Protestors hold up signs as part of a “Stand Up For Science” protest. (Aliana Mediratta | Student Life)

Professors, researchers, graduate students, and PhD candidates stood across the street from the Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Friday afternoon holding signs that read “My research saves lives, cutting my funding will not” and “Science not silence.” As cars drove by and honked in support, the group of a few hundred protesters cheered and clapped. 

At the same time, roughly 75 people gathered on Mudd Field, mostly graduate students and faculty. Both events were held as part of a series of nationwide “Stand Up for Science” protests. Similar protests drew thousands nationwide, while the main rally took place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

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Protestors gather on Kingshighway, across the street from Barnes Jewish Hospital, to protest cuts to research funding. (Aliana Mediratta | Student Life)

“The Trump administration is interfering with congressionally-allocated funding, taking a sledgehammer to America’s higher education system for seemingly no other reason than spite,” Bobby Huggins, a Computer Science PhD student said to the crowd on Mudd Field. Huggins was one of multiple graduate students who helped organize the event.

Huggins went on to add that, while the measures are being construed as cost-cutting or “fighting back against woke ideology,” they have far broader implications.

“Cuts to the [National Institute of Health] will prevent cancer patients from getting the care they need,” Huggins said. “Cuts to the [National Science Foundation] will slow research on climate change at the precise time it’s needed most.” 

(Anna Calvo | Staff Photographer)

PhD student Cass Pitts, who does developmental research to create methods other scientists can use, said that the uncertainty around the future of her job and many of her colleagues’ jobs brought her to the protest at WashU’s Medical Campus. 

“All of our funding is in freeze, we don’t know where salaries are going to come from,” Pitts said. “[Part of why we’re here] is to show the public what scientists actually look like.”

Humza Hemani, another PhD student who came to the event with Pitts, added that scientists are often viewed as abstract figures, which motivated him to show up. He is also concerned about the long-term damage caused by the funding freeze and other executive orders. 

“Those are changes [that] can do permanent damage, you’ll have people leaving science forever, and the best way to protect the First Amendment is to exercise it,” said Hemani, whose work focuses on treating developmental kidney disease. 

When asked about the importance of the event, MD/PhD student Jamie Moffa gestured to the protesters behind them.

“People are chanting it right now — ‘Research saves lives,’” Moffa said. “Science is so deep in people’s lives. I don’t think people realize how far back society would regress if these funding cuts go through.”

Moffa was also involved with organizing a phone banking session on Feb. 19 where a small group called local and state legislators and asked them to protect research funding from NIH cuts. Moffa said that events like the protest are critical to the public’s understanding of research. “It gets people in touch with the rest of their community,” Moffa said. “It makes activism something that we feel like we can do, and then through all of these connections, we can continue to make a change and plan more actions.” 

Dr. Christina Stallings is one of many WashU professors who run a lab — hers focuses on infectious diseases like tuberculosis, which kills more people globally than any other infectious disease each year. Stallings’ lab had a grant that had been peer-reviewed and was meant to start on March 1, but NIH advisory meetings were canceled in January, so her lab has not received the funding. 

“Tuberculosis kills more people than any other infection in the world, and so we need new treatments,” she said. “We do basic science research to understand the infections, and then we use that to develop new treatments, and those will directly save lives,” Stallings said. 

Stallings said she views protests like these as moments to come together and focus on common goals. 

“We all want to be healthy and the way that we do that is science,” she said. “We need everyone to talk about that, to discuss their experiences, and to come together as a unified front in order to get politicians to understand the importance of this.”