Key NIH research institute told to remove references to ‘pandemic preparedness’
Staff members at the nation’s premier infectious disease research institute were instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s web pages, emails show. Nature got.
The directive comes as part of a broader shakeup at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centers within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID should deprioritize these two topics as part of an overhaul of its funded research projects, according to four NIAID employees who spoke with Nature on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya explained the restructuring during an event with other senior agency officials on January 30. “It’s a complete transformation of [the NIAID] away from that old model” that historically prioritized HIV research, biodefense and pandemic preparedness, he said. The institute will focus more on basic immunology and other infectious diseases currently affecting the population in the United States, he added, rather than predicting future diseases.
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About a third of NIAID’s $6.6 billion budget currently funds projects involving emerging infectious diseases and biodefense. Research studies pathogens of concern, monitors their spread, and develops medical countermeasures against threats from exposure to radiation, chemicals, and infectious diseases.
Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University in Massachusetts, says the decision to deprioritize these areas will make people in the United States more vulnerable to pathogens that are constantly evolving in wildlife around the world and spreading to human populations, sometimes triggering outbreaks. “Just because we say we’re going to stop worrying about these problems doesn’t mean these problems go away — it just makes us less prepared,” she says.
A spokesperson for NIH, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical science, based in Bethesda, Maryland, says: “NIAID’s new vision focuses more on the interconnected pillars of infectious diseases and immunology, expanding research opportunities that address the most pressing challenges to the health of Americans today.” » The spokesperson refused to respond to Naturequestions about the agency’s specific plans to restructure the institute.
Political heat
NIAID is currently under the leadership of Acting Director Jeffery Taubenberger, after its former director, infectious disease physician Jeanne Marrazzo, was fired by US President Donald Trump’s administration after less than two years in office. His predecessor, Anthony Fauci, held the position for 38 years.
Fauci and the institute have come under scrutiny from Trump and other Republican politicians because of public health measures used during the COVID-19 pandemic — such as lockdowns and school closures — which they say have led to a loss of trust in the nation’s health agencies. (During the pandemic, Fauci has offered recommendations on how to prevent the spread of the virus, but neither Fauci nor the NIAID have set policy on public health measures.)
To restore confidence, Bhattacharya, Taubenberger and Taubenberger’s senior advisor, John Powers, presented a “new vision” for the institute in a commentary published in Natural medicine on January 16.
“NIAID’s work clearly neither prevented the pandemic nor prevented Americans from experiencing some of the highest levels of excess mortality from all causes in the developed world during this period,” they wrote. “Given the increasing prevalence of allergic and autoimmune diseases and the population burden of common infections over the past several decades, NIAID must focus research on these conditions with a greater sense of urgency.”
New direction
The instructions given to agency staff members to rename the institute’s language are only the first step toward implementing this new vision, according to NIAID employees. NIH Principal Deputy Director Matthew Memoli has ordered other changes, including revising the portfolio of grants funding biodefense and pandemic preparedness, in the coming weeks and months, they say.
If funds are allocated to other topics, “that’s a very big problem,” Bhadelia says. Few other U.S. agencies have the budget or infrastructure to fund basic research on these topics, says Gigi Gronvall, a biosafety specialist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
Taubenberger hinted at the Jan. 30 event that a reassignment was coming. “To better prepare for the future [we need to] “It is better to face what we are facing today,” he said. “Perhaps a better way to look at it is ‘prepare people.’ One way for people to prepare is to be healthier, eat better and exercise, so you are less likely to get sick or have poor outcomes,” Powers added.
This priority is important, says Bhadelia, but “the new vision is remarkable not for what is included, but for what is excluded. It almost paints a picture of ‘one or the other.’ In reality, these things interact with each other. For example, people with chronic illnesses are at greater risk in a pandemic, she says.
Gronvall adds that this approach is “full of hubris”. “We know that there are groups of viruses that are more likely to cause disease, epidemics and pandemics,” she says. So it makes sense to study them. For example, Bhadelia adds, early NIAID-funded basic research helped develop COVID-19 vaccines in record time, which “allowed us to reduce mortality” from the pandemic.
The restructuring is also expected to target NIAID’s division focused on HIV/AIDS research, which oversees a $1.5 billion portfolio of projects developing treatments and vaccines against the virus. The division’s 33 branches will likely be consolidated, an NIAID employee said. Nature. But it’s unclear whether the total number of projects or the amount of money distributed by the division will be impacted, the employee adds.
Nearly 20% of the NIH’s 21,000 workforce in 2024 have been laid off or left voluntarily since Trump took office last January. The NIH spokesperson declined to say whether there would be other layoffs of NIAID staff members as part of the restructuring. “Everyone is worried about what happens next,” says an employee of the institute.
This article is reproduced with permission and has been published for the first time February 13, 2026.
