00:00Today on Forbes, with NIH in chaos, scientists fear Trump will hamstring critical medical research.
00:08Last Wednesday around 1.30 p.m. Pacific Time, Esther Chu, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University,
00:17got an email that the National Institutes of Health study section she was slated to sit on the next day was canceled.
00:24Within hours, as word of NIH meeting cancellations pinged across the social media platform Blue Sky,
00:30she realized that this wasn't only about the opioid research she would be reviewing, but a broader NIH research shutdown.
00:38Chu noted that there was no announcement on the NIH website,
00:42but as it became clear that the cancellation involved all stages of scientific proposals in the grants review process,
00:48the reality sunk in, and she began to gauge best-case and worst-case possibilities.
00:53She said, quote,
00:55We are preparing for the worst. It's very stressful, especially when your entire career or training path hinges on it.
01:02The NIH is the crown jewel of American scientific research, investing most of its $47 billion budget on medical research.
01:11Without the NIH meetings, known as study sections, the agency can't review grants and thus can't make research awards.
01:19Those funds are critically important in helping researchers study cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and opioid addiction,
01:26among numerous other health issues, and have helped fund major breakthroughs,
01:30including Moderna's development of its mRNA vaccine against COVID-19.
01:36Vaccinations against COVID-19 saved at least 14 million people from dying in the first year.
01:42Pretty much every major university or medical institution relies on federal grants to fund their research,
01:48with big recipients of NIH funding including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
01:57A small proportion of funds, including those from federal healthcare research institution ARPA-H,
02:03go to healthcare and biomedical startups with promising early-stage research.
02:08ARPA-H had a meeting in San Francisco that was to draw more than 100 people on Thursday, but it was abruptly canceled.
02:15In the short term, the cancellation of these meetings means that some researchers who expect to receive funds in January will see those funds delayed,
02:23while others who had expected grant proposals slated to be reviewed would be subject to the challenges of rescheduling once the pause is lifted.
02:31Each review requires some two dozen researchers to meet at the same time to assess the scientific merit of proposals in their field once the pause is lifted.
02:40It's not clear if NIH grant review meetings will resume after February 1st, when the pause on federal health communications is slated to end.
02:48Longer term, researchers fear the Trump administration will use federal research funding as a cudgel to force universities and other institutions that receive it
02:57to assist in its purge of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
03:01The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that NIH grants would be a, quote,
03:05key lever in forcing schools such as Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco,
03:11which receive tens of millions in NIH research funding each year, to rework or drop their DEI initiatives.
03:18As word traveled among scientists about the cancellations of both NIH study sections and councils,
03:24which is the next step in a grant approval process, fear and uncertainty spread.
03:29There are at least 200 study sections each cycle, with three cycles a year,
03:33and each one can have dozens, or in certain cases, 100 different projects to review.
03:38This according to Rebecca Burdine, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University,
03:43who has a grant pending to look at congenital heart defects in zebrafish,
03:47which is a precursor to being able to do such studies in humans.
03:51Even short delays can be a problem in scientific research, Burdine said.
03:55With zebrafish, for example, if there isn't money to keep the fish facility running,
03:59it would take a lot of time, effort, and cash to restart it.
04:03She said, quote,
04:05People are thinking, if I don't get this grant,
04:07I might have to shut this research down, and it might not ever be feasible to start it back up again.
04:13For full coverage, check out Amy Feldman's piece on Forbes.com.
04:18This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.
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