From a fruit fly database, to developing “organ chip” technology, to the study of deer mice — all of it could have serious implications for understanding, finding cures for or helping alleviate human diseases, Harvard University researchers say.
And yet, those explorations are among thousands of federal research grants and billions of dollars the Trump administration has cut in recent months.
In court filings, Harvard — global research mecca — claims it is being targeted by a “government vendetta,” as President Donald Trump strips much of its federal money and contracts in the name of addressing antisemitism.
But what research is actually being done at Harvard? And does it matter if it gets cut?
MassLive is profiling 10 researchers, using interviews and court affidavits, whose work will be entirely stopped or severely affected by federal government cuts.
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore 367 National Institutes of Health grants as part of two lawsuits, but the order doesn’t apply to a broad swath of grants, including the huge numbers at Harvard.
There have been 2,282 NIH grants terminated nationally, amounting to nearly $3.8 billion of lost funding as of June 4, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The funding cuts at Harvard have led to layoffs at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, as every one of its direct federal grants has been terminated. The school has even taken to social media to ask for donations.
Read more: As federal funding cuts hit Harvard, a private investment firm and other donors step up
Harvard announced it has committed $250 million of “central funding” to support research affected by suspended and canceled federal grants.
However, even with the boost of funding from the university, research is threatened and could be significantly affected without federal money, according to Harvard researchers.
Overwhelmingly, researchers told MassLive that while Harvard may be the facilitator for the work they’re doing, it’s not “Harvard research” — rather, it’s research for the world. They also argued that the cuts are wasteful and costly because they stop research prematurely, making all funding that came before it nearly useless.
Victoria Jenkins is a genome database coordinator, a staff scientist position in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. (Courtesy photo)
Victoria Jenkins
Position: Genome database coordinator, a staff scientist position in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University
Victoria Jenkins extracts, interprets and archives data to keep FlyBase, the world’s central repository for fruit fly research, running.
The website is a free treasure trove of 32 years’ worth of data for scientists across the world to access. Fruit flies are genetically similar to humans — nearly 70% — making them cheap and accessible test subjects to work with. The site contains information about every fruit fly gene and genome.
“We’re the Wikipedia of fruit fly research,” Jenkins said in an interview. “There really isn’t a second version of what we do. We are the one resource for this information.”
In May, FlyBase’s grant funding from the National Institutes of Health was terminated. Now, researchers are searching for other forms of funding to, at the very least, preserve the website as is.
Jenkins said Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, addiction, traumatic brain injuries and birth defects have all been modeled in flies as researchers work to make scientific breakthroughs. Six Nobel Prize projects have been awarded to fruit fly-related research.
And the results are all found on FlyBase, which is a multi-university partnership between Harvard, Indiana University, University of New Mexico and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
“Every fly researcher around the world relies on us for historical data and everything new that gets produced,” Jenkins said.
Bence P. Ölveczky sits in his office at Harvard University on June 12, 2025. (Juliet Schulman-Hall/MassLive)
Bence Ölveczky
Position: Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University
When Bence Ölveczky came to the U.S. at the age of 28 from Hungary, it was the first place where he didn’t feel like a foreigner.
“This is a unique country because it’s a country of immigrants. And that’s why I felt at home because nobody cared,” he told MassLive.
Now it feels like the climate is changing. He isn’t able to encourage students to come to the university.
At the same time, he is piecing together funding for his research after the funding terminations. He is working to understand how rats learn, which will inform rehabilitation, helping people who have had strokes or have Parkinson’s.
“It’s an inspiration to me that we could help in the treatment of these,” he said.
Using “rainy day” funds he received a decade ago from when he was promoted, he hasn’t had to lay off staff yet — but these funds will dry up within the year, he said. In addition to potential layoffs, around 100 rats would also have to be euthanized because the lab won’t have the funding to keep going.
John Quackenbush is a Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the chair of the Department of Biostatistics. (Courtesy Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
John Quakenbush
Position: Professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the chair of the Department of Biostatistics.
For over three decades, John Quakenbush has been working in biomedical research, investigating the mechanisms that cause healthy people — and ultimately their cells — to become diseased.
Despite his decades of experience, he said he is looking at leaving the United States.
“I stand behind Harvard in its decision to fight for its First Amendment rights,” Quakenbush said in an interview. “But I’m looking, at this point in my career, at potentially two years with almost no external research funding — maybe longer. And, as you get to that point, and you’re not doing research anymore, picking back up and starting up again becomes more difficult. Even securing federal research grants becomes difficult.”
