Biology professor Dominique Bergmann was researching background information for her BIO82: Genetics lecture when she realized her access to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) website was blocked.

Blocked website access is only one aspect of the widespread impact of federal cuts to NIH funding. On Feb. 7, the NIH announced that it would cap federal funding for indirect costs in research at 15%. The cuts are expected to reduce NIH funding at Stanford by $160 million per year.

“Suddenly it became very real that something that we thought of as being public information —something that taxpayers paid for [and] was out there in the world and we used to have access to — was gone,” Bergmann said. 

On Feb. 8, Provost Jenny Martinez, Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs Lloyd Minor and Vice Provost and Dean of Research David Studdert released a joint statement addressing Stanford’s response to the funding cuts. The proposed cuts’ “impacts on Stanford research, if the change is implemented, would be significant,” the statement wrote.

Bergmann’s experience with the NIH website motivated her to dedicate a short section of her lecture to explaining the situation. She also provided her students with ways to stay informed and involved. “I got a little emotional at it,” Bergmann said.

Though the funding for Bergmann’s lab mostly comes from a non-government source and will likely remain unaffected in the immediate future, Bergmann said she is considering pursuing European citizenship and moving abroad, as she feels she may have more freedom to conduct scientific research there. 

Since the cuts’ announcement, NIH study sections — where grants are reviewed by scientists — and NIH administrative meetings that decide researchers’ specific funding allocation have been cancelled, according to Polly Fordyce, an associate professor of genetics and bioengineering.

Fordyce’s lab is currently the recipient of two NIH grants, including the NIH Pioneer Award, which provides $600,000 of research funding annually. She submitted another grant on Feb. 5 but has not been assigned a study section for the grant to be reviewed. Fordyce also said she cannot offer positions to the postdocs she recently hired for her lab. 

As a fourth-year immunology Ph.D. student, Adonis Rubio ’21 has reached his Ph.D. requirements, but he is unsure about further pursuing academia. His thesis committee and other faculty members have advised him that it’s “not a good time” to be looking for a postdoctoral research position. 

Rubio received a fellowship last year to fund his studies for three years and thinks extending his Ph.D. will be a more secure option than pursuing a postdoctoral position in a lab. Rubio described the conversations he has in his lab about research as disheartening, adding that it feels like “a state of limbo.”

“For me and my labmates, it’s just caused a sense of worry and unease,” Rubio said. “We don’t know what will happen or what we should be preparing for.” 

Some labs are in a better position than others. Fodyce, for example, said she has some money saved up from the University. However, due to the uncertainty of the situation, she has not made any significant decisions yet. 

The cuts to funding “affect everybody,” said Joseph Wu, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and professor of medicine and radiology. Labs may have to lay off staff, fewer graduate and undergraduate students will be trained and less research will be taking place, which means less medicine and cures will be developed, Wu said. 

“If you have family members who are sick and require novel therapies, and because this research has specifically [been] curtailed, you might be talking about life and death situations,” Wu said. The grants his lab submitted five months ago are no longer being reviewed.

The University’s staff hiring freeze will also mean programs can’t expand. 

Johnathon Soro, a second-year Ph.D. student in immunology, has long aspired to enter academia. However, the recent changes have led him to reconsider. 

“It might become significantly harder to get funded in academia, which is going to change how many faculty universities hire every year and is going to change how hard it is to get tenure and things like that,” Soro said. “It definitely has made me start to reconsider if academia is the best path forward.”

Soro is now considering joining a startup or going into biotechnology because of the unstable market for postdoctoral positions. 

A current researcher at the NIH, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation, said that the cuts have inhibited research, scientific exchange and employee sentiment. 

“There’s an aspect of fear that’s gripped people, and that’s been one of the most debilitating things,” they said. The researcher said the effects of the changes have almost paralyzed the NIH’s function. “People [are] running around not knowing what’s going to happen to them, which makes people very inefficient and also anxious,” they said.

The NIH researcher said that much of the work intended “to improve the lives of the American people,” including the initiation of new studies and research protocols, was put on hold at the NIH “pending decisions by the current administration.” 

Fordyce emphasized that the large return on federal investment in biomedical research. She said the local economy benefits from labs, as “every dollar spent, returns over $2 to the local economy.” Fordyce added that a major consequence of these cuts will be that fewer scientists will be trained in the U.S., which will reduce the scope and magnitude of the science it has done in the past.

“I think it’s really unfortunate because U.S. biomedical research is like a jewel,” Fordyce said. “It’s the envy of the world.”

Overall, Soro remains optimistic that the field of science will get back on track eventually. Rubio is planning on attending the Stand Up for Science rally in San Francisco on Friday. He says it is “inspiring” to see scientists coming together to amplify their voices. 

“It’s important that we continue to push through and to not view everything catastrophically and to give up,” Soro said. “Because if we give up on fixing things and getting things back to how they were, then we’re just helping the people who are trying to slow down scientific funding accomplish their goal.”