From dissecting owl pellets at Astoria Park Elementary to being part of Leon High School’s robotics team, my love of science was fostered here in Tallahassee. These experiences showed me how fascinating our world is and how understanding it is imperative to solving today's toughest issues.

Now, I am a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley studying Plant Biology in hopes of developing more resilient crops. Every day I get to solve new problems and make a difference in the world, even if only in a small way. However, many of the opportunities I have had and the current work I do would not be possible without federal funding of science and education, which is at risk of being severely cut.

I knew from an early age I would go to college, but the cost of attendance was not lost on me. I kept my grades up and got my tuition to Florida State University (FSU) paid by scholarships. At FSU, I had the incredible opportunity to participate in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) program, where I got full-time, hands-on lab training and mentorship. I learned how to develop new ideas, how to approach experimental design, and even how to interact with colleagues in the field. This was particularly valuable to me as a first-generation college student and scientist. I developed lab skills, but more importantly, I solidified for myself that I wanted to pursue research as a career, something I might not have found out otherwise.

While federal science funding provided me with opportunities to discover research as a career, I have also benefitted greatly from it beyond the research itself. It offered me a ladder — a way to break generational cycles and afford a better life. We struggled financially and it was clear my parents wanted better for me. Their consistent emphasis on education further proved that this was an avenue in which I could achieve it.

Regardless of your interest in education or science, you too are likely benefitting from its funding. That’s because Tallahassee is home to multiple leading research institutions. In particular, FSU, who received over half of its research funding from federal sources including NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), both of which will have their funding slashed under the Big Beautiful Bill. This can have major impacts on the community as a whole, as it is a leading employer of Tallahasseans and major driver of the Tallahassee’s economy. NSF is also a major funder of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which marks Tallahassee as a regional leader in scientific research and a destination for academics. Further, FSU’s research impact reaches far beyond the Tallahassee and even the Florida community with the development of large-scale synthesis of the anti-cancer drug, Taxol. This enabled the commercialization of the drug by Bristol-Meyers Squibb and the treatment of over one million patients.

The current administration has called for large-scale cuts to research and education that will directly impact us here in Tallahassee. Additionally, these funding cuts will negatively impact the US’s scientific prowess and next generation of American scientists. Science is my passion, but it was also a ticket to a better more secure life. Funding science isn’t a “flagrant misuse of funds”. It is allowing the best minds to push forward, keep the American dream alive and providing the bootstraps for us to pull ourselves up by. Defunding science is defunding the American dream. If you too value the funding of science, call your representatives and sign the Citizens for Science Pledge.

Defunding Science Impacts the Community was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In my Nayatt School yearbook from 2003, I wrote that I wanted to be an astronaut — evidence that a career in science has been the only job I’ve ever wanted. Today, I worry that this career will be out of reach for the next generation of science-loving kids, unless action is taken to restore the federal research funding that makes America the best place in the world to be a scientist.

When I graduated from Barrington High School in 2012, I was certain that my future was in science. I spent my college and graduate school years falling more in love with biology research, and discovering a passion for teaching and mentoring younger students. After I earned my PhD in biology in 2023, I wanted to continue both the research and teaching that were central to my excitement for my field, which meant working towards a professorship.

For additional training, I turned to a prestigious federally funded program called IRACDA (Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award), which has prepared future professors for teaching and research for over 20 years. After a competitive application process, I was awarded a place in UCLA’s IRACDA training program, which guaranteed three full years of funding while I continued my research into how the skin and other epithelial tissues develop.

Unfortunately, in April of this year [2025], the NIH abruptly terminated the entire IRACDA program. I will lose both my funding and this valuable training opportunity, a devastating setback to my career. Stories like this are becoming all too common as many scientific grants and training opportunities are being slashed or rescinded.

The current widespread cuts to federal support for science threaten the United States’ position as the best country in the world for scientific research. Consider the global scientific community’s highest honor: in the last 25 years, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Americans 19 times. Every American taxpayer should be proud of the world-class research environment to which they have contributed.

Due to catastrophic losses of funding, many research universities are instituting hiring freezes for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students, damaging the research pipeline for years to come. Further, scientists are planning either to leave the US or transition out of research in droves due to lack of grants and job opportunities. Our higher education system may never recover from the loss of talented minds we will experience in the next few years.

I fear that kids currently in your school district will suffer from these losses. These cuts remove training for their college professors, depress opportunities for students to get their first research experience, reduce the availability of graduate school placements, and dim career prospects in science. If America is to remain competitive in global scientific achievement, we must reverse these cuts and improve the state of research funding.

I hope you will consider signing the Citizens for Science Pledge (tiny.cc/sciencepledge) and urging your elected representatives to fight for the future of America’s scientific research excellence.

Originally published in print in June 2025 in The Barrington Times (EastBayRI).

Our Higher Education System May Never Recover was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Neuroscience tells us that uncertainty is more stressful than stress itself. And yet, for University of Washington neuroscientists and academic biomedical researchers alike, uncertainty is normal when supporting their work with federal grants. Securing federal funding is never guaranteed, but the probability and process of doing so have never been so uncertain.

Monica is a Neuroscience PhD student at UW studying how the brain and body respond to stress to improve treatments for trauma survivors. Makenzie recently graduated from the same program, studying a similar research topic. They’re part of a small research group that relies exclusively on federal funding, including from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In early 2025, the budget for the CDMRP was cut by 57% — equivalent to $850 million. Additionally, a part of the “big, beautiful” bill proposed a 38% cut to the NIH’s overall budget for most of 2025. While the 38% reduction in NIH funding was recently thwarted in an appropriations bill signed into law in early February 2026, these cuts, whether implemented or threatened, limited innovation for future treatments and worsened an already disrupted and precarious scientific training process.

