I want you to take a moment and think back to the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you remember the uncertainty, and the sense that the future itself was on pause? As a species, we collectively yearned for reprieve from the virus that was keeping us apart. At times, it was hard to imagine when, or if, life would return back to normal. Then, we got a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel. Through unprecedented global collaboration and billions of dollars in federal funding from multiple countries, scientists around the world worked tirelessly to find a solution. The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is the largest public funder of biomedical research globally, played a central role in advancing these efforts and supporting the science that would change the course of the pandemic.