Federal funding has been a key factor for research across academia. Hopkins has been ranked as the school with the greatest R&D expenditure by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) for decades, with a significant portion of its funds stemming from government institutions. In March 2025, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant cuts of $800 million led to the University scaling back several projects and the loss of over 2200 jobs. The federal funding situation has continued to evolve since then, with the NSF set to issue its lowest number of new grants in four decades, shifts in the kinds of research supported by government expenses, and new rules being proposed regarding grant approval.
During the initial period of funding changes, The News-Letter interviewed several Hopkins researchers to gain more insight into the direct and indirect effects felt. One year on, these researchers were interviewed once more to understand their current circumstances and concerns about the future.
Brendon Davis, who was a PhD student in cell and molecular biology and serving as Vice President for Science Policy of the Science Policy and Diplomacy Group at Hopkins during the time of his previous interview, highlighted the political underpinnings of the matter at hand.
“I think we saw the whole cycle last year... president requests large cuts to science, Congress generally rejects those cuts and kept funding for pretty much most science agencies, which was good... we're now in that cycle again, but I think... you're seeing a lot more people get a little more into the specific rules that are being proposed.”
When asked about potential steps towards remedying the situation, Davis highlighted the need for advocacy from the scientific community.
“I think we kind of sit in these academic circles and talk about science... the ones on the ground doing the science... can go to communities and policy makers and talk about it the most effectively, as long as they get out of that bubble... we're close enough to DC that that's easy to go to a lot of big [rallies], but on the other hand, you can also set up meetings with your members of Congress... you can write op-eds... The only way that things can actually materially change is if people are actually speaking out to all those policy makers and all the people who are voting for those policy makers.”
Beyond students, The News-Letter also interviewed several professors to gain insights into the experience of running a laboratory or operating in a similar position of authority throughout this situation.
Dr. Peter Winch, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, previously addressed the loss of two of his projects focused on environmental sustainability in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of federal funding changes. While he re-emphasized the detrimental effects of the reduced funding on international cooperation and the people who stood to benefit from the success of those programs, he also highlighted the specific predicament faced by Hopkins as a private rather than public institution.
“[State universities] get a check from the government to run the University, and that's like the core of their funding... the faculty positions are frozen... Private [universities] don't have any capitation, so our income comes from tuition and [mostly] from research money... Even for the funding that exists, people are unsure what the rules are, and the rules are changed all the time by the Trump administration...” Winch said.
Winch also discussed how the cuts impacted the researchers working on the project.
“The number of faculty isn't set... a lot of those people who we hire to work on specific projects [have to leave] when the funding for those projects ends... At the time when the cuts were made in January 2025, Hopkins as a whole was well-funded and there was lots of discretionary money... So we sort of kept people going for a while, hoping that funding would come back. But now that we see funding isn't coming back, we're starting [to] cut people,“ he added.
Winch highlighted recent staff layoffs carried out by Hopkins as examples of this phenomenon. Furthermore, he indicated his experience with graduate students having difficulty finding further jobs and with funding the indirect costs not usually accomodated for within grants.
Similarly, Steven Salzberg, who had previously spoken about his concerns regarding the effects grant funding changes could have on the future of the field, continued to highlight the threat of the financial climate to research. While his lab has been able to continue its operations, he stressed the unsustainability of operating without more stable government funding.
“There is no scenario under which private funding can possibly support the United States research enterprise... Scientists have been going to private donors already for decades. Of course, we get private funding already, and those private donors didn't suddenly get a lot richer last year...” Salzberg said.
Salzberg emphasized the historical importance of research funded by the federal government.
“Starting back in the 1950s, universities would do research funded by the federal government, and the system grew over the years... in part because it was very successful. It still is very successful. It's brought a lot of discoveries that over the course of time have been very beneficial to United States, which is paying for this, and to human beings in general... it's the kind of long-term investment that companies just can't do or won't do,“ he said.
Speaking of the long-term, Salzberg highlighted the significant stressors the circumstances placed upon international recruitment and collaboration.
“It’s not that it impacts the research itself, it impacts people in the lab, most of whom are not native-born US citizens, and it affects our ability to recruit new people... We've been a tremendously attractive place to come and work, and so we've been able to bring the best minds from around the world to our labs. I've had some excellent people come from other countries. Now I know that some of them don't want to come because of the hostility they perceive.”
Zooming in on specific fields within research, The News-Letter had the opportunity to follow up with two faculty members studying means to explain and treat pancreatic cancer. Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee and Dr. Daniel Zabransky previously explained their boundary-pushing work was highly reliant on federal funding and consistent investment to provide the ability to take risks and plan long-term experiments.
In her follow-up interview, Jaffee highlighted the significant technological and scientific advancements that were being made in the search for a pancreatic cancer vaccine. Yet, the funding situation has added new barriers to their success.
“This current environment, politically, is squashing what we can do in science. Our grants are at risk. This is all government funded work... our work is under pressure, and I'm very worried about that... in fact, our vaccine work depends on our vaccine. We developed our vaccine ourselves, but there's only one company that will make the vaccine for us that we can give to patients right now, and that’s in Germany... another lot of this vaccine came to the US border, and we were told that we had to pay an extra $13,000 because of the tariffs now. I don't know where to get that extra $13,000; they're cutting our grants,“ she said.
Zabransky, her frequent collaborator who continues investigating pancreatic cancer, suggests the situation might be even worse for other fields.
“I think infectious diseases and global population health research that focuses on disparities [is] much more affected by the change in priorities and the change in policies. [In comparison,] cancer research, in a broad sense, always gets a lot of popular support, and I think the importance and the significance of it is well understood. But even without direct targeting... a lot of the structural changes in how the NIH and other government funders makes it harder for everyone.”
These effects have been observable directly at Hopkins. The News-Letter reached out to Radha Rajan, at the time a researcher working at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. She spoke about the struggles imposed by funding changes and specifically the Breakthrough ACTION project focused on the implementation of health knowledge in her previous interview. Upon follow-up, Rajan confirmed through e-mail that the project was halted and never reinstated.
Nonetheless, all fields remain under some level of threat. In his interview last year, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Jeff Coller emphasized the uncertainty faced by his field of RNA research, ranging from a loss in international competitiveness to difficulties in recruiting graduate students to sustain his work's future. During a follow-up interview with The News-Letter, he explained that many of these concerns remained or were even exacerbated by the continued difficulties as well as proposed policy changes to give the government greater oversight regarding research and grant approval. Coller also highlighted the role played by Hopkins in weathering the storm.
“Hopkins has been fantastic in the way in which they've responded to try to help and protect the faculty, mainly through the active creation of funding mechanisms. They won’t be able to take care of everybody, but they've created these resilience funds which are competitive... It's actually very encouraging, and I feel very privileged to be at a university where there is this active stance by the university’s administration to really try to make sure that we're protected in this in this really delicate time,“ Coller said.
Though the situation remains tense and continually evolving, there remain ways in which scientists, activists, and all concerned parties within the public can continue to push for solutions to the various issues described.
“I don't think anyone would ever vote against [getting] rid of cancer... I think it's harder for the public to understand [that] one of the best ways to do that is to use federal government money to really support research institutions, to support academic research labs... a lot of that work came from government-funded non-profit research support... that's the pipeline, that's the foundation for a lot of the great breakthroughs that are going to help everyone in their health in the future,” explained Zabransky.