When she started graduate school, Makenzie knew there was a tradeoff between having secure funding in a larger lab and the freedom in a smaller lab to do research that would improve treatment for individuals experiencing intense physical and psychological stress. Makenzie decided to accept the risks of uncertain funding, taking advantage of opportunities to apply for federal grants for young scientists in training. After a few failures and a rigorous eight-month-long review process, Makenzie was awarded a 3-year grant to pay her salary while she researched the effects of alcohol use after traumatic brain injury.

With all the grant cancellations and delays, however, it was in question whether Makenzie would receive the promised second and third years of funding. Due to a number of factors, principally the unreliable funding landscape, she made a plan to graduate earlier than expected. This affected the final outcomes of the project and added stress for her, her labmates, and her collaborators.

Monica is researching her dream project. As a sophomore in college, Monica remembers being fascinated by a podcast about the connection between mental health and the tiny ecosystem of germs inside our bellies, the gut microbiome. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine herself an emerging expert in the field, studying how the gut microbiome behaves after trauma.

Monica has a million questions she wants to answer, so, like Makenzie, she applied for a federal grant to support her work. Her first application wasn’t funded, so she was preparing another when the NIH paused funds indefinitely. All funding sources are no longer guaranteed, and she works in a never-ending limbo. She often wonders, “What’s the point?” when doing the project she once loved so much. Due to 15-month delays in funding decisions and a dismantling training environment, Monica has decided to expedite her degree, cutting down from an intended 5.5 years to less than four.

These funding changes may seem like an isolated attack on far-off institutions and the academics holed up in their ivory towers, but they stunt treatment development for vulnerable communities, like trauma survivors. Disruptions to scientific progress can hurt all of us and our loved ones.

So, what can you do about it?
 — Share stories of scientists in training like Makenzie and Monica
 — Sign an open letter to support NIH staff
 — Attend a local Stand Up for Science demonstration
 — Talk to your loved ones. Encourage them to contact their senators to support public health. Raising our voices helped avoid the proposed NIH budget cut, and it can halt future attacks on biomedical research too.

The current administration’s systematic threats have destabilized the scientific community. Scientists in training don’t know if they’ll be able to answer crucial questions to improve public health or finish their degrees. A missing generation of scientists will irreparably damage scientific progress and discovery if we do not act now.

Please let us know if you learned something from this piece by filling out a survey: Citizens for Science Pledge.

Monica and Makenzie’s views are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Washington.

Uncertainty is disruption was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Microbial communities — “microbiomes” — touch nearly every part of our lives. They contribute to our health, shape the foods we eat, regulate air and water quality, and drive greenhouse gas fluxes. Microbiome interventions underpin many effective mitigation strategies we employ to try to stem the tide of climate change, from reducing methane emissions in livestock to enhancing soil carbon sequestration. Engineering the world’s microbiomes holds promise for scalable climate action. However, their biological complexity, scientific unknowns, technical difficulty, and regulatory uncertainty create unique challenges that demand strategic attention.

Technical Difficulties and Their Policy Implications

Regulatory agencies must have a clear understanding of microbial behavior under real-world conditions to minimize the risk of failed or harmful interventions. Microbiomes comprise organisms drawn from diverse taxonomic groups — bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, viruses, and even animals — encompassing a broad range of metabolisms, lifestyles, and cell and genome architectures. To persist under challenging environmental conditions, these communities are typically highly diverse, functionally redundant (i.e., multiple strains can perform the same ecological functions), and able to withstand and recover from perturbation, with metabolic outputs emerging from an intricate web of microbial interactions.

Lab cultures of these communities rarely reproduce the full spectrum of microbiome phenomena, due to organism loss in the transfer and enrichment process and removal from their natural living conditions. Many microbes in these communities may be difficult or impossible to culture, lack genetic tools, and have biology that poses difficult-to-overcome barriers to tool development. Omics approaches—such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics — provide partial snapshots of these systems but cannot fully capture the dynamics of a microbial system. Attribution of observed climate-relevant responses, such as greenhouse gas flux changes, to specific interventions remains challenging, complicating both scientific validation and regulatory oversight.

Manipulation Approaches Shape Regulatory Challenges

Microbiome engineering efforts fall into two broad categories: the introduction of externally cultured organisms (“probiotics” or inoculants, sometimes termed “EMER”, engineered microbes for environmental release, in environmental contexts) and in situ manipulation of existing microbial communities. Each of these has advantages and pitfalls that pose technical and regulatory challenges to successful implementation.

Probiotic approaches are more developed and align more closely with existing regulatory pathways, as they involve organisms that can be characterized, cultured, and tested before deployment. Yet even when probiotics are rigorously designed and produce desired effects in vitro, in situ activity often diverges from expectations. Failure to engraft — to become permanently embedded in, and cause lasting change to, the treated microbiome — is common, and successful engraftment is variable and context-dependent, as shown by studies of probiotic approaches to human gut, cattle rumen, and soil microbiome modification.

