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Boston Globe

As Trump attacks on Harvard gain momentum, researchers scramble: ‘We're just sitting on the tracks'

'Instead of working on things that had previously been funded, now it's a question of, OK, we need to find money to fund that same research for the second time,' said Adam Sychla, a Harvard Medical School postdoctoral research fellow working on a team developing programmable treatments for everything from cancer to the common cold. 'It slows down research progress, which means that any of the technologies we develop are going to take longer to come to people,' Sychla added, 'which is who it's ultimately for — it's for the public.' Advertisement On Monday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon disclosed the latest cutoff in a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber. 'Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,' McMahon Advertisement Trump's latest ultimatum about future grants, while not exactly a surprise, still caught many in the Harvard community off guard. The president has also previously pushed to end Harvard's tax-exempt status 'if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?,' as he Rachel Petherbridge, a fifth-year PhD candidate in systems biology at Harvard Medical School working on improving outcomes for gestational diabetes, likened the ongoing funding threats to 'a slow-moving train.' 'It's like we're just sitting on the tracks, watching this train inch towards us,' she said. With the most recent threats on Monday, the train suddenly 'jerked forward.' Just as bad is the confusion the White House has triggered with blunt edicts that seem to leave no room for appeal. 'I cannot overemphasize how opaque all of this is to everybody,' said Petherbridge. The Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment. Many researchers on campus were already reeling from the freeze in April that forced some to scramble to find alternative sources of funds. Kari C. Nadeau, a professor at the school of public health, is facing the termination of a study looking at near-fatal food allergies that involves over 800 high-risk infants across the United States. 'We were doing a preventative trial to use a natural substance on the skin of infants,' she said, noting there are four other interventional clinical studies for therapy in children and adults with near-fatal food allergies that are also at risk. She hasn't told the participants yet; she's still absorbing the news herself. Advertisement 'You already have funds frozen,' said Nadeau. 'They're already affecting patient safety and the ethical conduct of research. We have had to terminate trials, and that puts patients at risk. And these are cancer trials. These are trials in really critical areas like Parkinson's.' There's also a financial cost of stopping a seven-year study in its fifth year: 'I will lose $12 million,' Nadeau said, 'and there will not be enough money from philanthropy to fill in the gaps. Absolutely not. And I'm just one person.' Others include Sychla and his colleagues and researchers across campus, all out there chasing a limited source of private funding. 'That means the competition for the same amount of funding is going to be much higher, which means people are not going to find that funding,' Sychla said. He's hopeful the Harvard Corporation would use some of the university's $50-plus billion endowment to support research, but noted it's hardly a viable replacement long term. 'The reality is, research is expensive,' Sychla said. Scientists need cutting-edge equipment to keep asking 'the biggest questions,' like what is the shape of a protein? To find out, 'You need to use an electron microscope,' he said, which requires a room of its own, properly maintained, to function. It is costly — 'and it is necessary for us to learn how certain diseases happen.' Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker said McMahon's letter falsely implies 'that somehow the federal government subsidizes Harvard.' In truth, he said, research grants are essentially 'a contract for services rendered to the country.' Claiming Harvard could subsidize research from its own endowment is 'kind of like saying a large highway contractor could subsidize building an interstate from its own surplus,' he added. 'It's not charity. It's fee for service.' Advertisement And then there are all the jobs at stake. On Tuesday, Columbia University announced Petherbridge works at an off-campus lab with the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, so believes her funding is safer — for now. But as chief steward for the Harvard Graduate Students Union, she's worried about implications for herself and others should federal funding remain frozen or simply end. 'I don't think paychecks have stopped coming, but eventually they will. People will be laid off,' she said. 'People are still trying to work because [they] really care about the science,' she added. But there's no escaping the feeling of uncertainty about the future — and about Harvard's very identity. Shutting down the university's scientific research capabilities, Pinker said, would effectively 'turn it into a liberal arts college.' And amid the freeze, some researchers are looking to Canada and Europe for opportunities, while others are writing their grants differently — avoiding words such as 'biodiversity' because the word 'diversity' has been flagged by the administration. 'There's a culture of fear,' Petherbridge said. 'Everyone can read the writing on the wall.' While it's clear the Trump administration is trying to punish Harvard for refusing to yield, Nadeau questioned if the White House can fully grasp how its actions have affected people well beyond campus, such as the 800 infants with dangerous food allergies. 'Do they know that they have terminated these trials in children and families of such a common, near-fatal disease that affects everyone across nonpartisan lines?' Nadeau asked. Advertisement Since Harvard is leading the research, the freeze also affects cooperating clinical trials across the country. 'It's going to cut off the clinical trial in Chicago, in Cincinnati, in Denver, at Stanford,' she said. She underscored that 800 infants are now in the balance. 'We actually recruited everyone through COVID,' she said of the participants. 'The fact that we got through COVID is amazing. But we can't get through this.' Brooke Hauser can be reached at