and more broadly about work environments and support a culture in which both men and women are accepted as caregivers. Fourth, we need to recognize that these additional responsibilities and competing priorities, along with isolation and loneliness, take an emotional toll. Consequently, although wellness programs are essential, work environments should foster trust, inclusion and equity, and career development and provide dedicated mentorship (1). Fifth, funding agencies are critical to reinvestment in our scientists. Although extending deadlines for grant submission, relaxing recruitment milestones, and expanding the scope of no-cost extensions have proved helpful, funding agencies should also consider developing programs to give scientists back the time lost toCOVID-19. Emerging scientists would benefit from fully funded extensions of mentored research and early career development awards. The NIH can establish programs, similar in impact to theDoctorDraft for theKorean andVietnamWars, thatwould reinvigorate the pool of physician-scientists. Expanded support for trainees and emerging scientists should be considered, focusing on transition points in career development and programs that stimulate collaboration between M.D. and Ph.D. scientists (9). Sixth, AMCs and philanthropic foundations should recognize that their financial reserves were established to provide support in times of need. Investments should be focused on our scientists who are torn between their careers and their families, and those who need to make up for time lost to the pandemic. Start-up packages should be extended, investments should be made in infrastructure to stimulate programmatic research, and early career scientists should be provided additional time to reach their scientific goals. Finally, there is the larger problem of how science is valued by our nation, which, despite the current economic travails brought about by the pandemic, is wealthy. Congress must now face up to the sad lessons learned from the ways science has been pushed aside in the pandemic by political leaders and substantially increase the federal research budget. It is time to go big.