By contrast, in situ manipulation may take place through modulation of microbial interactions, ecological restructuring, or targeted genome editing. Regulatory challenges depend heavily on the method employed, as different approaches carry distinct ecological risks, precedents, and monitoring requirements. Simpler interventions, such as small molecules — e.g. the use of the compounds 3-NOP and bromoform to suppress methanogenesis in the rumen, the largest of the four chambers in the stomach of cattle and other ruminant livestock — are relatively straightforward to regulate. It is also comparatively easy to design studies to systematically characterize their effects. At the more complex end, targeted in situ genome editing, such as that being explored in projects at the University of California’s Innovative Genomics Institute to manipulate the cattle rumen and human airway microbiomes, may produce off-target edits and difficult-to-predict ecological effects, and is thus more unpredictable and context-dependent. Communities resistant to introduced strains may require such in situ approaches, necessitating extensive regulatory frameworks, including human and animal trials, in vitro characterization of target strains, biosafety oversight, and long-term monitoring.

Current Regulatory Frameworks and Gaps

Current regulatory frameworks for microbiome interventions vary by jurisdiction and intervention type, but typically rely on either existing chemical compound trial frameworks or guidance for industrial microbes, agricultural biocontrol agents, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Most of these policy frameworks were originally created for controlled industrial contexts.

In the United States, the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology assigns oversight to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates drugs, food additives and live biotherapeutics; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates pesticides, environmentally-released products, and microbial products intended to alter ecological phenomena; and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates agricultural products and genetically modified plants and microbes. For both chemical substances and engineered microbes, the Federal Insecticide, Fungi, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) covers pesticides, and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) covers all other uses. The FIFRA and TSCA govern organisms not covered by other statutes. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) covers USDA- and EPA-approved interventions for potential ecological impact, and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FD&C) governs food and food additives. In the European Union, the GMO regulation framework is based on five legislative instruments, including Directive 2001/18/EC and Regulation (EC) 1829/2003 on genetically modified food and feed. In 2023, the United Kingdom finalized post-Brexit guidance for GMO regulation, diverging in some requirements from EU law while maintaining high standards for environmental safety and risk assessment.

Interventions based on small molecules are comparatively easy to handle, since their regulatory frameworks rely on well-established toxicological and environmental assessment schemes. For microbe-based products, the regulatory landscape is more complex. Multiple agencies may have jurisdiction over one microbe, depending on its use and capacity for environmental persistence or spread. Consortia of microbes stress-test these frameworks, with predictability and regulatory tractability scaling directly with ecological complexity. Regulatory precedents, such as the FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notices, exist for many industrial organisms, mainly bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli, fungi such as Neurospora crassa and Komagataella phaffii (Pichia pastoris), and algae such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Schizochytrium spp., as well as some bacteriophage (virus) products, such as preparations used to control Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., and Shigella spp. These organisms are generally deployed in simple monocultures or small, defined cocultures of no more than a few different strains.

Gaps exist in regulatory precedent, both in scope of coverage under existing frameworks and in the need for further framework development. Small-molecule regulatory frameworks are comparatively simple. Standard investigations of environmental fates and indirect ecological effects often focus on direct effects on target organisms, with less emphasis placed on studies of long-term or repeated exposure in open systems, and also assume controlled dosing. Existing chemical regulations often also do not explicitly account for network-level effects. Formal guidance does not exist for many climate-relevant microbes, such as methanogens (the archaea responsible for the production of all biologically-generated methane). In addition, regulatory frameworks are technology- and organism-centric, not network-centric; network-level interventions blur the line between probiotic and ecological engineering, adding additional regulatory complications. As a result, many potential climate-relevant microbiome technologies target organisms and interactions largely outside existing regulatory frameworks.

Ecosystem-Scale Challenges

Scaling interventions beyond controlled settings requires that policy frameworks account for complex ecosystem feedbacks. Microbiome interactions with biogeochemical cycles exhibit ecosystem-specific responses and feedbacks that shape phenomena such as carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions. Existing policy and regulatory structures for microbiome engineering assume the ability to contain and monitor interventions and are well-suited to localized, fully-contained use cases. They are less well-designed for situations where microbiome interventions will inevitably enter the ecosystem, or for deliberate ecosystem-level modifications. In addition, ecosystem-scale interventions can be shaped significantly by emergent phenomena arising from scale and evolutionary pressures. Environmental microbiome engineering acknowledges that natural communities are open and interactive, complicating predictions based on contained, small-scale models.

True ecosystem-level microbiome interventions for climate mitigation remain rare and highly constrained. The most successful efforts have been targeted, localized applications in soils, crops, and anthropogenic disaster sites. Interventions in larger, more complex ecosystems are constrained by spatial scale, connectivity, and environmental variability. Our ability to predict and manage microbial community function at broad scales is limited by the inherent complexity and dynamics of these systems. Establishment of introduced microbes is often thwarted by ecological barriers such as environmental filtering and biotic interactions, leading to poor persistence or impact. Moreover, emergent interactions within microbial networks further complicate engineered changes, as community dynamics influence whether interventions produce intended outcomes. These challenges reflect fundamental ecological constraints on scaling microbiome engineering beyond controlled settings.

