As federal funds disappear, UO scientists feel ‘on the edge of panic’ about the future of research

This story has been updated to reflect the current amount of canceled National Institutes of Health funding at the University of Oregon and to add the amount of other terminated UO grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.

Cris Niell’s office in the Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon has whiteboards lining the walls with complicated equations, drawings from his daughter and papers stacked all across his desk. 

But none of that was on his mind as he recently explained why he’s worried about federal funding cuts to science.

“Where do scientists come from? A university. They get a Ph.D.,” Niell said. “If all of these fellowships are cut, we can’t train the next generation of scientists.” 

And that, he said, triggers his worries about what could happen 10 years from now. “We don’t have scientists to solve the next problem that comes up.”

A professor of biology and neuroscience at the UO, Niell devotes his research to understanding how the visual systems of humans, octopuses and zebrafish work. That research leads to treatments for conditions like blindness.

But under the Trump administration, jobs in science are disappearing from lack of funding. Labs are shutting down. And people who are sick and rely on research like Niell’s for treatments “will just get sicker,” he said.

The National Institutes of Health is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, and according to a discretionary budget proposal for 2026 from the White House, NIH could lose 40% of its funding. 

The NIH is made up of 27 institutes and centers. The White House proposal would reduce that to eight, and the remaining 19 institutes would be condensed into four new ones.

Scientists at the University of Oregon are feeling the effects. For some, the cutbacks mean a pause in their research – or a potential end.

UO spokesperson Eric Howald says the current value of canceled scientific research grants by NIH at the university, including multiyear projects and awarded but unspent funds, totals $4.42 million.

An additional $2.84 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation has also been terminated, Howald said.

Howald said the university has appealed most of the terminations.

“These changes are making it more challenging for the university to fulfill part of its mission,” Howald said, “which is to prepare students to enter the workforce. Many UO students participate in research somehow, and without federal research or training grants, the ability of the university to offer these experiences is more difficult.”

Here’s a closer look at how the federal cuts are affecting four laboratories at the University of Oregon:

Niell Lab

Niell’s three main branches of research are natural visual behavior, visual processing and brain states and neural circuits for vision in octopuses. 

Niell said that most of his funding is from NIH, and he anticipates that he will see the impacts of the funding cuts more in the future than now. 

He said that his lab is fortunate enough to receive additional funding from Simons Foundation, a nonprofit, and the Department of Defense. Those help make up for the loss of funding from NIH.

“So what’s been happening a lot is terminations of grants that have things that are related to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) one way or another,” Niell said. “And for us it really affects a lot of grad students and postdocs who came from underrepresented backgrounds.”

His lab has one postdoc whose fellowship and funding has been cut, and Niell said he is trying to figure out how to pay him to keep him in the lab.

“The problem is that right now, almost all the grants I would have applied for have been canceled,” Niell said. “So I have a lot of projects that are ending in the next year or two, and I don’t have anywhere to apply to get new funding.”

Niell said that the cuts are putting him “on the edge of panic.”

Westerfield Lab

Professor emeritus of biology and neuroscience Monte Westerfield focuses his research on disease-causing genes, specifically for Usher syndrome, which is the leading cause of combined deafness and blindness.

Westerfield has had one grant NIH terminated, a collaborative grant with a group at Harvard University.

The terminated grant was for research through the Undiagnosed Diseases Network – a national network of 24 clinical sites that takes on “very difficult cases of individuals who have presumed genetic diseases,” he said.

Westerfield said Harvard is the coordinating center for research on the project, and with Harvard’s well-publicized battles with the Trump administration, his part in the research is in jeopardy.

His bigger concern, however, is for the patients who have already entered the Undiagnosed Diseases Network for treatment.

“Some of them entered the program more than a year, maybe two years ago,” Westerfield said, “And now that work is just going to stop.”

Murray Lab

Assistant professor of biology, neuroscience and mathematics James Murray uses his research to study how human neural circuits process information.

Murray hasn’t directly lost grants for his lab, but he said he’s nervous about that possibility.

However, he has lost funding in an indirect way, because NIH is no longer supporting subawards to overseas collaborators on grants.

“If you have a grant from NIH and part of the project is especially well-suited for a foreign collaborator at a foreign institution, if you could justify it, that was allowed by NIH,” Murray said. “But as of last month, it’s no longer allowed.”

Murray is losing the collaboration of a foreign principal investigator at the University of Edinburgh. The grant was to help scientists understand the role of neuromodulators, like dopamine and serotonin, in the neural circuitry in the spinal cord.

Murray receives some support from the university, which gives startup funding.

“(Startup funding has) been part of my lab’s budget for the last several years,” Murray said. “And the idea is that the university is supporting you to get a research team off the ground and use that time to get results and apply for your own funding.”

Murray is being more conservative about hiring graduate students and postdocs because of the NIH uncertainty, he said.

Eisen Lab

Professor of biology and neuroscience Judith Eisen researches how neuron formation in an animal’s vertebrae nervous system can affect its behavior.

Eisen said most of her funding is not from NIH, but she has submitted a few grants to NIH that have been “seriously delayed.”

Her primary concern with the grant terminations is the consequences for the American public.

“You think about all the clinical trials that have been halted because of grants that were lost,” Eisen said. “How many people’s health has been affected by that? How many people are going to die because of that?”