Aspiring scientists consider alternate career paths following Trump NIH cuts | Opinion

“Should I stay in science?” “Should I stay in academia?” As a MD-PhD student at UC San Francisco, these are the conversations that now regularly circulate in break rooms and mentor-mentee meetings as we face massive cuts to research funding.

I mentor scholars employed in labs as they prepare for graduate school and a career in science. In the span of months, these talented mentees learn everything from computer coding to culturing mammalian cells. Now, when I meet mentees for lunch or greet them in the elevator, I see weighed-down shoulders and anxious eyes. When I hear trainees ponder alternate career paths, I mourn the brilliant current and future scientists we are losing. What future insights into human and planetary health might they have contributed?

Our federal and state governments are in the process of implementing drastic cuts to science research funding. Earlier this month, the Trump administration ordered a $2.6 billion reduction in contracts with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, supporting more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and research institutions.

Additional cuts to the NIH budget, currently being appealed in court, propose a 15% limit on indirect costs, funds supporting needs such as maintaining equipment and facilities. The NIH estimates this would lead to a $4 billion dollar decrease in funding.

For the UC system, the union of UC workers (UAW 4811) estimates that NIH cuts would result in a loss in the hundreds of millions for the university.

At the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a $396.6 million reduction in funding to the 10 UC campuses. In response to these budget cuts, research institutes and universities across the country have stopped supporting our scientific workforce, with the NIH laying off 1,200 employees and UCSF announcing a hiring freeze as of March 19.

These massive funding cuts make research jobs unstable and leave my colleagues questioning whether they have a future in public science research. During lunchtime conversations with early graduate students, I hear that research labs they were planning to join have now turned them away because of funding limitations.

While these cuts affect all researchers, they disproportionately impact those at early stages of training, especially those who lack extensive social and financial capital. Some of the funding cuts directly threaten programs that provide research positions to trainees who face systemic barriers and who would not otherwise be able to access research opportunities. Impactful science involves problem solving, creative thinking and noticing assumptions we make when understanding the world. Without teams of scientists with diverse perspectives on the world around us, breakthrough research that identifies novel disease treatments and promotes healthy environments will falter.

Reduced funding for research does not just affect scientists, it decimates the economy. In 2023, the $37.81 billion spent by the NIH supported 412,041 American jobs and $92.89 billion in economic activity.

Beyond the economic cost, cutting research funding has a profound human cost: As just one example of what we risk losing, NIH funding contributed to 354 of 356 (99.4%) drugs approved in the US from 2010 to 2019. These drugs prevent or treat everything from diabetes to strokes.

The research teams I work with are comprised of dermatologists, rheumatologists, pulmonologists, neonatal surgeons and pathologists. Our weekly meetings address how our research will affect the patients these health professionals care for. As a medical student, I met a patient this month whose inflammatory skin condition leaves them in excruciating pain and prevents them from leaving their home. My colleagues in the adjacent lab actively research new therapies for this condition.

I myself am a patient — I have a genetic condition called Turner Syndrome — and I have depended on scientific research to make critical health decisions, such as whether to undergo heart surgery. Without science research myself and other patients would not have the knowledge or medications we need to care for ourselves.

I want to look aspiring scientists, fellow trainees and patients in the eye and tell them that our society knows the value of public science research and invests in it. I need a team of well-supported colleagues and patients around me. I cannot do quality science without them.