Ethical and Social Considerations

Developing policy frameworks that acknowledge microbial communities’ diverse and impactful interactions with the environment, and with society, requires a careful dissection of ethical and social considerations for implementation. Microbiome interventions on scales larger than individual organisms act on shared resources and, at sufficient scale, the global commons. They are implemented within human socioeconomic systems with varying levels of public information, acceptance, and equity, as well as differential vulnerability to environmental and health impacts. Governance should be linked to best practices for biocontainment, stability, and monitoring, ensuring predictable environmental behavior and rapid identification of unintended effects. Privacy and ownership concerns, though subtler than in biomedical contexts, are significant: molecular signatures of human-relevant information in environmental data can weaken reasonable expectations of privacy. Ownership of microbiome data and engineered organisms must be clearly defined, as it affects access, use rights, and accountability. Ownership of the microbiome itself raises questions. Who has the right to alter an ecosystem’s microbial community, and under what circumstances? Who owns the data? Engineering microbes on shared or public lands may create tensions if private entities claim proprietary rights over organisms or their functions —which, when unauthorized, is a form of biopiracy. Sufficiently high-resolution data generated from shotgun metagenomic sequencing of an environmental sample may inadvertently capture sensitive information about agricultural practices, communities, or identities of human, animal, or plant sources. Transparency and public engagement are critical: interventions should include open-access reporting, opportunities for consultation, and clear communication of potential risks and benefits to affected communities. Social science should be included in microbiome interventions to investigate the impacts of interventions in surrounding human contexts.

Equity considerations require attention not only to who receives benefits but also to who bears risks, particularly marginalized or vulnerable populations. Low-income, minority, and rural communities are disproportionately vulnerable to both climate change impacts and to adverse effects of interventions meant to mitigate climate risks. Precision microbiome engineering may, in some circumstances, reproduce colonial dynamics; for example, interventions imposed without consent and sufficient care on Indigenous and other marginalized communities, or their lands, can perpetuate historical patterns of exploitation. Equity considerations include not only informed consent and fair distribution of benefits but also culturally appropriate engagement, respect for local knowledge, and avoidance of harm that may exacerbate existing social or environmental inequities.

At the international level, the Nagoya Protocol — an agreement facilitating the fair and equitable sharing of genetic resources and benefits thereof — establishes clear rules for access, benefit sharing, and compliance for the purposes of research, commercial use, and conservation, and can be used as an example to guide fair and equitable sharing at smaller spatial scales. However, the Nagoya Protocol’s scope is limited to “physical, tangible” resources (microbes or genetic material) of discrete organisms in single sovereign states, and does not extend to sequence data/metadata, network-level interventions, and cross-border microbiomes — areas of concern for climate-focused microbiome engineering. These ethical and regulatory gaps underscore the need for governance frameworks that integrate technical, social, and ecological considerations for responsible microbiome engineering at scale.

The best interests of non-human entities present in the altered ecosystems, including the microbiome being altered, must also be taken into account, over both short and long periods of time. The integrity of ecosystems, species interactions, and evolutionary trajectories should guide intervention design and deployment. Microbial communities themselves, as well as larger species networks they influence, have intrinsic ecological value and may be affected over both short and long timescales. A discussion of whether microbes ought to be accorded rights, and if so, what rights, has taken shape since Charles Cockell’s 2004 argument that microbes should be regarded as a moral agent on the basis of their status as the base of all food chains and major biogeochemical cycles. More recently, a paper was published explicitly naming Rights to Microbes (RtM) and Rights of Microbes (RoM) as two main thrusts of microbial ethics, advocating for the protection of microbial functions essential to the survival of ecosystems and non-microbial beings as well as for recognition of the intrinsic and relational values of microbes themselves. Interventions should be assessed for invasiveness and potential unintended consequences to macro- and microorganisms, including disruption of ecological networks, alteration of evolutionary pressures, and cascading environmental effects. Ethical frameworks should guide prioritization, balancing potential climate benefits against uncertainty, reversibility, and the risks of interfering with complex, interdependent ecological systems. Integrating human and ecosystem considerations is critical for ensuring that climate-focused microbiome engineering is conducted with both social trust and ecological stewardship at the forefront. These considerations highlight a need for robust governance and policy frameworks.

Ethically Scaling Microbiome Engineering Policy for the Global Climate

Climate-focused microbiome engineering poses unique governance challenges, as interventions can cross ecological and national boundaries, affect shared resources, and generate feedbacks that are difficult to predict from small-scale studies. At the national level, regulatory frameworks should integrate risk assessment, monitoring, and containment standards for chemical, microbial, and combined interventions, while remaining flexible to accommodate emerging technologies such as engineered consortia and in situ genome editing. Regional coordination can harmonize standards across neighboring countries or trade blocs, reducing regulatory gaps and ensuring consistency in environmental protection. At the international scale, a UN- or treaty-based framework could provide oversight for transboundary interventions and global commons applications, coordinating risk assessment, monitoring protocols, and reporting requirements across jurisdictions. Existing instruments — such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Codex Alimentarius, and the International Plant Protection Convention — offer useful models but are largely organism- or sector-specific and do not fully address ecosystem-level, chemical, or network-based interventions. A forward-looking framework should incorporate adaptive governance, clearly defined roles for multi-agency collaboration, and standardized procedures for evaluating ecosystem-scale risks while remaining responsive to scientific advances.

Conclusion: Engineering Communities for Global Stewardship

Microbiome engineering offers unprecedented potential for climate mitigation, from reducing methane emissions to enhancing soil carbon storage. Realizing this promise requires navigating complex microbial systems, ethical responsibilities, and regulatory gaps with care and foresight. Adaptive, multi-agency, and international governance — combined with transparent, equitable, and scientifically grounded intervention design — will be essential to ensure that these technologies deliver benefits safely and justly. If done responsibly, microbiome interventions could not only curb climate change but also redefine how humanity partners with the microscopic engines of our planet.

