UT professors fear Trump administration’s funding cuts will derail life-saving research

AUSTIN – KUT reports that Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at UT Austin, knew from a young age that she wanted to be a scientist. She said she always loved watching birds and bugs. “Even as a kid, I would watch the nature programs instead of the sitcoms my friends were watching,” she said. John Wallingford was in a similar boat. The UT molecular biology chair took a life sciences class in seventh grade and knew he wanted to be a biology professor. “There’s no scientist in my family. Nobody knows where it came from,” he said. “And [I] literally never deviated.” Now though, Gore and Wallingford — who spoke on their own behalves and not on behalf of the university — are worried their students will not have the same opportunities to pursue science. Since President Trump took office, the National Institutes of Health — the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world — has significantly cut grant funding. The federal agency could also see more cuts to its overall budget, as reported by Politico.

More than 80% of NIH grants go to researchers in the U.S. — including the labs that Gore and Wallingford run at UT Austin. The cuts have prompted outcry and protests from the scientific community as well as legal challenges. Sixteen state attorneys general sued the Trump administration earlier this month for canceling NIH grants. Professors at UT Austin have not been left unscathed by the cuts. Take Jason McLellan, who did groundbreaking work to help develop a COVID-19 vaccine and is set to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. An NIH grant he had received for research on antiviral drug development was canceled on March 24. “All research and spending had to cease that day,” McLellan said in an email. “This leaves several projects stranded and jeopardizes the further development of the exciting compounds that our consortium developed.” UT Austin did not respond to a request for comment about the impact of NIH funding cuts on research at the university. The university has been tracking changes to federal funding for research, including a court ruling earlier this month that has prevented the Trump administration from lowering reimbursement rates related to NIH grants. While Gore and Wallingford have not yet lost funding, uncertainty created by changes at the NIH have permeated their labs.