Salhia Brakhlia goes to meet a woman who exercises an essential profession in society. Michaela Müller-Trutwin is a researcher at the Institut Pasteur. She confides in the microphone of franceinfo.
She decided to dedicate her life to HIV research to finally try to find a way to cure AIDS patients. Michaela Müller-Trutwin is a researcher, director of the virology laboratory at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. “When you are a researcher, you are multitaskingshe explains. You have to be both communicator, go to congresses, you have to do secretarial work, you have to manage your team, you have to look for funding.”
Michaela Müller-Trutwin leads a team of 12 people in her laboratory. She participated in determining the origin of HIV, and in understanding what AIDS causes in patients. But ultimately, can we search for nothing? “If the assembly of the project is badly done, we can end up finding nothingassures the researcher. It never happened to me. I often didn’t find what I was looking for, but I always found something.”
“Investing in research is a luxury”
“Investing in research is a luxuryrecognizes Michaela Müller-Trutwin. Only rich countries can afford it. It’s an investment for the future.” The researcher already sees young French researchers leaving for the United States “where there, they can open large laboratories, they have more means to do research.”
“We are never safe from another team elsewhere in the world carrying out the same research as us and publishing the results more quickly.she regrets.In this case we worked for nothing. To counterbalance this risk, you have to do several projects at the same time, work double, triple.”
“Essentials”, a franceinfo podcast by Salhia Brakhlia, to be found on the franceinfo website, the Radio France application and several other platforms such as Apple podcasts, Podcast Addict, Spotify, or Deezer.