Engineering Microbiomes for the Climate: Challenges at the Regulatory Frontier was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At graduation from Catholic Memorial in 2000, I sang to my class, “Stand up, be strong, go out there! Hold on to the real thing that matters, cause no one’s gunna hand it to you on a silver platter!” I had finished with First Honors, an award for the student who exemplifies top academic achievement, dedication to school involvement, and service to the broader community. I was ready to take on the world after a great education at St. Mary’s, St. Joe’s, and CMH. I took part in Girl Scouts, musicals, and church service projects, and always had a strong interest in science. I studied hard in Sr. Bernadone’s physics class, excelled in math with Sr. Mary Janet and Mrs. Kieckhaefer, and loved learning about the human body in Mr. Spriggs’ biology class. I spent summers attending science camps at UW-Superior and the National Youth Forum on Medicine in Boston. Science and service have always been key parts of who I am.

My life brought me to St. Louis, where I studied psychology at Washington University, and later got a Masters in Social Work there as well. After watching my grandfather deteriorate from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), I worked giving families support at the Alzheimer’s Association for seven years, learning about the devastating disease that affects over 7.2 million Americans, then moved into research at the Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center back at Washington University for the past decade. Nearly all of the work that I do is grant funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). However, in May, just as we were about to begin testing for our international Alzheimer’s and Down syndrome study, the NIH announced that all studies with a global component were on hold. Nearly three months later, a new policy allowed us to move forward but we lost critical time.

Our lab, the Cognitive Technology in Research Lab (CTRLab), studies thinking and memory using custom-made, very brief tests given on a smartphone multiple times per day for one week at a time. Our tests are currently used in clinical trials around the world, allowing us to determine whether or not a prospective drug can delay the onset of AD in those guaranteed to get the disease due to their rare genetic mutations. We are also creating tests to detect cognitive changes in people with Down syndrome, individuals who are nearly guaranteed to get AD by the time they are 50.

Like so many others, our work is threatened by funding cuts and freezes. The federal government is by far the largest funder of scientific research and training grants. Without this funding, critical research will not happen. No source can fill the void created by cuts this large — 40% to the NIH and 57% for the National Science Foundation. It has recently been reported that the administration may pivot to less conspicuous cuts that would involve multiyear grants, which would have the same devastating effect on research. This year, graduate program enrollments have been cut dramatically and researcher internships have been vacated, which will cause a “brain drain” of qualified researchers into the future. We will miss out on undiscovered treatments for AD, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other illnesses that have touched nearly every family at some point. And not only that, science is one of our greatest investments. Currently, for every dollar spent on NIH research, $2.56 of economic activity is created.

Institutions across WI will be severely impacted by these cuts. In WI’s 4th district (Milwaukee), economic losses from cuts to the NIH alone are projected to be $105 million. Adding WI-01 (Racine), WI-02 (Madsion), and WI-05 (Waukesha) takes this to over $591 million and over 2500 jobs lost just in these four districts. Advances in science are critical to what makes Wisconsin, and America, stand out in the world. I urge you to contact Gwen Moore, Scott Fitzgerald, Bryan Steil, Ron Johnson, and Tammy Balwin and tell them you oppose cuts to scientific research funding.

This is not partisan. We need to fight disease and keep our nation healthy. Research done with NIH funding contributed to 99% of drugs developed over the last decade, and we cannot afford to stop the lifesaving research that we and future scientists will conduct. We have to STAND UP and BE STRONG in speaking up for our parents and grandparents with dementia, our family members with cancer, our children with chronic illnesses, and so many others. What started in classrooms in Waukesha and so many other communities needs to continue to grow.

Sarah Holtz Stout is director of the Cognitive Technology in Research Lab at Washington University in St. Louis. She is a native of Waukesha, WI. This opinion expresses her personal views and does not reflect those of her employer. This article is in association with the McClintock Letters Initiative and is a slightly updated version from what was published in the Waukesha Freeman on 23 July 2025. Please, take a moment to do our Locals Supporting Science Pledge (http://tiny.cc/sciencepledge).

Science is essential to Wisconsin’s future was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Featured image: a cartoon with five different animals (monkey, penguin, elephant, fish, otter, and dog), asked to climb a tree (original source unknown).

In the 21st century, institutes and companies increasingly seek soft skills in college graduates including leadership, adaptability, and creativity in problem-solving. Learning how to write and review research papers, articulate ideas to people both in and outside science, and learning to troubleshoot experiments is increasingly more imperative in an increasingly competitive field.

Moreover, the college population of students today is becoming increasingly diverse; with approximately 20% of college students today having a disability, as well as increases in first-generation and students from other underrepresented backgrounds pursuing STEM baccalaureate degrees, it is imperative that teaching methods reflect this diversity of learners.

Despite this, attaining a STEM degree is not equal for all students. In many STEM college courses beyond introductory levels, such as biochemistry, cell biology, and physics, these diverse teaching methods are not utilized. As STEM courses become more advanced, coursework is generally tailored to a specific style of learning. These styles are the general “textbook” or rote memorization routes. Individuals who may have challenges learning without additional support, such as students with disabilities, are at a greater risk to fall behind, experience burnout, or even drop the STEM major all together. Given that about 25% of all students pursuing a STEM major drop this degree during their third year, accessible teaching methods to not only support students with disabilities and other diverse groups, lower attrition rates in college STEM majors, and equip graduates with skills of the 21st century are imperative.

Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, is a framework that emphasizes making learning in classrooms more accessible to students both with and without disabilities. UDL emphasizes accessible frameworks to best support student learning and engagement.

UDL consists of 3 (three) frameworks: representation, engagement, and action-expression. Representation means how the material is presented to students; this includes alternative forms of material, such as guided notes, virtual lab simulations, or subtitles on lecture powerpoints. Engagement refers to how students engage with the content; for instance, students may choose between one or two different topics to do a presentation on. Action-expression means alternative ways of students being evaluated on the material.

