Harvard has collected 3 million biological samples over decades. Now researchers may not have the money to preserve them.
The samples are kept at temperatures as low as minus-170 degrees Celsius (or minus-274 degrees Fahrenheit), in a network of liquid nitrogen freezers at the Chan School as well as at Brigham and Women's Hospital, according to
'If we really don't have any funding, we would lose the samples,' said Dr. Walter Willett, a Harvard professor and a principal investigator for the
studies, in an interview. 'We're doing everything possible to not let that happen.'
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The two programs affected are among the most comprehensive and long-running public health studies in the country. The Nurses' Health Study is
A similar project, the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, tracks lifestyle and nutrition factors for men.
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The two projects have yielded a number of landmark findings, including the link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer and the effects of trans fats on heart disease.
The dataset generated from the massive project has informed countless additional studies by other researchers.
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As part of the projects, researchers collected biological samples from roughly 350,000 individuals, monitoring various components, including nutrients, contaminants, and hormone levels.
That research has been crucial to the growing understanding of factors that contribute to breast cancer, heart disease, and dementia, Willett said.
'Looking at what's going on inside the body a few decades before the disease occurs, that's what we can do [with the samples],' he said. 'That's really critical, because we know for many cancers, it's not what's in the blood or in the urine at the time of diagnosis, it's what was going on decades before that's probably most important. And we can go back to the samples and look at that today.'
The collection of samples is among the most comprehensive in the world, Willett said. Its scientific potential — which will only increase as new research technologies are developed — is something that 'no amount of money can buy,' he added.
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Both projects were funded in large part by two grants issued by the National Institute of Health's National Cancer Institute. Those grants were terminated on May 6, according to an affidavit filed by Willett June 2.
Now, researchers are scrambling to keep the freezers running.
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'We have probably a couple of months worth of resources for paying our nitrogen bills,' Willett said. 'But the nitrogen company is very efficient in cutting off supply if we don't pay.'
Though it's not clear exactly when the funding will run out, Willett said the research team may soon have to decide which samples are kept and which will be allowed to spoil.
But because the sweeping nature of the study relies on having multiple samples from hundreds of thousands of people over a multi-year period, it's difficult to say which will be more useful for research purposes.
'We don't yet know who's going to get breast cancer,' Willett said. 'Which makes it impossible to predict exactly which samples will be the most valuable.'
Nicole Romero examines samples on the campus of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on June 11, 2025.
Kent Dayton/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at
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