Survey: 1,000 NIH Researchers Report Lab Closures, Lost Data

A nationwide survey conducted by STAT of nearly 1,000 NIH-funded researchers, published March 19, documents the human toll of federal funding disruptions: labs shutting down, patient data left unanalyzed, and early-career scientists confronting the possibility that their research careers may be over before they truly began.

Named Researchers, Concrete Losses

Minoli Perera, a pharmacogenomics researcher at Northwestern University, lost approximately $500,000 in first-year funding when NIH terminated her grant studying the relationship between ancestry and drug response. She had already spent roughly half the award building infrastructure for the project. NIH cited DEI-related categories as justification — a characterization Perera disputes, noting her study examines genomes, not racial categories.

Other cases in the survey paint a similar picture. A Chicago-area scientist had a grant terminated mid-project. An Ohio researcher faces an expiring employment contract after losing funding for planned endometriosis research. In Baltimore, an HIV researcher saw a cancelled grant leave hundreds of patient participants' data in limbo — a potential ethical violation that no one at NIH has addressed.

"It's no longer clear that there's a place for that kind of research — or for her — in the new funding environment," STAT reported of one researcher's assessment of her career prospects.

Eroded Trust Threatens the Next Generation of Scientists

The survey findings point to damage that extends beyond individual grants. Researchers report fundamentally eroded trust in the federal funding system — a development that could discourage the next generation of scientists from pursuing NIH-funded careers altogether.

For early-career researchers, the instability is particularly devastating. Postdoctoral fellows and assistant professors often depend on a single NIH grant to sustain lab operations and secure tenure. When funding disappears mid-cycle, the cascade — staff layoffs, abandoned experiments, incomplete publications — can permanently derail a research trajectory.

Grant-dependent researchers should explore diversification strategies, including foundation funding, industry partnerships, and state-level research programs. Tools for navigating the current NIH funding landscape are available at grantedai.com. In-depth coverage is available on the Granted blog.