One large misconception against UDL by colleges is that it “lessens” the educational standards by lowering the expectations for students. However, UDL does not exclude material or change the rigor of the course; it merely changes HOW the material is taught. This purpose is to ensure students of all abilities and backgrounds can more readily access and participate in the course. After all, a goal of STEM courses is to help students apply their learning in real life- and move beyond rote memorization.

While these UDL policies were initially developed to support students with disabilities, implementing these accessibility principles into courses has the potential to benefit all students. For instance, in a study at the University of South Florida, 99% of students with and without disabilities in a college course reported having closed captioning on all class videos as helpful for their retention of the learning material . Similarly, creating a class discussion on a science issue can help students to think critically and process the material in an oral form, besides memorizing the answers for a test. Therefore, UDL is not just a source of accessibility for college students with disabilities, but also a buffer aid for enhancing course comprehension. These additional reinforcements have indirect effects on student attrition rates; if students are engaging with the material in diverse ways, they may have improved retention of the concepts, thereby potentially increasing course grades and reducing the likelihood of dropping out of the major.

Scientists are expected to generate novel ideas and formulate out-of-the-box solutions to experimental problems. Yet, numerous higher education institutions continue teaching material in one way, and do not make the material accessible for students. Therefore, biology and chemistry professors at universities should consider integrating UDL teaching methods into lecture courses beyond the first year curriculum. Whether integrating subtitles on lecture powerpoints, uploading lecture slides 24 hours before class, or implementing case studies to apply concepts in class, professors can level the playing field for fostering the next generation of diverse scientists.

Author bio:

Taylor Stolberg is a PhD student at SUNY Upstate Medical School. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys reading, jigsaw puzzles, and listening to music.

How UDL in Advanced College Classes Enhances Science Training for All Students was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

If you’re living in the United States, it is almost certain that you know someone who is struggling with their weight. As of 2024, one in five children and two in five adults are diagnosed with obesity. This means that toddlers, parents, grandparents, and important members of our communities are at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and death. This issue has been growing over decades and urgent action is needed if we want to mitigate this issue and save lives.

This need for action has been acknowledged at the federal level with President Trump authorizing the creation of the Make America Healthy Again Commision with an executive order on February 13th of this year, citing a growing health crisis and the need for “fresh thinking” regarding “healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medications and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.” While these focuses provide promising paths to improving our country’s health, the reality is that more than one in eight Americans have used obesity medications for treatment, with prescriptions becoming more popular in obesity care. Productive action on addressing America’s obesity epidemic must begin with enhancing our approach to medication-assisted treatment, not diminishing its role in comprehensive care.

If President Trump hopes to significantly decrease obesity rates in the country, then he must incorporate GLP-1 access as part of his plan of attack. Since their introduction into the healthcare system in 2005, GLP-1s have revolutionized the obesity treatment landscape with efficacy levels that were unattainable with previous therapies. Early GLP-1 medications like Wegovy were shown to help users lose 17% of their weight on average, and newer agents such as Tirzepatide (marketed as Zepbound) recently demonstrated up to 23% weight loss in Phase III clinical trials. With more effective formulations and even a daily GLP-1 pill making their way through clinical testing, federal agencies have begun to recognize their potential in helping combat the obesity epidemic. In 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed expanded Medicare and Medicaid coverage for obesity treatments to increase access.

As it stands right now though, Medicare and Medicaid only permit patients with concurring health conditions, such as Type 2 Diabetes, to receive support for anti-obesity medications (AOMs). As a result, over 3.4 million Medicare enrollees with obesity lack coverage. If the Trump administration implements an obesity management program solely including lifestyle and dietary measures, it would leave a significant portion of patients behind, particularly the over 20% of patients with lower socioeconomic status. A recent NIH study found that populations with greater socioeconomic barriers were more likely to consume processed and sweetened foods and less likely to stick long-term to lifestyle changes. Thus, for a national obesity campaign to be effective, GLP-1s must be an integral part of treatment programs.

Policy for GLP-1s

The most viable way for the President to expand access to these innovative drugs and fulfill his promise of combating obesity would be by advocating Congress to pass lasting and wide-reaching legislation that will persist past this current political environment. Luckily, a bill that can serve as the foundation for this lasting legislation was introduced during the 118th Congress. This bill was H.R. 4818, also known as the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023. Introduced in 2023 by Congressman Brad Wenstrup, the legislation grants Medicare Part D coverage of anti-obesity medications (AOMs), including GLP-1s, for obesity treatment or weight loss management for anyone who is overweight and has one or more related comorbidities.

The obesity epidemic demands decisive action, not exclusive and incomplete programs. Bills like H.R. 4818 provide a solid framework for new legislation in this space, but even it has faced hurdles. Despite being cosponsored by over 100 representatives and having an identical bill introduced in the Senate (S. 2407), H.R. 4818 faced harsh opposition in the committee process. Opponents to the bill want to limit Medicare coverage of AOMs only for individuals who were previously insured for AOMs, severely limiting access to GLP-1s for the 54% of insured Americans who currently already struggle to paypaying for these treatments as well as the millions of Americans without insurance. Yet an expanded version of H.R. 4818 that includes AOMs for all Medicare beneficiaries is critical to start combating the obesity epidemic and meets the incredible needs of the moment. Opponents of an expanded H.R. 4818 cite the high costs of AOMs, particularly GLP-1s, and its effect on increasing the already high cost of Medicare on the federal government. However, this concern could be addressed by subjecting drugs receiving coverage under this bill to Medicare price negotiation. Even without price negotiations, expanding GLP coverage would cost approximately $14.8 billion over the next 10 years–an irrefusable bargain compared to the $173 billion already spent annually on obesity related costs.

