A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in ’95—That Wouldn’t Be Possible With Today’s NIH

My resume is clear: I am a scientist and professor. But what it doesn’t mention is that I am also a cancer survivor, like so many in this country. The bone marrow transplant that saved my life in the 1990s started in the 1950s as an exploratory project related to how cells in the body respond to radiation. The path from that early concept to a clinically meaningful therapy was winding, but it was paved by many rounds of NIH grants and generations of NIH-supported clinicians and scientists.

For more than 50 years, the NIH has been the gold standard for health innovation in this country and the world. Within the NIH and via its external funding, the agency provides resources needed to develop fundamental insights about diseases and therapies. Even more significantly, NIH grants support the training of each new generation of scientists, who then apply those skills and knowledge to create cures tomorrow that didn’t seem possible yesterday. Industries don’t train these scholars; universities receiving NIH grants do. The NIH has made possible cure after cure for generations, and without it, I might not be alive today.

That’s why recent news of a potential deal to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from the NIH to the Department of Defense — an agency that already has a budget 20 times that of the NIH — is so chilling. This comes on top of nearly 2 years of NIH funding cuts and workforce reductions, along with repeated attempts to politicize grant determinations. From 2025 to 2026, the NIH reduced the number of new research grants it funded by almost 25%. And despite significant public pushback this summer, the Trump administration again attempted to establish a board of political appointees with the intention to block or terminate NIH grants. The White House has backed down from this plan for now.

I’ve had one of my own research grants frozen — an R01 award (the most prestigious individual grant awarded by the NIH) studying the origins of endometriosis. This meant an immediate stop to paying graduate students who worked on this project and an immediate end to any ongoing experiments. I was one of the lucky ones — my project was eventually restarted following months of delays, and only after I removed the offending words “menstruating people” from the project description.

Nationally, public and private universities alike are folding in response to actual or threatened federal scrutiny. The proposed Department of Defense arrangement would mean hundreds more new research grants not being funded. It’s no surprise that recent polling shows close to a 50% drop in the number of young scientists who see a future in academic research. Our best and brightest are leaving the country or choosing different career tracks — outcomes that will impede our ability to fight disease. I am watching our nation empty its pipeline of cures in real time. This is gut-wrenching to me on a professional and deeply personal level.

We owe the American public an NIH that is recommitted to its roots of discovery, training, and cures. Rather than cutting investment, we should be doubling the funding we commit every year, funding already known to result in a 250% return on investment. And we must prioritize collaborative efforts that move the needle.

Health and biology are complex. The future cures we need increasingly require efforts that bring together different groups of scholars, each with unique skillsets, in order to illuminate the unknown.

To be sure, our nation also needs targeted investments in topics with direct clinical or commercial translation potential. (COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are an example many of us may remember.) But other federal agencies such as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health exist for such endeavors. Even then, the rapid COVID-19 vaccine was only possible due to a generation of NIH-funded projects on mRNA and drug delivery technologies.

The next cures we need will always be grounded in knowledge that comes from collective, exploratory efforts. That is what the NIH and NIH-funded science has, and still can deliver.

Disease and aging come for each of us, regardless of our gender, ethnicity, immigration status, or political identity. We have example after example of cures, from cancer immunotherapy to vascular grafts that were a generation or more in the making, and only possible due to NIH funding. These successes relied on the commitment of scholars in research universities across this country. We must recommit to the NIH investment in projects and people. It matters not only for today, but for the future.

Increasing the NIH budget and focusing on collaborative teams who have devoted their careers to discovery and teaching is the only way we can offer a healthier future to our children. We should be encouraging net gains in healthy futures and life expectancies. NIH grant funding can help us get there.