Biomedical research takes a hit
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Another update:
We just had a virtual town hall meeting with the president and several constitutional law professors. Several things: 1) Congress must determine if there are to be new offices, like DOGE - not the president; 2) Congress is "enfeebling" itself, and if they don't challenge the executive branch's conscription of Congressional power, then there is no way to stop it, unless it is unconstitutional; 3) there are processes that need to occur to indicate that the action taken by the executive branch has been researched and fairly applied; and 4) this stuff is going to be tied up in the courts forever. In the meantime, no more grants are being evaluated by NIH, which will shortly lead to a stoppage of research and clinical trials. When that happens, skilled people, including investigators, will be let go and it will take a long time to re-establish the projects.
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Holy cow.
The Trump administration says it has canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over what it described as the school's failure to police antisemitism on campus.
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My post on this next door:
We are co-funding a project with the NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, one of the Institutes within NIH).
The NIH funding is a "U grant", which is a multi-center grant. NIH is funding 6 centers and we're funding 2 more, plus an overseas validation cohort (in Ireland). We're also funding some liver analyses in the original 6, as NHLBI doesn't fund liver stuff.
The project is the Alpha-1 Biomarkers Consortium. Biomarkers are just biological markers of a disease, useful ones can be predictive of prognosis or indicative of disease progression. Our main goal is to find more sensitive and less invasive clinical trial endpoints that will facilitate bringing new treatments to market.
[Quick aside on endpoints - the endpoint(s) of a trial are what you're trying to measure to prove efficacy. It might be mortality in an oncology trial - what's the median survival of the subjects in the treatment arm vs the control arm? In most disease conditions (thankfully) it's something else. Maybe lung function, liver enzymes, fibrosis scores, cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, A1C, etc., depending on the disease. There are also 'patient reported outcomes' such as pain, shortness of breath, scores on standardized questionnaires, etc. In AATD we have shitty endpoints - spirometry for lungs and usually fibrosis/cirrhosis staging for liver. The former is very noisy and requires a large number of subjects over a long time for statistical significance (bad for a rare disease, it makes the trials unrecruitable). The latter is very invasive (liver biopsies suck) and limits trials to people with pretty advanced liver disease.]
So this project is following 270 alphas over three years (ultimately longer, but current funding is for three years). We're testing them periodically for every conceivable biomarker including some really specific stuff like obscure biological byproducts of elastin breakdown or cell death in the liver, etc. The idea is to find something sensitive so we can measure disease progression faster, and with fewer patients. We would need to show that our biomarker correlates sufficiently well with disease progression, and then convince the FDA of that.
So why am I posting this? Today the administration announced the "initial cancellation" (not sure what that means, suspension?) of all federal grants to Columbia University. $400MM in total. Part of that, we believe, is our little grant.
Columbia is just one site, we have 6 NIH funded sites. BUT, Columbia is the primary site and collects all the money and then gives it to the others. The other sites are BU, UAB, Nat'l Jewish, UNC, U of Utah. We fund Chicago and UCLA and Ireland.
This all happened hours ago so there aren't a lot of details out. I'll see our Columbia PI tomorrow at a fundraiser in Boston if she can get away. At the very least her sidekick (also MD/PhD) will be there so I can get more info.
Our foundation won't let the project die, we're two thirds through. But we may need to raise some money and fund it ourselves.
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
Crazy economist who likes to write about higher education.
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
Excellent point, and not one I'm hearing many people make.
It seems that the standard response to all things Trump is fear, passivity, resignation, giving up....
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That’s going to be the response at Columbia too. They were told if they sue they’ll cancel student aid dollars next. So they’re going to cooperate.
I talked to someone in leadership there today who is concerned that it’s going to get worse before it gets better because the students are going to misbehave even more. (My words not hers)
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That’s going to be the response at Columbia too. They were told if they sue they’ll cancel student aid dollars next. So they’re going to cooperate.
I talked to someone in leadership there today who is concerned that it’s going to get worse before it gets better because the students are going to misbehave even more. (My words not hers)
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From my buddy:
Was told yesterday that the dean was reducing all researchers' salaries and that I was getting a 20% reduction as of July 1. Told them I couldn't afford to live in [city] on that salary and that I will retire instead. They didn't expect that. They asked me if I could still see patients and teach the residents. ("This is coming from the dean and we really don't want to lose you ...") Can you believe that they are giving me 3 months to finish everything and move?
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Johns Hopkins University said Thursday it is cutting more than 2,200 workers because of a loss of funding from USAID. Some employees are in Baltimore but most work in 44 other countries in support of the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and an affiliated nonprofit organization.
In February, the Trump administration announced deep cuts to National Institutes of Health grants for research institutions, a shift that could reduce the money going to some universities by over $100 million. Some schools already have shelved projects because of the cuts, which have been delayed temporarily by a court challenge.
Hopkins receives the most federal research funding of any college or university nationwide.
In total, 247 domestic jobs and 1,975 positions in 44 countries will be cut, and 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed, according to a Hopkins spokesperson. The job cuts affect the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the nonprofit Jhpiego.
“Johns Hopkins is immensely proud of the work done by our colleagues in Jhpiego, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine to care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” a Hopkins spokesperson said.
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The DEI Catch-22
Columbia researchers believe their grants are being cut because of diversity components that were imposed by the federal government.
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Columbia and Trump have a long history.
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
Indeed.
Why are other universities silent in condemning Trump’s attacks on Columbia?
Zephyr Teachout
If university leaders allow themselves to be bullied, how do we expect any other institutions to stand up?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/24/us-universities-trump-columbia
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
I think you'll see something if their current genuflection isn't viewed as sufficient. I can't say I blame them for capitulating thus far, even if they won a specific suit the administration could fuck with them in myriad ways, renegotiate their indirects, award far fewer grants, crawl up their ass over title VI stuff (which they're doing anyway).
