Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at UT Austin, knew from a young age that she wanted to be a scientist. She said she always loved watching birds and bugs.
“Even as a kid, I would watch the nature programs instead of the sitcoms my friends were watching,” she said.
John Wallingford was in a similar boat. The UT molecular biology chair took a life sciences class in seventh grade and knew he wanted to be a biology professor.
“There’s no scientist in my family. Nobody knows where it came from,” he said. “And [I] literally never deviated.”
Now though, Gore and Wallingford — who spoke on their own behalves and not on behalf of the university — are worried their students will not have the same opportunities to pursue science.
Since President Trump took office, the National Institutes of Health — the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world — has significantly cut grant funding. The federal agency could also see more cuts to its overall budget, as reported by Politico.
More than 80% of NIH grants go to researchers across the U.S. — including the labs that Gore and Wallingford run at UT Austin. The cuts have prompted outcry and protests from the scientific community as well as legal challenges. Sixteen state attorneys general sued the Trump administration earlier this month for canceling NIH grants.
Professors at UT Austin have not been left unscathed by the cuts. Take Jason McLellan, who did groundbreaking work to help develop a COVID-19 vaccine and is set to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. An NIH grant he had received for research on antiviral drug development was canceled on March 24.
“All research and spending had to cease that day,” McLellan said in an email. “This leaves several projects stranded and jeopardizes the further development of the exciting compounds that our consortium developed.”
UT Austin did not respond to a request for comment about the impact of NIH funding cuts on research at the university. The university has been tracking changes to federal funding for research, including a court ruling earlier this month that has prevented the Trump administration from lowering reimbursement rates related to NIH grants.
While Gore and Wallingford have not yet lost funding, uncertainty created by changes at the NIH have permeated their labs.
The Wallingford Lab: unlocking the genetic causes of birth defects
John Wallingford’s lab is covered with frogs. Frog knick knacks, cartoon frog illustrations on white boards, real frogs sitting in tanks, and petri dishes full of frog spawn — clusters of black-and-white embryos about the size of quinoa grains.
They look small, but Wallingford said that compared to human embryos, they’re actually huge.
“Part of the reason we like frog embryos is they've got arms and legs, just like we do,” he said. “We have all the same organs, but their embryos are really big. It makes them great for putting on top of microscopes.”
Wallingford’s lab studies the genes that control how an embryo develops. They’re trying to figure out how and why congenital anomalies — or birth defects — happen.
Birth defects are the leading cause of infant death in the U.S. They include conditions like spina bifida, where the spine and tissues around the spinal cord don’t fully close, and anencephaly, where the brain and skull don’t fully develop.
“A large number of these birth defects have a genetic cause, and the genes that you have and the genes that the frog has … are very, very similar,” he said.
By studying the genes in frogs, scientists can glean more about the genes that control human development and uncover better ways of diagnosing and treating birth defects.
The research his lab produces is then used by folks in clinical settings who are treating patients and running clinical trials.
Wallingford says most of the work that happens at labs like his, relies on funding from the NIH or other federal agencies. Around 85% of his lab’s expenses are currently covered by NIH grants.
Wallingford is anxiously looking ahead to summer, when he’ll learn if three major NIH grants are being renewed. He said it’s hard to know what will happen — especially since the director of the institute responsible for two of those grants was recently let go as part of mass layoffs at the NIH.
If that money doesn’t come through, he said he won’t be able to keep paying the people working in his lab. That means some promising long-term research projects may be stalled or abandoned.
“If I don't get the money this summer, then [I have] eight months, and I cut loose 12 people. Two of my people have kids,” he said.
The Gore Lab: understanding hormones and health
Gore, like Wallingford, has relied on NIH-funding to run her laboratory for more than two decades.
“My lab probably costs about somewhere between half a million dollars and $750,000 a year,” she said. “I get that money almost entirely from the NIH.”
Gore, a neuroendocrinologist, studies the intersection between the nervous system and the endocrine system — specifically how chemicals people encounter in their everyday lives, such as those found in plastics, affect our hormones and our brains.
“I’m interested in how BPA, industrial chemicals, pesticides and other chemicals that were designed for other purposes can get into the food chain and affect brain development,” she said.
Gore said understanding the impact of these chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, has taken years of uninterrupted research. NIH funding, she said, is essential to keeping experiments running as planned.
“If we have to interrupt that, our experiments will stop and we may need to start over,” she said. “That is a huge waste of time, a huge waste of money and a great deal of inefficiency.”
Gore is also worried about how fewer federal dollars will affect the pipeline of new scientists. Her lab is training researchers at all different stages of their careers from people who have already finished their PhDs to those about to embark on their graduate studies.
Elena Morales-Grahl has worked in the Gore Lab for the last two years and will officially be a UT Austin graduate student next year. Donning a lab coat, she inspected slices of rat brain.
“So right here, we have some rat brain slices and what I’m doing is looking at different proteins in the brain and how they’re affected by endocrine disruptors,” she said.
Morales-Grahl said she can’t imagine doing anything else besides science, and it’s been hard to see other students face roadblocks this year. She said federal funding cuts prompted other universities to rescind offers from other students planning to pursue graduate degrees.
“I remember I was at an interview and the people around me got an email from one school that their offer had been rescinded,” she said. “So you have an idea of what you’re going to do next year and now you have to scramble to figure something else out.”
Sophia Khoury, a second-year graduate student in the Gore Lab, said the current climate for scientific research is challenging with the possibility of cuts looming. But one thing that makes her optimistic is how resourceful and determined scientists are.
“I think we’ll find the scientists will be relentless and find ways around whatever barriers they put up,” she said. “And that makes me hopeful.”
But Gore said she is still concerned that NIH funding cuts will hinder the pipeline for new scientists.
“This is just an existential crisis as far as the future of science in the United States,” she said.
