It seems that all government funded longevity research is at risk right now. Funding is halted, and while it works its way through the court process the delays may cause the premature termination of studies. This from the Lamming lab, which is currently doing a longevity study in humans with everolimus.
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And a forum member forwarded to me this information on how you can try to get your representative motivated to change the funding situation for science in the USA:
Save NIH and NSF Research Funding ⭑ 5 Calls
– it lets people enter their zip code and discover 5 relevant representatives from their zip code to contact.
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More in on the effects of the NIH funding freeze on longevity research:
Meanwhile, people’s entire academic life is being disrupted on a mass scale:
US universities curtail PhD admissions amid Trump science funding cuts
Nature talks to prospective students left in limbo as some institutes withdraw offers and put applications on hold.
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To understand how biomedical scientists feel as they watch Donald Trump and Elon Musk aim their bazookas at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recall how you felt when the Taliban aimed their bazookas at the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan. “Senseless” may be one word that springs to mind. “Permanent” might be another.
But the destruction of NIH is in many ways worse than the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. The Buddhas were an astounding feat of architecture and sculpture and devotion. But there were just two of them. NIH contains 27 institutes and centres, each of which specialises in the research and cure of a whole class of diseases. The work of these institutes occurs, in part, at NIH proper, but the bulk of the work occurs at universities (the so-called “extramural” program) funded through grants.
This collective research builds on continuing advances in every field of medicine as well as chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, biology, and more. The American biomedical science enterprise, which has eradicated polio, created artificial organs, and mapped the genome to identify the root causes of disease, is the greatest collective accomplishment of human beings in the history of the world. Once derailed, it will take a very long time to recover.
Read the full story here:
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A new republican proposal to eliminate animal testing; say goodbye to the ITP program if it passes:
Source: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1896235685079896380
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That would be the end of one of the pillars of longevity research. That’s really bad news.
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Its a sad state of affairs when the DOGE / Trump people cutting the NIH budgets don’t know the difference between transgender and transgenic… perhaps having poorly educated 19 year olds in DOGE slashing the NIH budget is not the best idea?
Update: perhaps the mistake was not between “transgenic” and “transgender”. Given that “transgender mice” are impossible, I’m not sure how its possible to know what he was talking about but here is another take:
President Trump told Congress that the federal government is paying for research to make “transgender mice.” That’s wrong. But his critics were incorrect, too.
Last night, President Trump told Congress that federal dollars are being spent to make “transgender” mice.
Some scientists countered online that the mice are not “transgender,” but, rather “transgenic,” referring to a genetic technique that changes the DNA of laboratory animals. Scientists create transgenic animals by inserting or deleting genes—or introducing other remarkable modifications that cover an incredible array of functions and implications. This powerful technique is used to study countless diseases and scientific questions.
Everyone is wrong.
The mice in the studies everyone is talking about were neither transgender nor transgenic.
This all started when a member of Congress made a spectacle of these studies at a hearing in February. That’s why it is quite clear which subset of studies were being referenced in President Trump’s speech. He said the government is spending $8 million on making transgender mice. The government spends hundreds of millions of dollars on projects that use transgenic mice to study dozens of diseases and biological mysteries.
If you think about it, the very notion of a “transgender mouse” is completely ridiculous. Mice can’t tell you their gender. They can’t tell you how they identify. They don’t know their pronouns. They are mice! Of course, they do have genetic sexes. And the studies being misunderstood here do indeed concern injecting sex hormones into laboratory animals like mice and monkeys. Scientists are studying the behavioral and biological effects that result from changing the hormonal profiles of these animals. Injecting female mice with testosterone does not make them transgender. It makes them masculinized. The inverse is true for male mice given estrogen or testosterone blockers.
It may be splashy and salacious, but studies like these are actually often well-worth doing for any number of reasons. Plenty of biologists can tell you why it’s important that we understand the endocrine system, the reproductive system, and related scientific questions. But let’s at least understand what is really happening in these particular labs.
