Worried Northwestern lab directors describe ‘bleak' atmosphere in wake of Trump research funding freeze

Chicago Tribune

12 hours ago

The Trump administration's freezing in April of $790 million in federal research funding for Northwestern University has left concerned lab directors without key grants from the National Institutes of Health and forced the university to spend millions to keep vital research afloat and to continue to pay graduate workers and scientists.
Carole LaBonne, a professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern, said the situation at the prominent research institution can only be described as 'bleak' as the halt in federal funds continues to send shockwaves across the Evanston campus.
'You're at risk of losing an entire next generation of scientists, and these are the researchers who are going to be driving tomorrow's discoveries and cures,' LaBonne told the Tribune. 'It has short-term impacts, it has long-term impacts — it's terrifying; it's completely senseless.'
Northwestern officials did not confirm how much the university is spending to keep research going there, but LaBonne said that is widely known among the science faculty, who were recently notified by the dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences in a meeting that it is costing Northwestern more than $10 million a week.
'The university is working very hard to advocate on behalf of research and our researchers,' a Northwestern spokesperson said in a statement. 'Our lifesaving research improves our society and has a multibillion-dollar impact on our economy.'
In recent letters to the campus community, Northwestern President Michael Schill and other administrators said the university has received about 100 stop-work orders, mostly Department of Defense-funded research projects, and about 50 grant terminations.
In addition, officials said Northwestern researchers have not received payments for National Institutes of Health grants since March, signaling that those funds have been frozen, despite no official word from the Trump administration. They also wrote that the university would continue to fund research affected by stop-work orders and the federal funding freeze.
'This support is intended to keep these projects going until we have a better understanding of the funding landscape,' the officials wrote. 'We expect and hope to recoup the costs of this research once federal funding is restored. However, this commitment places significant financial stress on the University and is not a permanent solution.'
LaBonne said the scientific community at Northwestern is living in 'existential dread' as the question of how the university can continue to sustain big-budget research without grant reimbursements looms large.
'Financially, you're going to cripple universities. And when you cripple universities, you're going to cripple not only our health and scientific discoveries in this country, but also our economy,' she said. 'The federal government depends on universities to conduct the research that keeps our nation healthy, safe and economically competitive.'
Part of LaBonne's lab work at Northwestern touches on pediatric cancers, and NIH funding has historically fueled breakthroughs in cancer treatments.
'Forty years ago, more than 60% of children that were diagnosed with cancer would have died within five years of the diagnosis. Today, there's a 90% survival rate,' she said.
For years, work in LaBonne's lab has centered on understanding the normal development of the neural crest — a stem cell population central to the evolution of the vertebrates — and understanding how cancer can result from the aberrant development of this cell type. Such research never ends, LaBonne said, adding that she fears that some long-standing research programs won't be sustainable for much longer with federal funding in limbo.
Sadie Wignall, a molecular biosciences professor at Northwestern, agrees.
'There is a lot of anxiety and apprehension because of the uncertainty of the situation, and that uncertainty is what is very difficult to navigate,' said Wignall. 'Many research labs here have NIH funding. I run my lab entirely off NIH funding. Am I going to be able to continue to pay the staff in my lab? Am I going to be able to continue to take graduate students into my lab?'
Two NIH grants pay the salaries of four doctoral students and two research scientists in the Wignall Lab, which is investigating the dynamics and mechanics of how reproductive cells divide.
Wignall also directs the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, which trains graduate students to get postdoctorates in biomedical science on the Evanston campus. The funding freeze affects those early-career scientists, she said, explaining that students go through three 10-week lab rotations culminating in a match system.
But uncertain funding means labs can't take new doctoral students to train them, which means fewer students get the opportunity to study and work at Northwestern's myriad research facilities.
