Trump's NIH funding cuts halt Indiana's life-saving research
Cancer. Diabetes. Sickle cell. Cystic fibrosis. Thanks to decades of research funding from the National Institutes of Health, people suffering from these and countless other debilitating diseases live longer, healthier lives.
It's estimated that 99% of medications approved in the 2010s were supported by NIH-funded research. Breakthrough treatments created by pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly & Co. are built on foundational studies funded by the NIH. If you've been to the doctor and received treatment, that treatment was very likely built on NIH-supported research.
Opinion: DOGE fired me. I'll be fine, but America is in trouble.
The NIH is a powerful engine of American ingenuity and productivity. NIH funding has incredible returns: beyond lives saved, every research dollar spent generates about $2.50 in economic activity. Indiana is a major beneficiary of NIH funding. In 2023, NIH grants generated $1.1 billion in economic activity in Indiana and supported 5,359 jobs such as mine as a researcher at Ball State University.
My lab has been funded by the NIH for over a decade. We study how cells handle the kind of 'molecular garbage' that piles up in the brains of patients with neurodegenerative diseases (like what my grandmother Marmee suffered with). With NIH funds, my team recently discovered that a microscopic protein motor helps cells destroy molecular garbage. Our NIH-supported work could lead to improved treatments and longer, healthier lives for people with dementia-related diseases.
In addition, my lab trains Indiana's biomedical workforce. Many students who conduct research in my NIH-funded lab go on to work in industry labs (like those at Eli Lilly) and academic institutions, where they perform groundbreaking research that improves the health of Americans.
However, beginning January 27, a series of executive actions froze virtually all new federal grants, effectively grinding NIH-funded research to a halt. These cuts will be devastating to the economy and life-saving research conducted by scientists in Indiana. While the initial executive order has been challenged in court, the administration has found procedural loopholes to stop new life-saving research funding from being distributed.
This blockade not only prevents the ability to pay for lab personnel salaries and research supplies, but it also cuts funds for research support staff, administrative and maintenance staff, IT, libraries, facilities and equipment upkeep, and more. These people and resources are essential to sustaining life-saving and economy-boosting research. Gutted NIH funding will lead to hiring reductions and freezes (making it more difficult and dangerous to conduct research) and rapid deterioration of state-of-the-art scientific facilities.
If NIH funding reductions are made permanent, some universities will likely stop supporting the submission of NIH grants altogether, resulting in the shuttering of entire research programs, loss of jobs, and a failure to make life-saving discoveries.
Dominoes are already falling. Some institutions have enacted hiring freezes. Several graduate programs have paused PhD student admissions. Federally funded summer internship programs that launch young scientists' careers have been canceled, and impactful programs and grants that reduce barriers to participation in STEM have been frozen.
I know of multiple promising students who have questioned their decisions to pursue scientific careers. We are on the verge of losing a cohort of transformative young scientists. They are amazing — my colleagues and I teach them in our classes and mentor them in our research labs.
If NIH funding is not soon restored, careers will end, labs will close, and life-saving discoveries will not be made. The sledgehammering of NIH funding will derail American biomedical science for a long, long time.
Eric 'VJ' Rubenstein is the Thomas E. and Karen Bumb Lauer Distinguished Professor of Natural Sciences and Professor of Biology at Ball State University, where NIH funding to his lab has supported 20 peer-reviewed biomedical scientific publications and the training of 60 early-career scientists. Rubenstein is a member of the Ball State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NIH funding treats cancer, diabetes. That's over, for now. | Opinion
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