ARVO Attendees Hear Call to Save National Eye Institute

Medscape

12-05-2025

Advocates for eye and vision research must come together now to thwart attempts by the Trump administration to slash research funding and downgrade and dilute the National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers and clinical trial investigators were told at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) 2025 Annual Meeting.
'This is an unprecedented time for research,' Dan Ignaszewski, executive director of the National Alliance for Eye and Vision Research, told Medscape Medical News. Ignaszewski spoke at a form at the ARVO meeting during which he reported the latest budget proposal from the Trump Administration would cut funding to the NIH by 38% and reduce the number of individual institutes from 27 to 5.
The proposal would dismantle the National Eye Institute and merge its operations into the National Institute of Neuroscience and Brain Research.
Dan Ignaszewski
'What we need now more than ever is that people in the advocacy space — researchers, clinicians, patients, providers, industry — to basically come together to help the administration and the Congress understand the value of research and the importance frankly of vision and vision research in impacting medical science and in impacting patient life,' Ignaszewski told Medscape Medical News.
The group is an arm of the nonprofit Alliance for Eye and Vision Research that advocates for eye and vision research across federal agencies, including NIH, NEI, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Proposed Cuts Deeper Than Previous Proposals
The latest proposed cuts are more severe than those outlined last year by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which would have slashed the number of institutes from 27 to 15. Both plans would consolidate NEI into the National Institute of Neuroscience and Brain Research, which also would absorb the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. However, the original House proposal would have given the new combined entity a $42 million bump in their combined $4 billion appropriation.
The Trump administration's plans for NIH would slash $18 billion from its current allocation of $48.5 billion. How the reduction would affect eye research is not clear, but the abolition of the NEI and folding its functions into a new institute with a broader mission does not bode well, Ignaszewski said.
'The advocacy community always thought that things like the National Eye Institute was an untouchable institute,' Ignaszewski told Medscape Medical News. 'When it comes to these consolidation proposals, our focus is the National Eye Institute remain a dedicated priority for vision within NIH. But we also don't want to see the consolidation of such important research and important work being done without understanding the potential consequences of any such restructuring.'
The NEI's current budget is just under $900 million, which Ignaszewski's group would like to see climb to $1 billion next year.
Ignaszewski said shoehorning NEI into an institute focused on the brain is not an appropriate fit. 'There's so much more to the eye than the brain, and there's so much more opportunity beyond that,' he told Medscape Medical News. 'Frankly, it also doesn't touch any front-of-eye research that's being done.'
Ignaszewski acknowledged any president's budget proposal is typically a blueprint the House and Senate modify based on their own priorities. Stoking up advocacy on behalf of the NEI now could help convince Congress to preserve the NEI, he said.
'Our big take-home is engaging researchers to learn to effectively advocate for vision research science and science as a whole,' he said. 'It's engaging patients and providers and industry to basically come together to really help the administration understand that these reductions would fundamentally change research funding, fundamentally change research, and gut the existing infrastructure that we've built over decades to support new discoveries, innovations, and better treatments for patients.'
Even Attempted Cuts Take a Toll
Also concerning for research, Ignaszewski said, is the 15% cap on indirect costs for federally funded research the Trump administration attempted to impose earlier this year, only to have a federal judge issue a temporary restraining order to block the move. However, the action itself has chilled research programs around the country, he said.
'Institutions around the country are being cautious about their budgets, and that's being reflected in fewer staff, fewer trainees, and fewer PhD candidates,' he said. 'Frankly, if it does go into effect, it would fundamentally alter the investment we have in biomedical research.'
Ignaszewski called the 15% cap 'arbitrary and capricious. It's not practical, and it would absolutely gut the research infrastructure that we have built in the county.'
He did not dismiss the need for reform of indirect costs, but noted all federal contracts, including defense contracts, include indirect costs. 'They range significantly higher than 15%,' Ignaszewski said. 'Why are we attacking research when indirect rates on all these other contracts are substantial higher?'
Now, the task is to persuade Congress to preserve NIH funding, Ignaszewski said.
'One of the things we say to Congress is that the first FDA (US Food and Drug Administration)-approved gene therapy was in the eye,' he said. 'The first AI-approved diagnostic tool was a diabetic retinopathy tool . Those types of things are now being used across medical science as the foundation for treatment in other diseases, such as cancers and kidney disease. If we don't continue to invest in vision research, we're not going to continue seeing the advancements.'
Richard Mark Kirkner is a medical journalist based in Philadelphia.