Our lawmakers recognized the importance of this legislation in the past. Now, they must act decisively to meet our nation’s current health needs. Along with the more than 100 representatives co-sponsoring H.R. 4818 and the Senators who introduced the identical S. 2407 in the senate, another public health bill introduced by Congressman Wenstrup in the House (H.R. 3800) passed with bipartisan support. Additional motivation from the Trump administration could be a crucial final step to push legislators to take the necessary steps and pass lasting obesity public health legislation.

Conclusion

However, the fight against obesity also rests with us–we must send messages to our congressional representatives to advocate an expanded version of H.R. 4818 that includes GLP coverage for all Medicare obesity patients. Greater access to treatments like GLP-1s is a crucial step in reducing our country’s obesity epidemic, preserving the health and wellbeing of our communities, and reducing the extreme amounts of money we spend on our healthcare system every year.

The Federal Fight Against Obesity Needs More Access to GLP-1s was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In July 2023, like most other UVM students, I was driving up I-89 when our state was devastated by flooding. Looking to my left, I could see the Winooski River, which normally runs lazily alongside the highway, flowing over roads, into houses, and drowning fields.

We called this flooding “historic” and “once in a lifetime”. However, just one year later, I am convinced flooding is following me. When I moved down here to North Carolina back in 2024, there was devasting flooding to a lot of western NC including Asheville. Now in 2025, we just had historic flooding in the tringle area, affecting many Durham and Chapel Hill residents and businesses.

This is not a coincidence. This will continue to happen. The flooding is not following me; it is just happening more and more frequently.

We do not have to accept that year after year our communities might be destroyed. The recent funding cuts for science will only make the effects of these natural disasters worse.

For example, at the University of Vermont (UVM), which recently achieved R1 research institution status, there are labs in almost every department who are researching the impact of the 2023 flood on local farmers, updating Vermont floodplain maps, and exploring how to strengthen resilience in Vermont communities after major disasters.

UVM received $55 million in grants and contracts from the NIH in 2024 to support research, which includes some of these projects. The cutbacks to federal research funding have already resulted in about a dozen grants being terminated at UVM alone. More will likely be cut in the future.

Additionally, the proposed cap of 15% on indirect funds also threatens all the research ongoing at UVM. Currently, UVM’s indirect funds, which are used for maintaining facilities, safety personnel, administrative support, and other crucial services, are capped at 26%. This new cap would cut these funds almost in half. It would be even worse at Duke University where these funds are normally around 60%. It would be like trying to cook in a kitchen without a stovetop or oven. You cannot make the meal you needed to make for dinner, just like the research studies cannot be completed. Research progress will be halted or stopped entirely.

Scientific research is vital to help keep the land and people across the country safe when the next flood hits.

As a UVM alum, I know how motivated we are as a school and state to create change and stand up for what we believe in. One of my favorite aspects of this community is how engaged and passionate all of the students are. I am also a proud current Duke University student, and I can see how hard-working and dedicated this community is. Now is the time to unite researchers in the triangle area and across North Carolina, as well as in Vermont and throughout the country. We need to work together to stand up for scientific research.

As a part of a community of hearty, resilient Vermonters and passionate North Carolinians, we have the power to minimize the damage and loss from future floods.

We can call our representatives and share our perspective on how the funding cuts to scientific research will harm our homes, businesses, and parks.

We can go home and educate our families and friends about the research funding cuts, and what that means for the future of research.

We can come together as a community to remain strong and show solidarity as a school against these funding cuts and support the vital research being conducted.

You have the power to help protect the natural beauty of the mountains, lakes, rivers, and farms across our country. From Vermont to North Carolina to across the United States, together, we can help build a dam against the flood of attacks on science and prevent the destruction that might occur during the next natural disaster.

The Flood of Federal Research Funding Cuts: Impact on the United States from VT to NC was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Just in time for Pride Month, researchers working diligently towards a long-awaited HIV vaccine were notified last week that their work would be abandoned, setting back decades of investment and progress against the pandemic. This is only one of the latest devastating blows dealt in the ongoing war on science.

Surely you’ve heard by now how science is under siege in the United States. In short, Trump’s proposed FY2026 budget would mark massive and unprecedented budget cuts for the country’s two major science funders: the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

As a Utah scientist, I fear we will not immediately feel the full impact of these abrupt and sweeping cuts to science spending. The consequences will slowly seep into the day-to-day lives of our children and our children’s children, long after this administration has left office.

I immigrated to this country as a child, brought up by a U.S. system full of opportunity and promise. I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and I never really left. Sheer wonder held my hand through the many hurdles of my post-graduate education. Every few years I stuffed all my earthly belongings into a single backpack, all I needed to start a new lab job at a different university in an unfamiliar city. My story is not atypical of academics in this country. Ever stressed but never bored, I still consider myself lucky to have learned something new every day of my life.

Today, I am an assistant professor of cell and molecular biology at Weber State University. I owe my career — teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists — to funding for basic science through the NSF and NIH.

In my lab, we study extremophiles, or animals that survive in stressful environments. Research on extremophiles has led to many instrumental surprises. Taq polymerase — a commercial enzyme used to diagnose diseases and amplify DNA from crime scenes — was initially isolated from thermophilic bacteria in the spectacular hot springs of Yellowstone National Park.

