Cancer researchers studying artificial intelligence to detect early breast cancer signs. Pediatricians who follow the health of long -term children born to mothers with Corona virus during pregnancy. Scientists looking for bonds between diabetes and dementia.
All of these projects were paid at Columbia University with the sudden granting of federal research after the Trump administration’s decision to reduce $ 400 million of funding to Colombia about concerns about the treatment of Jewish students.
Dozens of medical and scientific studies It ends, or is at risk of finishing, letting researchers scramble to find alternative financing. In some cases, researchers have already begun to inform the study topics that research is suspended.
“Frankly, I wanted to cry,” said Kathleen Graham, a 56 -year -old nurse in Bronx, when she learned that the diabetes study in which she participated for a quarter of a century It ended.
At Colombia’s College of Medicine, doctors said they were shocking because they received a notification that their financing had been completed. Some have expressed his resignation, while others sought to solve Stopgap and asked whether the university could fund some employees in projects in the short term, according to interviews with five doctors or professors who were affected.
“The most urgent need is a short -term dam and the knowledge of long -term plans.” “This is what is going on.”
About $ 250 million from $ 400 million In the cuts imposed this month, it included funding from the National Institutes of Health. Every year, the national health institutes distribute billions of dollars in research financing for universities for biomedical and behavioral research. These grants are a major engine for medical progress – and for many medical scholars and researchers, in successful occupations.
In the interviews, many Colombia researchers who received the abolition notifications during the past week and half of them said that they assumed that their canceled grants were part of the discounts announced by Trump $ 400 million. But they said that they had no way to know yet – a reflection of chaos and uncertainty in laboratories and clinics throughout the country.
Last year, Colombia became a center for the national protest movement against the war in Gaza. The pro -Palestinian demonstrators established a camp on the campus and occupied a university building. Some Jewish students said that they suffered from harassment or wandering Near the campus, or was rejected. The university president asked the police department to remove the demonstrators and later resigned amid anger because of its dealings with the divided campus.
The Trump administration blamed the University of Colombia, saying it did a lot. In summoning the Federal Discrimination Act, lowering research financing to Colombia.
In addition to the research of research grants, the Trump administration removed the financing of clinical fellowships for professional doctors who were developing in oncology and many other areas. Dr. Herscheman said that other grants canceled the funds to employ research nurses and other support staff necessary for clinical trials.
Surprisingly deep deep cuts seem very rare, If not unprecedented. Some legal scholars say that the administration’s tactics may violate the first amendment and it seems that the government has ignored the procedures and restrictions placed in the same anti -discrimination law. Since the announcement of the discounts, the Trump administration has demanded that Colombia make exciting changes to student discipline and put an academic department in judicial custody as a prior condition for negotiations “regarding the continuous financial relationship of Colombia with the United States government,” according to a letter sent by Federal officials on Thursday.
These discounts will feel immediately by research scientists and doctors, many of whom work mainly at the Colombia Medical College and the Newwyork-Presbyterian/Columbia, about 50 northern campus buildings in Colombia.
In the interviews, they expressed his shock and grief to the extent that their research projects suddenly cut off. Dr. Olagid A. Williams, neurologist and professor at Colombia’s College of Medicine, holds two scholarships that have been terminated this month.
His research is often focused on health variations and how to narrow them.
It was one of the scholarships to study the factors that led to a better recovery of stroke among poor and socially deprived patients. Another grant explored how to increase colon and rectal cancer tests – which rise between younger adults – throughout New York City.
“As I sit here, I try to do this work, I really think the error is in another mistake in the wrong fabric of justice,” said Dr. Williams. “Fighting the horrors of anti -Semitism by punishing the nobles of health identity research creates an episode of injustice that causes pain from all parties.”
He said he was surprised.
“At the present time, I am sitting in this pain in an attempt to move in the truth of what just happened to my grant wallet,” he said.
More than 400 scholarships have been completed by Colombia University, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some grants will be felt beyond Colombia. Studies on a large scale can include researchers in many universities, however, for administrative ease, the scholarship is linked to one university. As a result, it was reduced to some research projects that include many universities.
Last week, Dr. David M. Nathan, Professor of Harvard Medical College, that the financing of the Diabetes Research Project – after a group of 1700 people over more than 25 years – was cut.
Dr. Nathan said: “Funding is flowing through Colombia, which is why we were at risk.” “When the National Institutes of Health, or who made this decision, decided to target Colombia’s financing, we were just a kind of cliff in this.”
This research project grew from a historical study that showed the effectiveness of lifestyle and metformin medication when reducing type 2 diabetes. These results were released in 2001. Dr. Nathan and others followed the same participants over the next quarter. The last stage, funded by Colombia, looked for links between diabetes and dementia.
Ms. Graham, a bronx nurse, said that as part of that study, she recently underwent tests and her gait was analyzed to obtain early signs of any neurological problems. She said over the years, she has been proud to help produce data that she and other medical professionals of patients suffer from diabetes.
Dr. Nathan said that the last stage was for two years in a five -year study.
“This is also very waste,” he said. “We did not collect all the data we were hoping to collect.”
Dr. Jordan Orange, who heads the Department of Pediatrics in Colombia The Faculty of Medicine said, one of the project that lost the financing involves the search for a spray of nose Viruses are prohibited from entering And reduce infections.
“How great it will be if we have a spray of nose, can viruses be banned?” Dr. Orange said.
According to Lucky Tran, a spokesman for the University of Colombia’s Medical Center, one other canceled studies include one that focuses on reducing maternal mortality in New York and another on treatments for chronic diseases, including long Covid.
Last week, researchers were trying to classify research that lost funding that survived projects. “We are still trying to discover all grants,” said Dr. Herscheman.