I have tought long and hard these days about science and COVID. The news of Mauro Ferrari resignation(ERC president for 4months) have now pushed me over the edge. He wanted to switch ERC from bottom-up to top down and devote all funding to COVID. I completely disagree 1/n

Why? Because I am already seeing a massive rise of scientific opportunists. Brilliant scientific minds that are now conviced they have necessarly something to say about COVID. I am a cancer researcher, I am NOT an expert virologist/epidemilogist/modeller. 2/n

I have accumulated experience in genomics/epigenomics and breast cancer for 20 years. At the same time, better scientists than myself have done the same in relevant COVID fields. I'm here to help them if they need a sounding board but I am not here to jump on their funding 3/n

You divert 2Billions in COVID research and what would happen? Every half baked scientist will flood the gate, wasting time and resources. "I can apply my expertise to this". Wrong! There are experts already. Put them in the best condition possible to work! But remember this: 4/n

Just because COVID is the most urgent need, that does not mean people have stopped dying from other diseases. Cancer still kills ~150K/yr in UK. Once COVID is over, these problems will still be there. Diverting scientists attention= gap in research for all other open issues 5/n

COVID is a challenging paradigm, but in my humble opinion, it does not need EVERY freaking scientist on the planet. Coordinate a global vaccine, test, response effort (like Human Genome/TCGA) and don't kill all other research! It's not worth it. Get the best, support them well6/n

and stop giving reasons to jump on this COVID bandwagon to every opportunists out there. There is a lot of essential science that still need us. Antibiotic resistance and Global warming are 1000X worst that COVID if you haven't noticed yet. End of rant.