To explore the molecular mechanisms of how animals adapt to extreme environments like high heat, high salinity, or lack of oxygen, we study organisms such as nematodes and treefrogs, both in the lab and in the field, and use genetics as a tool for discovery.

Fundamentally, a genetic approach shows how things work by breaking the instructions manual and seeing what happens. For instance, we can conduct “forward genetic” screens in laboratory nematodes, wherein we use chemicals and X-rays to randomly mutate their DNA and observe what changes happen to the worms. We can then trace these mutations back to identify which specific genes allow the nematodes to survive in the extreme environment — essentially creating a genetic roadmap of survival.

Terms used to describe this kind of non-hypothesis-driven research are “descriptive research” or “basic science,” in which information is collected without a particular question in mind and analyzed with the goal of finding new patterns.

In an era when pursuing the treatment or cure of specific diseases is a major driver, this type of basic science is not always easy to justify. However, the benefits of basic science are well-documented as a global driver of life-saving care, treatments, and technologies. For instance, this system was able to transform decades of basic research on mRNA into safe and effective products — such as the federally supported COVID-19 vaccines — at warp speed. Likewise, recent advancements in curing sickle cell disease and metabolic disease using CRISPR-mediated genome editing were built upon the curious observation of repetitive DNA sequences in bacteria in 1987.

I have seen how basic science research generates fascinating unexpected findings firsthand. In discovering a novel species of nematode in our neighboring Great Salt Lake, we stumbled across symbiotic bacteria which enhance survival in extreme salinity in laboratory nematodes. These cross-kingdom associations could be the key for new questions and methodologies related to extremophile survival and can likely be exploited in the future to benefit plant growth in a changing environment. Unexpected avenues such as these have convinced me of the value of basic science research.

Like planting a seed, the benefits of basic science take time to take root, to grow, and to materialize in society. Private firms tend to underinvest in basic science because it benefits society as a whole and in the long term, rather than the firm’s immediate bottom line. But every dollar spent on public science by the NIH ultimately generates $2.56 in economic output. In the long run, these proposed cuts to funding for basic research and development will cost the economy billions annually, just to pad the pockets of the few.

If you value science, please call your representative and urge them to reject Trump’s spending plan.

Dr. Julie Jung is an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at Weber State University. This essay represents her own views, not those of her employers. This article is part of a nationwide effort, called The McClintock Letters, to communicate the role of science funding in society. Click on the citizens for science pledge to give feedback: tiny.cc/sciencepledge.

This piece was originally published for the Salt Lake Tribune on June 16, 2025. You can find the original article here: https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2025/06/16/voices-we-can-thank-federal/

On the value of ‘basic’ science was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m a scientist who grew up in Putnam County, and I’m writing to urge my hometown community to stand up against the devastating funding cuts to science research that are proposed in the federal budget currently being discussed in Congress.

I’m a proud product of the Putnam County 4-H youth program, which launched me on a path to pursing plant biology research all the way through a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and ultimately a career as a science communicator making films about scientists and their work.

Every step of my journey has been supported by federal funding. 4-H is funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), empowering nearly 6 million youth nationwide with leadership and citizenship skills. Every research project in my 15-year science career was backed by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, resulting in discoveries about plant stem cells, orchid conservation, how plants use nitrogen, and flower genetics. Today, scientists include me in their own NSF grants to produce films that bring their research to life, so that you can see how your tax dollars contribute to cutting-edge science.

And I’m just one person. Federal science funding benefits everyone in Putnam County: if you’ve taken any medicines that were approved by the FDA in the last decade, funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contributed to their development. Did you use the internet today? You can thank the NSF for that. And if you (like me) are a 90s kid, you grew up learning about science from NSF-funded shows like Bill Nye and The Magic School Bus.

Federal funding is great for the economy — the NSF and NIH combined brought in over $4 billion and 30,000 jobs to New York State last year, and science funding generates $2.56 in economic activity for every $1 spent. That’s a fantastic return!

However, the Trump Administration’s proposed budget will slash NSF funding by 56%, NIH funding by 37%, and USDA funding by 18%. This will destroy American science and innovation. My scientist friends are scrambling to figure out how to keep their laboratories and students afloat in the face of these cuts. I am scrambling to pivot careers as I will no longer be able to make educational films with NSF funding.

The cuts will have unthinkable consequences for our daily lives. Cancer research will stagnate and the discovery science that fuels our biotech industry will slow. Your children will no longer have access to prestigious federal undergraduate science internships and graduate research fellowships, and scientific job opportunities will disappear.

How can you help? Call your Members of Congress and urge them to do everything in their power to oppose this budget until science funding is restored. 5Calls has a fantastic script and easy phone number lookup for your district: https://5calls.org/issue/national-institutes-of-health-nih-research-cuts/. This letter is part of a national movement of scientists writing to their hometowns to raise the alarm. Take our Citizens for Science Pledge here: tiny.cc/sciencepledge

Sincerely,

Molly Edwards, Ph.D.
Boston, MA

This piece was originally published as a Letter to the Editor on 6/16/25 in the Putnam County Courier and on 6/17/25 in the Putnam County News & Recorder as part of the McClintock Letters initiative:
https://www.putnamcountycourier.com/articles/science-funding-cuts-will-hurt-putnam-county/
https://www.pcnr.com/articles/science-funding-cuts-will-hurt-putnam-county/

Science Funding Cuts Will Hurt Putnam County was originally published in SciTech Forefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.