The importance of funding infectious disease research

Researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health collaborate with scientists around the country and around the world. Sarah Fortune, chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, says that each link in this web of research is important to forwarding scientific advancement and finding new ways to battle diseases from tuberculosis to Parkinson’s.

This research requires investment, says Fortune.

Fortune lost her own brother to a rare form of cancer called Wilms tumor. Now, 90% of children survive Wilms tumor. Fortune credits Richard Nixon’s cancer moonshot, launched over 50 years ago, with innovations in cancer treatment that are now saving lives.

“That is the promise of science,” Fortune says. “The promise of science now needs to reach into chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. That’s going to take time, but we have the capacity to do it.”