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'Never seen anything like this' – NIH meetings and travel halted abruptly

In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.

Researchers who spoke to Nature say that although a short, daylong pause in communications at US agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started, to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump team’s — it is set to last until at least 1 February — is unprecedented. These panels, called ‘study sections’ and ‘advisory councils’, are sometimes scheduled a year in advance and can include more than 30 participating researchers, so it will take time to reschedule and might result in a ‘domino effect’ of cancellations. Harold Varmus, a former NIH director who is now a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, says that putting a hold on communications of new policies when there’s a new presidential administration can make sense.

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