'We're right at that point of the year for our first-year class where they've been rotating through different research labs to try to decide where they want to do their Ph.D. research, but with the funding freeze and canceled grants, there are now a lot of labs that thought they wanted to recruit a student this year and now can't,' Wignall said. 'If current first-years can't find a lab to join, they'll likely have to exit the Ph.D. program.'
How federal funding works
At the beginning of every grant year, the NIH or the National Science Foundation sends a Notice of Award detailing approval for a certain amount of spending in the next grant year, but a check isn't sent to Northwestern. It's essentially an 'IOU,' explained Wignall.
'So as I make purchases on my grant and as I pay salaries, Northwestern sends an invoice to the NIH that says, 'Professor Wignall has charged these approved funds, please reimburse us,'' she said. 'That usually happens about every two weeks — an invoice is sent for every NIH grant to the NIH, then they send a check to cover that spending. And then at the end of the year, just like you do in a bank account, you have your balance. You try to spend down to zero on approved funds.'
Northwestern recently has been submitting those requests to the NIH, hoping that the money will flow again, but nothing has been reimbursed since late March.
'All of the labs that are doing research are basically accumulating debt because we're spending money that we were promised, but it's not being sent, and the university is the one on the hook for that money right now,' Wignall said.
The Trump administration's decision to freeze nearly all of Northwestern's annual federal research funding stems from federal investigations into allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations at the university amid the school's handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. The Trump administration also froze $1 billion in federal funds for Cornell University and stripped more than $2 billion in federal grants from Harvard University and blocked its international student enrollment. The administration also has ordered U.S. embassies and consular sections to stop scheduling new interviews for student visa applicants.
LaBonne and other academics are highly skeptical of the Trump administration's reasoning, particularly the claims of widespread antisemitism on campus.
'Just about everything they're doing was clearly laid out in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and that happened before Oct. 7 — before the encampments on campus,' LaBonne said. 'None of this has to do with any of that. It's about hurting universities, and why you would want to do that when they're so centrally important to our scientific research enterprise and the economics of the U.S. is mind-blowing.'
Wignall, like LaBonne and other lab directors, said she's 'extremely grateful' to the board of trustees and the administration for helping to support their research.
LaBonne said support is crucial, not just for the research itself but also because research labs train scientists, and science majors at top research universities expect hands-on training in faculty labs.
'But all of us researchers understand that the university can't support us forever and at some point they're going to have to shut down some labs. It's very uncertain if my lab will be fine a month from now or two months from now,' Wignall added.
A tiny pacemaker fit for newborn babies
At Northwestern's Efimov Lab in Chicago, research associate Eric Rytkin is working with a team of graduate students on several projects, including the world's smallest pacemaker.
Their study, published in the journal Nature, demonstrates that the device, which is smaller than a grain of rice, can be non-invasively placed in the body. And although it is suitable for hearts of all sizes, researchers say the pacemaker is particularly beneficial to the tiny, fragile hearts of newborn babies with congenital heart defects.
The project was made possible through an NIH grant, Rytkin said, and a new grant was issued recently, but the award has yet to be distributed. Still the pacemaker project remains secure, Rytkin said, thanks to Northwestern and interest from the national scientific community.
But another project — a device aimed at delivering painless shocks to defibrillate the heart — is being tabled.
'I can say that everything here boils down to the quality of life of patients. Of course there are lifesaving therapies, but whether these lifesaving therapies will be well tolerated by this person, and whether it will affect their physical or moral well-being of that person is equally as important as the years of life,' Rytkin said.
Rytkin said while it's common in the industry to prioritize certain research projects over others, it isn't ideal to have to put ideas on the back burner.
'As researchers we would like to have academic freedom to explore other ideas which are not aimed at immediate gain or immediate profit, but may have and may result in wonderful spinoffs and technological models at a later date,' Rytkin said. 'And if the devices are getting translated, it's the most likely path that they're going to be acquired by some big corporation like Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott — they're all American companies.'
