WEBVTT - Trump's NIH Cuts Send Shockwaves Through the Science World 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:02.400 Hey, Oddlots listeners, we're coming to DC. 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:04.840 We're finally doing it, Joe. It's going to be our 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:09.200 first live show in Washington, DC, our nation's capital. It's 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.440 also finally going to be the time where we actually 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:13.640 talk about the Jones Act. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.160 Listen talk about doing the Jones Act episode of Odd 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.880 Lots for a long time, and it's become this recurring 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:21.880 joke that we've never done on But we're going to 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.599 do it in grand style because we're going to be 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.240 doing it live in DC and it's actually going to 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:27.840 be a debate. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:28.520 Yeah. 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.120 So we have Sarah Fuentes from the Transportation Institute. She's 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.080 going to be taking the pro side, and we also 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.600 have Colin graybou of the Cato Institute. He'll be taking 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.000 the against side. It's going to be really interesting to 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:43.880 see how all of that shakes out. 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.519 In addition to that, we're going to be speaking with 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.080 Blair Levin, who was around during the telecom bubble, and 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.440 we have Andrew Ferguson, the new head of the FTC, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.320 the one who's replaced Lina Kong. We're going to be 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:57.920 talking about mergers and acquisitions and all that stuff. So 0:00:58.240 --> 0:00:59.320 it should be a really fun name. 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.120 If you want to come and join us for that evening, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.160 it's going to be on March twelfth at the Miracle Theater. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.399 Go to Bloomberg dot com forward slash odd Lots and 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.839 you can find the link to purchase tickets. We hope 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:11.440 to see you there. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:28.319 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.839 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.440 I'm Jill Wisenthal and. 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:36.360 I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.600 Tracy, we're recording this February twenty fifth, and we're just 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.160 a little bit over a month into the new Trump 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.560 administration and sitting aside how one views the long term 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.800 goals of the administration. From the outside, it's chattic, and 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.480 there have been a lot of cuts, and it doesn't 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.600 look like scalpel types of cuts. Many things have been 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.360 shut down or frozen completely in some respect, and you 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.440 see a lot of people talk about the implications of 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:07.600 these moves, but I find it hard to wrap my 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:08.079 head around. 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.200 There's a lot happening, that's for sure, and I think 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.480 one of the struggles of everyone who's trying to follow 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.160 this at the moment is that you have new executive 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.960 orders coming out almost daily. Then you have the legal 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.440 challenges to those, and then you have the administration itself 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:28.560 sometimes arguing within itself about whether or not certain orders 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.080 should be followed, certain emails should be replied to. It 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.320 does feel very chaotic. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:35.880 One area that I think has caught a lot of 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:41.040 people's attention, in particular, has been immediate moves at the NIH, 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.480 the National Institute of Health. And there are multiple moving 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.919 parts here, but from what I've been understand that when 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.760 there are grants awarded, some of the money goes to 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.720 direct costs and some of it's indirect, and there has 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.240 been a change in what's allowed on the indirect And 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.640 then I've also seen, and it's almost hard to believe, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.280 but I've now seen it in an places that there 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.880 have been like whole programs that got hit with an 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.280 immediate freeze, which I have to imagine in science creates 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.640 all sorts of problems imagined. There are lots of endeavors 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.360 that can't just be stop started on a switch, and 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.200 so understanding what's actually happening right now in science funding 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.079 and the implications of some of these moves is obviously 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.239 something we need to discuss, especially given the broader thing 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.280 of like we want to be, I think, a country 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.120 at the leading edge of science and technology. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.120 Yeah, this is exactly the tension. 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:31.799 I think. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.080 So even Elon Musk and Donald Trump will talk about 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.120 how important it is for the US to be technologically 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.760 advanced and to beat competitors like China. But at the 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.840 same time they're doing this, and I guess their argument 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.160 is that by capping some of the cost of research, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:51.920 you might make it more efficient, you might make it 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.600 more monetizable, you might see more breakthroughs. But again, there 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.720 is this tension to the sledgehammer approach that we've seen, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.200 where if you just put in a cap on something 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.640 like indirect funding, it can affect a bunch of research programs, 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.560 So we should talk about it. I also, I must 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.040 admit I don't know anything about NIH funding. It seems 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.880 very sprawling and very complicated, so I want to get 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:15.720 into that as well. