Sweeping changes to federal funding for scientific research, which include medical and public health research, have impacted the National Institute of Health (NIH) funding.
As of the most recent update, the Trump administration’s proposed budget released on May 2 describes a nearly $18 billion cut to NIH funding, a 40 percent budget slash from over $47 billion to $27 billion.
“NIH has broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health,” the Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Budget Request reads.
It states that it is holding recipients of federal funding, such as the NIH, accountable because it has grown “too big and unfocused.”
The 2026 budget states that the NIH has promoted “radical gender ideology.” The budget proposes to consolidate the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers with spending reforms. It also eliminates $534 million in funding for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities, citing the institute as being “replete with DEI expenditures,” and cuts $198 million from the National Institute of Nursing Research.
“NIH research would align with the President’s priorities to address chronic disease and other epidemics, implementing all executive orders and eliminating research on climate change, radical gender ideology, and divisive racialism,” the document reads.
This budget proposal received pushback from a bipartisan group of U.S. senators in a hearing on federal spending for biomedical research and a lawsuit from Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and 16 attorneys general. It also comes in the wake of the nationwide “Hands Off” protests on April 5, which condemned the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to scientific research.
UMass Amherst has received $11 million so far in NIH funding in fiscal year 2025. In 2024, they received $38 million , and in 2023 received $46 million.
Researchers at UMass feel the effects of a possible cut in NIH funding. Alicia Timme-Laragy, a professor of environmental health science, conducts research on how pollutants encountered in the environment affect early life development and what it means for later life health. Her work combines environmental science and molecular biology, aiming to understand how exposure to “forever chemicals,” like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), affect health and how their harmful effects can be prevented. In the long term, this research could inform better policy regulations for exposure to these compounds.
Timme-Laragy says that NIH funding cuts would drastically limit her research program. In the most severe case, without any alternative resources or funding, she says that the lab would have to close. In less drastic scenarios, the lab would be unable to take new students.
Timme-Laragy currently has 25 people working in the lab, broken down into 17 undergraduate students and eight post-doctoral or graduate students.
“The anxiety level is really high,” Timme-Laragy said. “… It was already really hard to get funding. And if that’s going to be slashed in half, or in some cases altogether, depending on what your research area is, I think that’s just really awful to think about.”
The lab would be limited in the kinds of experiments it could do, which would affect the scope of research and being able to use cutting-edge technology.
Timme-Laragy said that students’ creativity would be limited, as she normally allows students to explore pilot projects connected to the lab’s research aims, and that it would also be difficult to consider how to pay the people working in labs and support students working in labs as well.
“I think the other thing that’s really difficult to see is the loss of job opportunities,” Timme-Laragy said. “For toxicology, I think students that receive training in those fields can really go into any sector …There are a lot of toxicologists in the federal government, whether they’re doing research or whether they’re doing more policy work, regulatory work, and seeing those programs be cut and downsized is really, really hard.”
Timme-Laragy said that many students enter research and gain hands-on training for the first time in college, so the prospect of losing funding for research and having fewer undergraduate students participating in research and honing those skills would compromise the future workforce.
Mia Bennett, a graduating senior majoring in biomedical engineering (BME), hoped to enter research with a concentration in women’s health.
Bennett is currently doing an independent study at UMass Chan Medical School, interning at the RNA Therapeutics Institute. Her research looks at RNA modifications and stability over time, which is important in reproductive processes.
Bennett chose to study BME because she was looking to go into nursing practice while continuing healthcare research. After graduation, she hoped to apply for a job at UMass Chan, but since the University enacted a hiring freeze in February, she started to look at other options.
“For me, it’s been tough to find places that are not only hiring, but also … competing with the people back in the job market as layoffs are taking effect,” Bennett said.
Bennett added that her friends have begun looking into less-BME-related careers or continued into master’s programs with the hope that the job market would stabilize in a few years. She is considering doing the same.
Bennett says that cuts to NIH research can impact funding for graduate programs, adding that the workforce that depends on young scientists and fresh perspectives will feel the long-term loss.
“The problem is a lot of students are very demoralized, and you do see … people heading away from what they originally intended on, which was going into your science research,” Bennett said. “So, if … students don’t feel like they’re going to be safe and stable in a science research career … a lot of them are looking elsewhere.”
Grace Chai can be reached at [email protected].
