ASSAULT ON SCIENCEFoundation for U.S. Breakthroughs Feels Shakier to Researchers
With each dollar of its grants, the National Institutes of Health —the world’s largest funder of biomedical research —generates, on average, $2.56 worth of economic activity across all 50 states. NIH grants also support more than 400,000 U.S. jobs, and have been a central force in establishing the country’s dominance in medical research. Waves of funding cuts and grant terminations under the second Trump administration are a threat to the U.S. status as driver of scientific progress, and to the nation’s economy.
With each dollar of its grants, the National Institutes of Health — the world’s largest funder of biomedical research — generates, on average, $2.56 worth of economic activity across all 50 states.
The awards yield new drugs, like the naloxone spray used to prevent opioid overdoses, and breakthroughs in basic science, like the link between cholesterol and heart health.
But NIH grants also support more than 400,000 U.S. jobs, and have been a central force in establishing the country’s dominance in medical research. A recent survey by Nature found that, in health sciences, American research output is larger than that of the next 10 leading countries combined.
And that’s in large part due to federal government support of research conducted by universities. According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, over the course of the past three decades, those universities have become, as a sector, the largest hub of nonbusiness research in the world.
Waves of grant terminations under the second Trump administration have thrown that relationship into doubt — and posed particular threats to certain kinds of research. Harvard has challenged the terminations in federal court. And in July officials confirmed they will provide 80 percent of expected expenses so that most defunded research inside the University can continue temporarily.
But that doesn’t protect researchers from the anxiety that comes with what could be a life-altering jolt. Another concern is lost time. Most of the affected grants support projects that touch many human lives. Disruptions have consequences.
Walter Willett, the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and — by one count — Harvard’s single most-cited scholar, worries about the maintenance of biobanks whose samples can date back 45 years.
The longitudinal studies behind these samples, including research conducted at Harvard and in Washington, generate insights by following populations over long periods of time. So an ill-timed loss of funding can leave an irremediable gap in the dataset or a question mark in place of a finding.
As his grants dried up in May, Willett and his team started “scrambling to try to protect the samples and the data we have”: freezers full of blood samples, DNA, and other biological material. Willett confirmed that those samples are safe this summer, thanks to the University’s stopgap funding. “But we still don’t have long-term solutions,” he added.