In the end, we want to fund science, not cut it. To get there, I’d rather scientists spend their time demystifying why experiments involving changes in sex hormone profiles of animals are worthwhile than mischaracterizing (albeit likely unintentionally) what is actually happening in these research projects. I imagine there is a large population of taxpayers that has no earthly idea why we ought to be funding these endeavors. Worse, if you described these studies to them, I think many of them would, at least initially, not see the utility. But, through thoughtful conversations and explanations, I think many (and maybe even most) people might end up supporting science that initially seemed frivolous, if not downright off-putting.
Look, worse mistakes have been made by science communicators and I think those dunking on the President had reason to be suspicious that he got something wrong. That’s because he and his allies don’t seem to have any idea what science is or why it matters. And, yes, the President was wrong. But he was not entirely off-base, I suppose. Scientists are indeed masculinizing female mice and monkeys and feminizing male mice and monkeys. That does not make the animals “transgender,” and clearly President Trump doesn’t understand why these experiments have value*.* If he’s curious—and I’m sure he ain’t—I’d be glad to tell him.
Regardless, it’s always good to correct the record so that we can spend our energy on the right fights.
Here’s my three-minute video on this that I posted on Instagram … (see link below for video)
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This seems to suggest the NIH carnage in the sudden change in the overhead rate may not go forward:
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How the NIH dominates the world’s health research — in charts
Abrupt cuts by the Trump administration to the US National Institutes of Health threaten progress in medical research globally
US biomedical science dominates the world in terms of papers, discovery and drugs, says Miriam Merad, a cancer immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who receives funding from the NIH and other sources (see ‘Publication prowess’). Merad points to a study1 that shows that NIH-funded research contributed to 354 of 356 drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2010–19.
“Without NIH, there would be no cancer immunotherapy, no anti-overdose medication, no anti-heart attack or stroke medication, no cutting-edge treatments,” addiction researcher Olivier George at the University of California, San Diego, tweeted in February.
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And how its already impacting major biomedical research groups…
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Saying ‘pandemic is over,’ NIH starts cutting COVID-19 research
Grant terminations halt research on improving vaccinations and preventing future pandemics
One major NIAID program that began in May 2022 and was just killed, Antiviral Drug Discovery Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, promised to spend $577 million on nine U.S.-based efforts to develop new drugs to treat COVID-19. Part of that program was also aimed at designing antivirals to target entire families of disease-causing viruses, including bunyaviruses (Rift Valley fever), filoviruses (Ebola, Marburg), flaviviruses (yellow fever, dengue, Zika), paramyxoviruses (measles), picornaviruses (common cold), and togaviruses (chikungunya). The termination of the program has a “misleading rationale” and is a “pointless, ill-advised move that will hurt U.S. science and pandemic readiness,” says Charles Rice, a Nobel Prize–winning virologist at Rockefeller University who co-leads one of the nine centers that was funded under that program.
Other terminated grants involved research to develop improved COVID-19 vaccines and to address Long Covid, the mysterious lingering aftermath of some SARS-CoV-2 infections. “The research is being treated like we already have all the answers we will need in the future and that the current vaccines work well enough and don’t need improvement, which we know is not true,” says an investigator involved with one of the NIAID grants who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “Some of the studies being canceled were attempting to make a pancoronavirus vaccine, which would hopefully be available the next time a novel coronavirus jumps species into humans.”
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This just feels wrong on so many levels. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
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Meanwhile, biotech leaders are extremely concerned about the gutting of the NIH of experts, and its likely impact on slowing delivery of new therapies:
Source: https://x.com/Nicole_Paulk/status/1906016132148117727
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“We are deeply concerned that the loss of experienced leadership at the FDA will erode scientific standards and broadly impact the development of new, transformative therapies to fight diseases for the American people,” John Crowley, head of the biotech lobbying group BIO, said in a statement.
“Marks will be sorely missed,” John Maraganore, a biotechnology leader and former CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, wrote on X.
Marks, a physician and hematologist, has led the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since 2016, overseeing the agency’s review of vaccines, blood products and some genetic medicines. He helped come up with the idea for Operation Warp Speed, a cross-government initiative that helped the U.S. quickly develop, review and produce several safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19. He’s also championed the development of cell and gene therapies, pushing the agency to be more flexible and move faster — sometimes controversially so
.
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It’s a new dark ages for medical research and progress. I have a feeling longevity therapies are going to be slow in coming. Europe will probably cut back as well as more money flows into the military complex.
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