Part of Quakenbush’s research is attempting to uncover a “fundamentally important but understudied problem in health.” He is both unpacking how sex and age interact to influence disease risk and how diseases differ between biological males and females.
Without the funding, he doesn’t know what’ll happen next, but said sex is important to understand how nearly every disease has different ways it manifests or responds to therapy.
“ The political agenda that we don’t want to acknowledge different genders or we don’t even want to go beyond individual sexes is sort of ridiculous because disease strikes us all right? Independent of who we voted for, who we love, what church we go to or don’t go to,” Quakenbush said.
Shoba Ramanadhan is an Associate Professor of Social and Behavior Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (Courtesy of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Shoba Ramanadhan
Position: Associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
When describing the affects of federal research cuts in a recent court filing, Shoba Ramanadhan used the word “devastating” multiple times.
Four of her federal grants have been terminated or ended early. They included research related to the impact of climate change-caused heat stress and cancer-focused outreach to immigrants, refugees and minority communities.
“I work closely with communities that have been subject to discrimination in the United States, such as racial and ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ groups,” Ramanadhan wrote in her court affidavit. “Given historical and current abuses of power, these communities are understandably skeptical of scientists and academic researchers. It can take us anywhere from 5 to 15 years to build the requisite trust and relationships with a community and partner on research.”
Ramanadhan warned that if her projects can’t be completed, “people in the communities we serve will not be supported to engage in cancer prevention activities, such as breast cancer screening or vaccination against HPV.”
She also expressed concerns that an entire cohort of faculty working toward tenure, herself included, could lose the opportunity to achieve it because of federal research cuts.
Kelsey Tyssowski is a postdoctoral research associate in the Departments of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Harvard University. (Courtesy Photo)
Kelsey Tyssowski
Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Departments of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Harvard University.
Without funding for Kelsey Tyssowski’s work, she may have to leave academic science entirely.
Her pathway to getting a tenure-track job has been halted by federal funding cuts. Her research only has funding until the end of the month — then it is up to tenure faculty to determine if she will have any left.
A canceled grant from the National Institutes of Health was supposed to cover her salary through March 2026 and the first three years of research in her own lab.
“I have to get a job this year. And this year it’s going to be very hard to get a tenure track faculty job because there’s hiring freezes everywhere,” Tyssowski said. “If I can’t stay in this job here, I almost certainly have to leave academia.”
Tyssowski’s research involves skilled movement, complex learned movements that can be reproduced accurately and efficiently and take entire body coordination to do, like climbing.
She is pioneering a new way to study skilled movement through deer mice — whose skilled movement might have evolved in a way that humans and primates have.
This could provide significant understanding on how human brains engage in skilled movement, and ultimately, in treating diseases such as ALS, where skilled movement is the first thing to go.
If she leaves academia, the work that she has been doing is at risk of completely vanishing.
“No one will do this research. I won’t do this research. It will just go away,” she said.
Rita Hamad is a social epidemiologist and director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health. (Courtesy photo)
Rita Hamad
Position: Social epidemiologist and director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Rita Hamad has spent nearly 20 years studying the effects of social policies on health, poverty and education. Specifically, how policies can have the power to lift up marginalized communities and improve their health, or make it worse.
It is an “unbelievably devastating time for science in general, but particularly for us that study health equity,” she said in an interview.
Hamad has seen three of her NIH grants canceled. One was used to study how neighborhood socioeconomic factors affect risk for Alzheimer’s and dementia.
“We need to know what about communities we can intervene in to improve these risk factors,” she said. “If you don’t have that information, you’re not preventing any cases of dementia.”
A second grant was used to examine the effects of school segregation on the cardiovascular health of youth and young adults. Research so far has shown that children who experience school segregation have a higher risk of worse health in childhood and years later, she said.
“All of that research is grinding to a halt, doing a disservice to people of all backgrounds,” Hamad said.
“Clinging to whatever I can,” Hamad said she’s trying to remain hopeful that her grant funding will be restored and the damage “reversible.”
“We’re not just here to get a paycheck,” she said. “We’re here to make the world a better and healthier place.”
Donald Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, speaks during the 2024 Tencent Science WE Summit at Chengdu Science Fiction Museum on Nov. 3, 2024 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province of China. (Chengdu Economic Daily/VCG via Getty Images)
Donald Ingber
Position: Founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
With Donald Ingber’s ongoing work, the U.S. had a better chance at exploring Mars. But the federal government has instructed him to cease his projects.
Ingber and his team have been working to develop human “organ chip” technology — “tiny, complex, three-dimensional models with hollow channels lined by different types of cells and tissues that recapitulate the structure and function of human organs,” he wrote in a court affidavit.