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:17.640 All right, well, I'm very excited to say we have 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.480 the perfect guest, someone who actually is a scientist in 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.359 the lab working on these things and has been talking 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.839 about the impact of the moves over the last several weeks. 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.320 Thrilled to bring on to the show. Carol Lebon, Professor 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.200 of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University, Professor Lebon, thank you 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.600 so much for coming on the out Lots podcast. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:38.559 Happy to be here. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:40.880 What's happened in the last month? 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:44.200 Why don't you ask a broad question? 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.039 So we need forty minutes for just answering that question. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.719 Fine, Three major things have happened in the last months. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.159 One is what you alluded to already, this attempt to 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.640 cap the indirect costs for grants at fifteen percent. And 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.200 I'm happy to go into that. Well, but you can 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.719 think about it if you pick any area of research 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.279 that you might care about. Let's say pediatric cancer, that 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.520 basically amounts to a fifteen to twenty percent decrease in 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.160 funding for studying those cancers. And this is an area 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.680 where NIH has made huge progress. So forty years ago, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.320 if your child was diagnosed with cancer, there was less 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.640 of a sixty percent of those children that would still 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.400 be alive in five years. Today there's a ninety percent 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.480 survival rate. So I mean, these are impacts that are 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:30.400 going to be huge. 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.920 I'm gonna actually stop you right there because I think 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.520 this is important. There is science research that happens outside 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.760 of the NIH. When you look at that forty year history, 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.800 how do you draw the line for someone who'd you know, 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.800 people are aware of big pharma companies exist that this 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.839 is like the NIH should get credit for that progress. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.520 So the NIH is really sort of two different systems. 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.359 They have an intramural system. So there are scientists running 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.159 laboratories at the NIH, and by the way, they have 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.359 not been exempt from these cuts to probationary people. I 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.479 know of young scientists who have started their independent laboratories 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.560 at the NIH in the last couple of years, who 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.360 least a week ago Saturday received an email at night 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.560 saying that they were terminated and that their access to 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.560 campus was gone. So there's intramural research, but the vast 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:25.560 majority of NIH grant funds go into their extramural program. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.120 These are funds that go to grants at universities in 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:34.440 all fifty states, and they are incredibly important for all 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:39.880 levels of science. Basic research, translational research, clinical trials are 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.800 going on not at the NIH, but in Iowa and 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.720 in Ohio and in Florida, and so you know, it's 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:50.240 estimated that these grant monies that come to the universities 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:55.240 they support directly about four hundred thousand or more employees 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.240 across those fifty states. But also they drive more more 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:04.039 than ninety three billion dollars of economic activity each year. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.000 And again that's across all fifty states. That's not staying 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.800 in Washington, DC. If there's an estimate that for every 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.160 dollar of NIH grant money that is granted, it generates 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.760 almost two dollars and fifty cents worth of economic activity. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.360 Just to press on Joe's point, how do you actually 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.320 measure the success of NIH funding? Is it you produce 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.120 some new wonder drug that is monetizable and everyone starts 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.480 using it. Is it just the sort of nebulous concept 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.440 I guess of like advancing scientific research, how do you 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.240 judge the success and efficacy? 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.320 So I think that you can look at that on 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.040 two levels. So there are the studies that are translational 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.760 studies that immediately impact human health, and those are very, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.920 very important, but just as important as the kind of 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.480 research that the general public sometimes has trouble wrapping their 0:07:55.520 --> 0:08:00.240 heads around because you don't necessarily see an immediate as 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.680 from that research in human health. But most of the 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.200 advances that we see today that are being translated and 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.280 are really making a direct effect on human health. They 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.640 stem from studies that were done ten or even twenty 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.119 years ago that were foundational that at the time, again 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.920 didn't This is called discovery based science or basic science 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:25.480 or fundamental research. But it's these foundations that are built 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.760 on in the more clinical studies and also in industry, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.040 in the pharmaceutical industry and biotech, they are building on 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.160 these basic discoveries that were funded by the NIH. I 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.600 can give you one really cool example. So you've got 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.600 to have heard of ozenpic right, the semaglut hide that's 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:46.559 everywhere these days. Did you know that that came from research, 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.400 very basic research that was done ages ago on a 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.040 venomous lizard called a gilla monster. A gila monster at 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.960 this Scala monster is native to the southwest of the US, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.280 and people noticed that. Scientists noticed that it had the 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.559 ability to fast for an incredibly long period of time, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.680 so wanting to understand the biological mechanisms of how it did, 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.600 that led them to isolate from the saliva of a 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.679 Glian monster. This what would eventually become ozenpec. