A recently proposed cut to the National Institutes of Health’s budget has drawn concerns from researchers at Syracuse University.

President Donald Trump has proposed a $5.8 billion funding cut for the NIH’s 2018 fiscal year budget. Trump administration officials have said the cuts would mainly be to administrative funding. But SU researchers are worried about the cut’s indirect effects, which could negatively impact future research projects along with opportunities for entry-level researchers, they said.

Some said, though, that they doubt the full extent of Trump’s budget cuts will be passed by Congress.

Many of the university’s faculty members rely on grants from the NIH. Sarah Hall, assistant professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, said some researchers in the biology department have already had their funding slashed.

“Program officers at the NIH have already told people that their funding is being cut, so they’ll get 20 percent less than what they were supposed to get,” Hall said. “That’s a significant amount of money.”

Hall previously received a $446,000 grant from the NIH. That grant will not be affected by the proposed cuts, but she is planning to apply for two more grants, she said. Both of those grants could be affected by the proposed NIH cuts, even if the entirety of Trump’s budget does not pass through Congress.

Researchers’ individual budgets provide funds for a wide variety of materials — including supplies for animals, equipment and salaries. Hall said that any cuts to the NIH budget will result in her having to reduce her staff because most of her individual budget is spent on salaries.

The cuts will affect and could eliminate research programs at SU. Ivan Korendovych, an assistant professor of chemistry, said one of these programs is the funding for undergraduate research opportunities over the summer, when undergraduates receive a stipend to perform research.

“Those programs will probably be the first to go,” Korendovych said. “Students that come here usually have more opportunities to train, but if the research footprint is diminished, they lose their advantage. The pipeline of new researchers is depleted. It’s sort of a trickle-down effect for all kinds of research.”

Because SU does not have the name recognition of other prominent research institutions, many research staff rely on one grant, Korendovych said. Researchers at other universities, such as Harvard University, are able to get three or four grants, he added, which would lessen the effects of the cuts.

“Even 10-20 percent cuts would be devastating to us,” Korendovych said. “If I’ve got three people, I would have to let someone go after a cut like that.”

Another effect of the proposed cuts could be the limitation of opportunities for graduate students at publicly funded institutions, researchers said. Hall said one alternative could be for these graduate students to try their hand at private companies to perform research. Those positions, though, are already competitive.

In the past, research funding has usually been left untouched by Congress, and the Trump’s budget has yet to pass through the Senate and House, Korendovych said.

“Senators get sick like the rest of us, so cancer research and things like that are usually not hampered that much,” Korendovych said.

Hall said she is also optimistic about the potential of a compromise regarding research funding. Congress, she said, will “probably” not cut the budget to the extremes that Trump is proposing.

Korendovych said that history should be a guide when discussing potential funding cuts. Research is not controversial and has bipartisan support, he said.

“Everybody wants medical research and advancements in health technology. We still don’t know where this is going,” Korendovych said.

Published on April 10, 2017 at 9:11 pm