Columbia University scientists severely hit Trump’s discounts

On Tuesday morning this week, PhD Daniela Vodira woke up at 7 am to invite the head of the Research Laboratory in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Colombia, which led to destructive news. The F31 Fellowship has been terminated, a research training grant that provides most of its annual income.

“It was a shock,” says Vodira. “I stormed tears immediately.”

Fodera, which studies fibroids in the uterus-non-cancerous growth that affects 70 % -80 % of women by the age of 50, and can cause severe pain and sterility-is just one of the scientists affected by US President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel 400 million US dollars in federal regulations and contracts, located in New York City. He announced on March 7The Trump team said that this step stems from “the continuous failure of the university in the face of the continuous harassment of Jewish students” and that it is expected to follow more cancellation. “

Most of the affected researchers and students who are granted and granted from the National Institutes of American Health, which are the largest informant of biomedical research in the world. Agency Announced Monday It has ended more than $ 250 million of financing – including more than 400 research grants – to Colombia.

Many university laboratories, doctoral students and post -PhD students have expressed concern nature About their future in science and their ability to support themselves and their families. Although no full list of canceled grants, natureReports indicate that scientists early in his career who receive NIH training such as F30, F31, R25 and T32 fellowships are severely affected. Sources within the national information institutes nature The lists of canceled grants come from the agency’s external research office, which in turn receives them from the Motherhood Agency at the National Health Institutes, the US Department of Health and Humanitarian Services, in coordination with the US government competence Ministry. The procedure in the menus is required immediately, often within an hour.

A spokesman for Colombia said nature The university is in the process of reviewing the termination notifications and “cannot confirm the number of grant cancels that have been received from federal agencies since March 7.” However, Colombia wrote “pledges to work with the federal government to restore federal funding in Colombia.”

Losses to the public

Jimmy Dow, Laboratory Commander at Millie Sameran College of Public Health in Colombia, was also surprised when granting grants arrived. DAW, which studies how policies affect women’s childbearing and pregnant women’s ability to access health services, on Monday evening.

The university stated that a grant – which supported about 20 people – was immediately canceled, and that it needs to stop its work and notify the collaborators inside and outside Colombia.

“It is painful,” says Dow. “We are really trying to do action in the public interest – we are working to improve the mother’s mortality crisis in the United States.” (Mothers mortality rates in the United States are high compared to other high -income countries, especially among black women.)

Some post -PhD colleagues in Colombia are protected from the loss of their positions despite the lack of funding because they are part of a union with an agreement with the university. Therefore, the university employees like laboratory leaders are responsible for finding funding for those who have ended their grants, says Sherid de Liu, president of the Federation.

“If I had no protection, it would have been another wage check two weeks ago and I will be outside the streets now,” says Colombia Post Duck Gordon Betty, who was notified on Tuesday morning. “It is difficult to know what the immediate repercussions of that will be, but at this stage I think my academic career has ended effectively,” he says.

Colombia’s problems have its roots in the campus protests that erupted after Israel invaded Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, an Islamic organization that some countries have as a terrorist group. Twelve hundred people died in Hamas attacks, and about 250 people are hostages. Some students in Colombia and other universities throughout the United States described the response of Israel inappropriate, pointing to more than 48,000 Palestinians who died, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. But some Jewish students felt threatened with protests.

Trump, who has long said he wanted to rid the American education system, He wrote on the social media network, Social, on March 4 “All federal financing will stop any college, school or university that allow illegal protests.”

By Monday, the Civil Rights Office of the US Department of Education was Send messages to 60 universitiesIncluding Colombia, warning them of possible enforcement procedures if they do not “do not” provide their obligations to protect Jewish students on the campus. ”