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.320 Talk to us about the math of direct versus indirect costs, 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.440 because I think this is just something that was in 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.640 the headline of the announcement. And I don't think I 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.360 really have a concrete understanding of what the difference is, 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.000 why there is this distinct allocation. What do you walk 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.480 us through a year ago or just in the up 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.080 until recently, what this allocation was all about. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.360 So every grant that goes to let's say Northwestern where 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.160 I am, has two components to it. Direct costs that 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.000 come directly to my research laboratory, and indirect costs that 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.520 are used to support my research. So a lab like 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.480 mine is analogous to running a small business. So let's 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.520 say that business as a restaurant. Ye costs or the 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.440 restaurant would be the food, the cooks, and the servers. 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.439 But there are other costs to running a restaurant business. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.120 You have inventory and purchasing and upkeep the kitchen equipment 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.000 and the building, et cetera. And so the restaurant can't 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.400 run without those other things. It can't exist with just 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.040 the food, the cooks, and the servers. And so for 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.080 a research lab like mine, the direct costs are the 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.199 chemicals and the reagents and the salaries of the scientists 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.640 who are carrying out the studies. But there's also indirect costs, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.040 and those again include maintenance and replacement of equipment, ordering, bookkeeping, 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:38.720 handling hazardous waste, compliance with government regulations, all of which 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.160 are absolutely essential to doing the research. And the reason 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.240 it gets separated out like this is actually to save 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.120 money because while the direct costs are specific to my 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:54.320 particular research, most of those indirect costs are for most, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.880 if not all, research labs at a given university, and 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.680 so you get economies of scale by lumping those together. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:02.600 Does that make sense? 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.480 Yeah, So going back to your restaurant analogy, I guess 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.160 it's kind of like your funding of food court, right, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.080 So each individual restaurant within a food court might have 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.800 their own direct costs, but then the cost of actually 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.200 maintaining the space, renting out the space is sort of 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.600 shared by everyone doing different things. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.400 Sure, I think that's a great advance on the analogy, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.720 and it would be particularly so if they had a pooled, 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.320 let's say, central building, so that they didn't each have 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:31.359 to handle the finances individually. 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.480 So one thing that I was wondering is how the 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.720 NIH cap on indirect funding currently or I guess up 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.920 until a month or two ago, actually compares with other 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:49.160 medical research organizations because I'm thinking specifically about organizations like 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.640 the Gates Foundation, and I think in the announcement that 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:56.319 NIH talked about aligning with other types of research organizations 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.080 like the John Templeton Foundation. So how do private research 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.840 organizations manage to keep their own indirect costs down? And 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:10.160 why do their indirect costs seem lower than the nihs? 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.760 Oh, I mean they are lower, and there are in 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.800 fact some types of small foundations that have no indirect costs. 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.360 I remember back when I was a graduate student at Harvard. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.040 Harvard wanted to stop letting their researchers take those grants 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.880 because they were not paying for the other real costs 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.520 of doing research. But in general, over time, what's come 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.160 out of it is in the research ecosystem, universities admit 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.240 that these smaller foundations and even something like the Gates Foundation, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.760 you know, they're directing money at very specific things, and 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.720 they can do more with their work if they lean 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.200 on the NIH and universities for covering more of those 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.280 indirect costs. So they don't cover the indirect costs, it's 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.120 just that it's understood that they can't. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.200 So your assertion here is that what appears to be 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:05.040 a finance mechanism with lower indirect costs is capable of existing. 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.160 Because I don't know if free writing is the right word, 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.640 but because there is also the indirect costs that come 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.160 from the NIH too aligned or the same labs. 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:22.640 Absolutely, they're like a lost leader. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.880 So one of the arguments is that a lot of 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:42.640 NIH funding goes to a handful of extremely well endowed universities. 