One of Ingber’s projects was using the organ chip to study the effects of microgravity and radiation on astronauts during spaceflight. Ingber was developing specialized bone marrow chips incorporating cells from individual astronauts.
The specialized chips were scheduled to fly aboard the Artemis II mission to the moon, scheduled for early 2026, alongside the astronauts who donated the cells, Ignber said.
“This work is critical to our ultimate ability to explore Mars, because protecting astronauts from radiation toxicity remains a major barrier to the long-distance space travel necessary to explore the solar system,” he continued.
The second project using the organ chip technology was studying how the human lung, intestine, bone marrow and lymph node respond to radiation, with the goal of identifying drugs “that can mitigate the effects of that radiation.”
Ingber said the work was important to improve public safety, “as the country ramps up nuclear power production to support the energy-intensive artificial intelligence industry.”
“These countermeasures also would be available in the case of a nuclear attack and to alleviate toxic side effects in cancer patients who receive radiation therapy,” he said.
As part of research spearheaded by Harvard professor Walter Willett, thousands of urine and fecal samples have been collected over several decades. Now they could be lost due to federal cuts. (Courtesy Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Walter Willett
Position: Professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Kept frozen by liquid nitrogen inside laboratories at Harvard University are more than 1.5 million biospecimens that have mere “weeks” left until they spoil. Soon, there won’t be enough money left to keep the freezers running.
The nearly 50 years of collected human feces, urine, blood, tumors and even toenail clippings could have consequential implications for the future health of Americans, and yet, they’re at risk of being lost if funding slashed by the Trump administration isn’t restored.
Read more: Trump cuts threaten ‘irreplaceable’ Harvard stockpile of human feces, urine
The mother lode collection housed at Harvard has supported generations-long chronic disease risk studies that have fundamentally shaped significant scientific and medical advancements.
The studies have led to major breakthroughs, including links between cigarettes and cardiovascular disease and alcohol consumption and breast cancer. The research also uncovered the dangers of trans fats, which the U.S. has now largely restricted.
The biological samples collected during the studies are “irreplaceable,” according to Walter Willett, one of the most sought-after nutritionists internationally.
And some of the study participants could even die before the next check-in period, he said.
“No other institution in the world has this data,” Willett wrote in a May 30 court affidavit detailing the effects of federal funding cuts on his research.
Paige Williams is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (Courtesy of Shaina Andelman)
Paige Williams
Position: Senior lecturer in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Personally, Paige Williams, a Harvard faculty member of 34 years, stands to lose 90% of her salary due to revocations of NIH grants. Professionally, she fears the downstream effects on clinical research in the future, particularly when it comes to community trust.
She cited some of her study participants — women living with HIV — who have already expressed feeling “betrayed” when study activities abruptly stopped in May.
“As HIV researchers, we rely on the willingness of our study participants to share openly some of the most vulnerable and challenging aspects of their lives,” Williams wrote in a court filing. “Our work thus depends on a foundation of trust between us and the participants we work with…”
Williams primarily studies health outcomes in pregnant women and their children, and much of her work is HIV-centered. One of her terminated grants was a 20-year study evaluating the effects of anti-retroviral treatment for mothers with HIV and their children — currently in its final year.
Because of the grant stoppage, her research team was essentially unable to procedurally finish two decades of work. In addition, they’re slated to lose data they’ve collected, Williams wrote.
“Losing the data arising from such studies would be devastating for the entire scientific community and for the many Americans whose lives would be forever improved by scientific breakthroughs,” she said.
Meredith Rosenthal is a Professor of Health Economics and Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also interim Department Chair. (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Meredith Rosenthal
Position: Professor of Health Economics and Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health & interim department chair.
Meredith Rosenthal’s research focuses on a tool to lower medication alternatives to help reduce out-of-pocket costs for patients and increase medication adherence.
She is aiming to understand how things may change based on people’s socioeconomic statuses and geographic locations.
Around 60% of Rosenthal’s salary comes from research grants. One of her grants provides almost $2.5 million over three and a half years, and she has one year left. Her grant was canceled on May 15, according to court documents.
“I firmly believe that equity is an essential value in health policy. I have dedicated my career to improving health and affordability for everyone, both through my research and by overseeing the school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (from 2013-2018) to improve diversity, equity and inclusion of those who work in the industry and on our campus,” she said.
“I worry that the Trump administration will label my focus on equitable access to healthcare as an ‘ideologically capture’ DEI program and demand that the school ‘shutter’ the program, particularly because of my former diversity-related administrative role, but because of the vagueness of the Demand Letters, I cannot be sure,” she said.
