Exclusive: NIH ousts infectious-disease leaders as COVID scientists face US charges

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has seen changes in nearly all of its senior leadership positions since early 2025. Credit: Grandbrothers/Getty Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been given the choice to either accept reassignment outside the institute or resign, sources at the NIAID have told Nature. US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains The three officials are the latest high-ranking NIAID scientists to lose their positions since President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025. Last year, senior officials at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversees the NIAID, ousted Jeanne Marrazzo, successor to Anthony Fauci as NIAID director. With the new departures, scientists in most of the senior positions at the NIAID will have been required to vacate their jobs, including officials in eight of the ten top leadership slots. All but one of the eight scientists worked under Fauci, who was director of the NIAID for 38 years before he stepped down in 2022. Fauci has been criticized by Trump and other Republican politicians over public-health measures used during the COVID-19 pandemic. And in the past month, the Trump administration has pursued charges against scientists in Fauci’s orbit who were involved with COVID-19 research. …