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.880 It's a skewed That also is something you hear a lot, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.079 including from people academia, that there is a tremendous amount 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.320 of bureaucratic bloat that exists. And I think, setting aside 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.199 the science, it does not surprise me that the current 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:02.959 administration wants to take aim at bureaucratic bloat within America's universities, 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.880 et cetera. Why shouldn't we be skeptical of the degree 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.440 of costs that these labs have born. 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.320 I mean, I think you shouldn't be skeptical because these 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:17.960 are negotiated between Health and Human Services and the universities 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.320 through a very thorough process where they sit down and 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.880 really have to lay out what the costs are and 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.680 show proof that that's what the costs are. So this 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.240 isn't somebody picking the number out of the air. This 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.600 has been the result of negotiations to really figure out 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.200 what the costs are. And you know, most university would 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.440 tell you that even the negotiated interrect cost raise don't 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.160 cover all the costs of research. 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.640 This is a very wide ranging question. But going back 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.160 to Joe's point about the administrative burden, could you maybe 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:51.360 walk us through the process of getting an NAH grant, Like, 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.640 how does it actually work, how long does it take? 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.840 How many steps do you have to go through? 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:01.200 Yeah, so NIH runs three funding cycles, each of them 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.600 take more than half a year to complete, almost three 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.280 quarters of a year. So basically, there will be one 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:11.360 date where grants are submitted, another date where grants are 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.560 reviewed by a panel of experts from around the country, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.240 usually a panel of twenty five to thirty scientists with 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.280 subject matter expertise in the area of the grants, and 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.240 those are called study sections. And then finally they'll be 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.120 reviewed by an advisory council that will basically okay grants 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.200 for funding. So here's an example. I have a really 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.000 talented post doctoral fellow working in my research group who 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.000 applied for a career transition award back in the summer. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.120 His grant was reviewed in October by a study section. 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.440 It got a phenomenal score that should have been funded. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.120 His council was supposed to meet at the beginning of 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.680 this month in February, but because no study sections or 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.400 councils have been allowed to meet, his grant can't be 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.440 approved for funding. So there are three of those cycles 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.240 a year, and right now, I mean, I'm not sure 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.960 that if your listeners are aware of this, but besides 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.320 the kinds of things that we're talking about with indirect 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:12.000 costs and direct costs, HHS has blocked NIH from posting 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.200 in the Federal Register. And why that matters is in 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:18.920 order to hold one of these study sections, these grant 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.480 review sections, or hold one of these advisory councils, they 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.920 have to be posted in the Federal Register at least 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.680 fifteen days ahead by law. So when a judge put 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.080 a restraining order on the freeze to grants, HHS got 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.160 around this bureaucratically by just simply not letting NIH submit 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.360 those notices. So the whole system has been ground to 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.960 a halt. Grants that were reviewed like my postdocs last 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.280 fall can't get approved at council grants that should have 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.560 been reviewed this month can't be reviewed, and who knows 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.440 whether their councils will meet coming in May when they should. 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.880 So right now, labs are really in sort of an 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.280 existential crisis. I mean so again, going back to this 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.760 small business model, labs are businesses that run on very 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.399 tight margins. And so if I'm going to be running 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.840 my laboratory on one of these NIH grants, which let's 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.960 say is four years long, in year three, I would 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.920 be applying for a renewal of that grant to continue 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.760 that research, and remember research that the NIH has already 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.920 invested in. If that grant can't get reviewed or funded, 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.760 then I'm turning around to the people in my lab 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.119 and saying, I don't want to have to do this, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.280 but I'm going to have to let you go. So 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.199 not only is that a real cost in terms of 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.560 jobs for people who are again experts in what they're doing, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.199 but you're damaging research that you've already invested in. The 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.359 whole thing is kind of senseless. That's certainly not government efficiency. 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.640 Can you talk more about what's being frozen right now? 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.600 So you've just described the stopping of the review process. 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.399 So Theoretically, if this freeze is in place by the 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.879 time you need your next transfer funding and it can't happen, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.280 then you could have what's happening operationally in labs that 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.040 you know of right now as a result of the 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.080 overall freeze. Are there specific trials or tests or I 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.280 guess experiments is what a lay person might call them, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.159 that had been going on in January that aren't happening 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:16.600 right now. 