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. 

As a small group of graduate students listened in the audience, MD/PhD student Jamie Moffa explained how to convey the importance of their research to local and state legislators.

The students were gathered — both in McDonnell Hall and at WashU’s medical campus — as part of a nationwide day of action through the organization Labor for Higher Education to phone bank in opposition to recent proposed funding cuts to the National Institute of Health (NIH). 

On Friday afternoon, the National Institute of Health (NIH) announced a $4 billion research funding cut spearheaded by the Trump administration. A federal judge temporarily paused the cut nationally on Tuesday following lawsuits filed the day before.

While the future of NIH funding is now uncertain, the cut to indirect cost reimbursement would have cost WashU about $106 million of research funding in 2024, according to Student Life’s analysis of the NIH funding database.

The Washington University School of Medicine received a $7.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Aug. 23, 2023 to fund a new program called the MicroEnvironment and Tumor Effects of Radiotherapy Center (METEOR) spearheaded by Julie Schwarz, MD, PhD, and Clifford Robinson, MD. 

Graduate student Elizabeth Tilden was awarded a prestigious fellowship at the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), for her research investigating how aging and sleep affect cognitive ability. 

Researchers at Washington University received an 11.7 million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study and treat pain, along with reducing opioid use. 

A quick roundup of some of this week’s on-campus news, including a the addition of a veteran ally training program in the Brown School, a new NIH grant for leukemia research, a nonprofit appointing an assistant professor to its annual council and Holocaust Studies panel hosted by WU professors.

Science researchers at the University say they are enjoying a spike in federal funding, thanks in large part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.