A front runner in the Argentina election vows to cut science funding

Javier Milei: Why science matters when you can’t lose a student in Argentina. And what does science need for the next presidency of the United States?

To win October’s election, a candidate must capture more than 45% of the vote, or at least 40% of it while being 10 percentage points ahead of the runner-up. Any other result will send the election into a second round, to be held on 19 November, which will pit the top two candidates from round one against one another.

“No government can afford to destroy science,” says Carlos Frasch, a molecular and cell biologist now retired from a CONICET-funded institute that is part of the National University of San Martín. Frasch points out a number of scientific achievements in Argentina, including a COVID-19 vaccine that is in late-stage testing and a strong nuclear-power sector. He says that brilliant young people shouldn’t be lost by emigration, given the number of brilliant young people working in the country.

If Milei becomes president, say sources who spoke to Nature, researchers will leave the country to seek jobs. Aliaga says they will be able to make a living elsewhere because of their talent. Losing scientists is a problem for the country.

According to Milei, the 30 years of basic research that preceded these treatments were a waste of state and people money. I have never heard a politician in Argentina propose such extreme ideas, even after 60 years as a seismologist. Milei’s words have become a daily subject of private and open discussions in the lunch rooms, classrooms and hallways of academic institutions. Many students are thinking of going to school abroad.

Argentina goes to the polls on 22 October to elect a new president. There is a very real chance that the far-right libertarian Party candidate, Javier Milei, could be the next President of the United States.

During the presidential primary elections in August, Milei’s party won 30% of the vote, whereas the party of Patricia Bullrich, a conservative candidate and former security minister, received 28%. The party of current economic minister Sergio Massa, who has more centrist views, received 27%. (Serving President Alberto Fernández is stepping down; he has lost the support of his party after missteps during his administration.)

Developing a Biotechnology Company for Monoclonal Antimicrobial Resistance to Cancer and Immunological Diseases in Buenos Aires

“Science is not an artistic hobby for our society, but a way to end poverty and finally develop the country,” says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires. “It must be a priority”.

It was the knowledge developed by CONICET and the national universities of Argentina that helped progress in the areas of soya beans and wheat seeds. Monoclonal antibiotics are a major treatment for diseases. Just weeks ago, CONICET researchers launched the biotechnology company Galtec in Buenos Aires to produce monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and immunological disease, using an approach that has shown promise in a randomized controlled phase III clinical trial (N. Bannoud et al. Proc. National Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2214350120; 2023).