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NIH funding freeze stalls applications on $1.5B in medical research funds

The National Institutes of Health had to stop considering new grant applications, delaying funding for research into diseases ranging from heart disease and cancer to Alzheimer's and allergies.

While that may seem arcane, the stoppage forced the agency to cancel meetings to review thousands of grant applications, according to two people familiar with the situation, one of whom was not authorized to speak publicly and the other who feared retribution. "Today, I was meant to be serving on one of the many cancelled National Institutes of Health study sections," Annika Barber, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at Rutgers University, said during a briefing Thursday protesting the disruption of biomedical research funding. "A temporary pause in publicizing or funding new grants in order to review them is typical for a new administration," Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote in an email to NPR.

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