crystal Starbird, A cancer researcher at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine was preparing to serve on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant review panel for the first time in late January. To everyone’s surprise, on Wednesday the meeting was suddenly canceled.
These NIH panels, or “study sections,” typically include a group of about 20 to 30 scientists who meet to evaluate research grant proposals within their specialty. Most grants range from about $2 million to $10 million, according to Starbird. After the group reviews and scores the projects, a separate NIH “advisory committee” decides which projects to fund.
The email Starbird received was vague. This comes from a representative of NIH’s research division within the Trump administration who said the multi-day conference scheduled for January 30th and 31st will not take place as planned. The message instructed her to save her files on the project for the time being and thanked her for her service to NIH. “I’ve never seen such a complete pause as part of a transition,” she said.
“Pause” means more than a grant review. This appears to be part of a larger blackout on research by NIH and the federal government. On Tuesday, as follows: washington post As first reported, the Trump administration has paused all external communications, including “health advisories, weekly scientific reports, website updates and social media posts” from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes NIH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) . FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Morale is very low,” an NIH researcher said, and it is likely the NIH will soon start losing “good people.”
HHS has also reportedly instructed employees to pause all travel plans, including conferences and workshops. (The department has not commented publicly on the freeze and did not respond to a request for comment. mother jones.) Employees also received a memo directing them to report colleagues who use “coded or inaccurate language” to “disguise” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts or face “negative consequences.”
“It sounds like Big Brother,” said one NIH researcher.
Some researchers say the disruption to the grant process is already having an impact on science. NIH is the nation’s largest public funder of biomedical research, providing approximately $40 billion annually to outside scientists to pursue the type of basic research that has contributed to numerous important discoveries and the development of life-saving drugs and treatments for decades. To ensure that the institution supports the most rigorous and promising research, it is reviewed by panelists such as Starbird. But these meetings, which typically take months to schedule, can no longer take place.
Moreover, according to reports science and reviewed email notes. mother jonesThe upcoming advisory board meeting, where the study was formally approved, has also been suspended. This puts new funding for all kinds of research, from cancer to the opioid crisis, on hold until further notice. “Everything feels like a dead end,” said Amanda Gillespie, a speech-language pathologist and professor at Emory School of Medicine. He went to seek approval at a council meeting where a funding proposal worth about $2.5 million over five years was suddenly canceled. It’s decided this week. She was optimistic about being chosen because it received high scores from reviewers. “It was quite disappointing, to put it mildly.” Not knowing when meetings will resume is “really frustrating because it’s very difficult to make plans,” she says.
Once the moratorium is lifted, it will likely take months to return to normal processes, experts say. “It’s quite an effort to get this thing sorted out,” says Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine who studies policy and substance abuse at Oregon Health and Science University. Her research section on solving the opioid crisis was also scheduled for this week and then cancelled. She explains that these meetings typically last one to two days and can require 40 to 60 hours of preparation. Top researchers in a particular field often participate.
“If you go to a Nobel laureate and say, ‘Okay, we need to schedule a meeting again next month,’ that’s likely not going to happen,” Starbird points out.
Experts say delays can have a direct impact on patients. Shinsoo Choo explains that it’s a bit like the Olympics. When a country is unable to participate or there is major disruption, “there are always players who miss out.” When it comes to NIH funding, people’s lives are at stake.
For example, Starbird’s mother-in-law has terminal lung cancer. She recently added a new drug, discovered by one of Starbird’s former collaborators and approved just a few months ago, to her chemotherapy regimen. “Imagine that drug pipeline being delayed for months. “You’re not going to give her that medicine today, are you?”
The full consequences of the pause and when (or if) it will end remain unclear. In theory, it might be possible to catch up if the delay is short, says Greg Ducker, a cancer and diet researcher at the University of Utah, where next week’s study section has also been canceled. But if time lags and grants and trials go unfunded, real problems can arise. “Without communication from the head of HHS, it’s hard to say what will happen,” he says.
In addition to the logistical disruptions, as we previously reported, researchers are concerned that research related to climate science, equity and diversity initiatives may be vulnerable to funding cuts from the Trump administration, which has threatened to eradicate DEI programs. Outside scientists worry that they will lose access to federal data, such as important metrics provided by the Energy Information Agency, and that scientists may stray from areas of expertise they frown upon or not pursue at all. “While Trump is waging a war of intimidation and fear against scientists, you must join hands to serve the future public good through science,” said Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a nonprofit science advocacy group. There are far fewer people carrying .”
It’s already starting to get cold. “Morale is very low,” the NIH researcher said. It’s possible that NIH will soon start losing “good people.”
“It is a real concern for all of us that science will be rewritten. “We are all very demoralized and worried,” they added, before becoming risk-averse in typical scientist fashion. “I hope there is no alarm. But we don’t know yet.”
