{"id":39930,"date":"2025-03-01T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=39930"},"modified":"2025-03-01T13:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T21:00:20","slug":"uc-berkeley-researchers-report-nih-funding-freeze-despite-ongoing-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/uc-berkeley-researchers-report-nih-funding-freeze-despite-ongoing-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley researchers report NIH funding freeze despite ongoing litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>Alexa Vazquez &amp; Roman Trovato | Staff<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Feb 27, 2025 (DailyCal.org)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/dailycal.org\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/7\/2d\/72d79b32-f4c5-11ef-bbc7-8b27a244b53c\/67bfed8a681c8.image.jpg?resize=400%2C258\" alt=\"NIH_NIH Image Gallery_cc.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Nearly every lab in the departments of molecular and cell biology, chemistry, integrative biology and public health receive NIH funding. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nihgov\/19757410583\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Photo<\/a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nihgov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NIH Image Gallery<\/a>&nbsp;under&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PDM 1.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Although&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/campus\/uc-supports-lawsuit-against-trump-s-attempt-to-cut-billions-in-nih-funding\/article_ec3d7416-e902-11ef-8a45-97c677dbdde6.html\">litigation<\/a>&nbsp;temporarily blocked cuts to the National Institutes of Health\u2019s, or NIH, research funding, researchers at UC Berkeley have reported that their funds are in a state of uncertainty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed to cut overhead payments for all existing and future grants down to a 15% rate, which could cost UC Berkeley $37 million in funding.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Institutes of Health has suspended \u201calmost all\u201d grant review sections in the last month, as first reported by the scientific journal Nature.Associate professor of immunology and molecular medicine Sarah Stanley, who is also the principal investigator of Stanley Labs, serves on one such grant review section. She was informed of her meeting\u2019s cancellation just two hours prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is an insidious procedural way of messing with the process that has just slid under the radar,\u201d said a campus staff research associate who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NIH has three grant review and award cycles per year. According to Stanley, labs whose grants were approved last fall have not been awarded funding due to canceled council meetings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>University of California Office of the President spokesperson Stett Holbrook stated that no campus operations that rely on overhead payments from the NIH have been impacted.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stanley\u2019s lab is currently conducting research trials on tuberculosis infections in children. Stanley said she had three research grants scheduled for review in the current cycle, which won\u2019t be reviewed, and thus can\u2019t be funded this cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Holbrook said the university \u201cheard this week that (grant review sessions) will resume,\u201d noting that it \u201chope(s) this restores the normal flow of NIH funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Stanley, almost every lab in the molecular and cell biology department receives NIH funding, as well as labs in chemistry, integrative biology, natural resources and public health.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an article published by UC Berkeley News, Vice Chancellor for Research Kathy Yelick said campus researchers are \u201cafraid\u201d to enroll graduate students due to funding uncertainty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Stanley, although molecular and cell biology and infectious diseases and immunity Ph.D. programs are not freezing graduate admissions, it is \u201ca choice many programs are making.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an entire cohort of graduate students who are potentially in limbo, who might not have a lab to join, who might not be able to join a lab that they applied to university for,\u201d the research associate said. \u201cThe main thing is there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty in place right now.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research associate also expressed frustration regarding a lack of \u201cguidance from university leadership,\u201d stating that some administrators were unaware of the potential lack of funding dispersal.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of press time, campus spokespeople were unavailable for comment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a massive backlog of things to work through,\u201d the research associate said. \u201c A lot of labs on campus don\u2019t know if existing labs will still be audited, if funds will still be dispersed, if grants that they have currently under review will still get scored and awarded.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Holbrook said that they have not received any reports on a lack of funding for research, but \u201care aware that NIH has been unable to review research proposals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UC Berkeley News reported Feb. 24 that Democratic Rep. Lateefah Simon and Rep. Ted Lieu visited campus to hear from research departments and Yelick. They \u201cvowed to contest the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to drastically cut biomedical funding,\u201d according to UC Berkeley News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy research program is so important to me, it\u2019s my career and I\u2019ve worked so hard for it, but I do feel like this can&#8217;t last forever,\u201d Stanley said. \u201cWe can weather some time of not having funding to our labs, and we can rebuild again, but I don\u2019t want to lose a generation \u2026 of students from the pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although&nbsp;litigation&nbsp;temporarily blocked cuts to the National Institutes of Health\u2019s, or NIH, research funding, researchers at UC Berkeley have reported that their funds are in a state of uncertainty.&nbsp; Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed to cut overhead payments for all existing and future grants down to a 15% rate,&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/uc-berkeley-researchers-report-nih-funding-freeze-despite-ongoing-litigation\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39931,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930\/revisions\/39931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}