Lichao (James) Tang, a joint Ph.D. student who earned a master's in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University, performed surgeries on lab animals during the pacemaker development. Tang said the hope is for the pacemaker to be clinically tested in humans in five years, but that might now hinge on federal funding. NIH spending also supports Tang's salary.
'The freeze affects our overall lab budget, because we have a lot of money to spend, either to purchase research animals, or to purchase materials, to fabricate devices,' Tang said. 'We can only buy the things that are super necessary right now.'
Like many of his colleagues involved in research labs, Tang has concerns about the future of science and research.
'I've been in the U.S. for a very long time, but prospective students will definitely have (to think about their choices). Without all the issues with federal funding and student visas, I think America would definitely be their top choice,' said Tang, who is from China. 'It's getting harder to even get a student visa right now. And even if you come here, say for a Ph.D. program where you have at least a five-year commitment, the current uncertainty would make students think, 'If I come here, what if my funding is not guaranteed?''
Attracting top talent from other countries
The halt in student visa interviews and the funding freeze will make it much more difficult for the U.S. to attract top minds from around the world, experts say.
'The reality is that there is a race for global talent around the world,' said Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. 'The truth of the matter is, international students are going into fields like STEM that are in very high demand, but where there's a massive skill gap that exists in this country. These students are playing a very critical role in filling this gap that we're seeing.'
A recent NAFSA breakdown looks at the national and state benefits from international students and how much money they've contributed to universities and colleges.
According to the data, international students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have contributed $567.5 million to the local economy and supported 6,158 jobs; at the University of Chicago, $428.1 million and 4,965 jobs; at Northwestern, $323.7 million and 3,573 jobs; and the University of Illinois Chicago, $184.9 million and 1,886 jobs.
LaBonne said the cuts are detrimental to many sectors of the U.S.
'The government doesn't fund university labs to help universities' bottom line — it funds the best ideas and people to meet national priorities,' she said. 'The resulting discoveries spill over to benefit all of society: new medicines, new companies, new military capabilities. This has been called one of the most productive partnerships in American history.'
Academics have long argued that federally funded technologies like the revolutionary-gene editing tool CRISPR, CAR-T Therapy for cancer, vaccines and research unlocking treatments for diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer's are solid arguments for why Congress and the White House should ensure consistent and robust funding for science.
LaBonne said the funding decreases touch virtually every area of science and goes far beyond the diversity, equity and inclusion programs the Trump administration wants to cut.
An April executive order from the Trump administration mandated the elimination of DEI-related programs in federal agencies, resulting in the NSF canceling hundreds of project grants at universities. In February, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz published a list identifying more than a third of the NSF grants that were being terminated, of which a handful were Northwestern grants.
In a statement, the NSF said it has undertaken a review of its award portfolio.
'The agency has determined that termination of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities,' NSF officials said.
On its website, the NSF said it is canceling awards that are not in line with its priorities, including those focused on DEI, environmental justice and 'misinformation/disinformation.'
According to Grant Watch — a website that tracks the termination of scientific research grants under the Trump administration — more than 20 NIH grants related to research into HIV/AIDS, child development, substance use, vaccine hesitancy in Black communities, family planning and more were canceled at Northwestern.
Lab directors at Northwestern noted there's a rigorous process for procuring federal grants each submission cycle. After a proposal is submitted, 20 to 30 scientists from across the country with subject matter expertise review the proposal and give them scores. Months later, another advisory council approves the recommendations and greenlights a federal grant.
'This is not easy money; this is highly competitive for the best ideas and the best processes,' LaBonne added.
Wignall, who's said she's trying to stay positive despite the chaos, said the cost of stripping resources away from scientific research is insurmountable and will have an impact far beyond the current political situation.
'I think this is going to have a really chilling effect on future generations of students, because people will look at this career and say that science is not a safe career — It's too dependent on political whims,' Wignall said. 'Traditionally, science has been science. Support for science has been very bipartisan and we really hope that we can turn this around … otherwise we're really going to lose our excellence as a nation.'