Dr. Leana Wen: Trump’s cuts to research might affect a generation of future scientists

A federal judge might have paused President Donald Trump’s attempt to slash about $4 billion for biomedical research funding through the National Institutes of Health, but the uncertainty created by the administration is already taking an immense toll on science.

Many schools and institutions have preemptively implemented cost-cutting measures in anticipation of losing funding down the line. This will, of course, curtail all sorts of crucial research happening now on disease treatments and preventions. But it will also have reverberations for years to come — potentially affecting an entire generation of future scientists.

A number of colleges — including the University of California at San Diego, Vanderbilt University, University of Washington, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — have cut enrollment in their graduate programs, according to reporting from the New York Times and STAT. Boston University has ordered across-the-board hiring freezes, including for student workers and postdoctoral trainees. The University of Pennsylvania and the University of South California have not only issued guidance to reduce the number of incoming PhD students but also to renege offers already made.

Meanwhile, NIH announced this month that it would cancel its prestigious internship program that had given more than 1,000 college students the opportunity to work at the agency every summer. The National Science Foundation has also said it would downsize its research program for undergraduates, which for nearly 40 years has helped students whose home institutions can’t provide opportunities to engage in science, technology, engineering and math research.

These pipeline programs are essential to developing scientists and physicians, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I know this firsthand. I started college at California State University at Los Angeles in 1996. Because of my experience with chronic illness as a child, I aspired to become a physician, but I didn’t think it was a realistic goal. My parents and I had emigrated from China less than six years before. I had no mentors and no connections to any doctors. I had heard that good grades at my little-known state school wouldn’t be enough and that I needed to have research experience, but I had no clue how to acquire it. Plus, I couldn’t afford college unless I worked, so how would I have time to work in a lab?

The turning point was when I saw a poster for an undergraduate research program in which students would get experience doing research in a lab under the mentorship of a professor and more senior students. Crucially, they would be paid for their work.

I applied and was accepted to work in a chemistry lab. My four years working with the principal investigator, Donald Paulson, and the program director, Raymond Garcia, determined the trajectory of my entire academic and professional career. I learned how to apply the scientific method to complex research questions. I discovered that I had an aptitude for scientific writing and enjoyed translating technical concepts to general audiences. I benefited from the mentorship and guidance of exceptional professors who helped me apply for and eventually enter medical school. I was then accepted to a graduate scientific research program that partially covered the costs of my medical training.

Countless other doctors and scientists owe their careers to these development opportunities. It breaks my heart to see that such pipeline programs are early casualties of anticipated cuts. The value of students conducting research goes beyond their contribution to the specific project at hand; these programs also cultivate tomorrow’s leaders in biomedical innovation.

Trump’s nominee to lead NIH, Jayanta Bhattacharya, is himself an Indian-born American who has benefited from research training programs as an early career trainee and then as a supervisor of young scientists. Among his many priorities should be restoring funding to institutions so that research training programs do not become collateral damage in the purge of federal spending. We need more training programs for young scientists, not fewer.