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.840 So I think there are some clinical trials out of 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.040 NIHS that have been affected directly. For most of us, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.560 it's damaging things, but we could still pull back from 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.720 it being absolutely disastrous if things get turned around very 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.200 very soon. But otherwise, the layoffs are going to include 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.600 people who take care of research animals. It's going to 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.040 include the people that make sure that hazardous waste is 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.280 supposed of safely. And right now it really depends on 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:50.720 each university. A lot of universities have begun to either 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.160 rescind offers for graduate students for the coming fall, or 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.760 basically decide not to have the next class of graduate 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.280 students who are cut it down by twenty to fifty percent. 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.399 And I think this is something it's important to bring up. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.840 So NIH research really does three things, right. It funds 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.320 the science that we've been talking about, so making drugs 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:18.600 like ozienpic or pediatric cancer research. It funds money in 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.840 the economy, as I mentioned, so hundreds of thousands of jobs, 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.399 ninety three billion dollars a year in economic activity. But 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.200 the other thing it does is to train the next 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:32.359 generation of research scientists. And I can tell you that 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.840 the train needs right now. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.520 are completely scared and demoralized and wondering whether there is 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.960 a future for them in science. And if we lose 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.800 the next generation of scientific researchers, it's not just going 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.679 to affect academic research. We train the workforce for the 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.920 pharmaceutical industry and the biotech industry. This is going to 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.879 decimate US scientific biomedical research broadly written. 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.560 So just on that note, one thing you hear from 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.760 the Trump administration continuously is this idea that we need 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.280 to compete with China. And it's certainly true when it 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:12.439 comes to electronics technology like semiconductors, And they say also 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.440 in the realm of scientific funding, can you maybe talk 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.360 a little bit about how the Chinese research model stacks 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.600 up against the US research model, and I guess how 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.520 much competition there is currently between the two countries for 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:28.320 that younger generation of talent. 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.480 Yeah. No, absolutely, As I'm sure you're probably aware, federal 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.639 investment in science like at NIH and the National Science 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.440 Foundation after World War Two was what drove the US's 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.280 enormous growth in the fifties and sixties and really boosted 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.560 America to the forefront of the world in technology development 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.439 in science, and we barely keep pace. I mean, to 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.000 say that we spend too much money on science is 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.280 so far from being true that it's crazy. On the 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:01.000 other hand, China recognizes what these investments do, and they 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.439 have been upping and upping the kinds of investments that 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:09.679 they make in biotechnology and another technology because that is 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.320 what's going to drive the economic growth of the future. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:18.320 The investments that US has made in science today have 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:24.400 driven the formation of entire industries, not just innovations in medicine, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.679 but also in engineering and technology. We are going to 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:28.760 lose that leadership. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.840 You've given these examples of talented postdocs being unsure that 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.879 they're going to get their funding, or the prospect that 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.479 the next generation of talent who will go into private 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.520 sector labs is going to be devastated because their education 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.360 trajectory is off. One of the arguments for NIH reform 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.240 is that a lot of NIH grants actually go to 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.560 established professionals, that there is this hierarchy that a lot 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.320 it's very hard or very rare to get grants for 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:03.159 people under forty. Setting aside the Trump elon reforms, do 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.960 you believe that there are flaws within the existing NIH 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.880 regime causing money to not go into the most promising areas. 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.960 So I would take issue with what's going on being 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.679 termed that. But Okay, the problem is that there's not 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.520 enough money in the system. And so those grant cycles 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.200 that I just mentioned, so one of the study sections 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:31.760 is going to be evaluating many, many dozens of grants 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.240 in each cycle, and then there are many study sections 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:38.880 that are evaluating different areas of science. At current funding levels, 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.159 less than ten percent of those grants are going to 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:44.600 be able to be funded. Where is the line that 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:48.160 I could draw where I could clearly say that these 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:52.359 ones are absolutely should be funded and these ones maybe 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:55.200 need more work or more thought. That line is more 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:58.200 around the twenty five to thirty percent. So we are 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.640