Harvard researchers say they might have to lay off workers and euthanize research animals due to funding freeze

By Taylor Romine, Lex Harvey, Chris Boyette and Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

(CNN) — Harvard University professors are grappling with difficult – sometimes life or death – decisions, after being ordered to stop their research this week when the Trump administration froze more than $2.2 billion in funding over the university’s refusal to bow down to policy demands.

Harvard School of Public Health Professor Sarah Fortune has been researching tuberculosis for over a decade. She received a stop-work order this week on a $60 million contract involving more than a dozen labs at schools across the country.

Part of that research involves a vaccine study on a group of primates in Pittsburgh whose lives are now on the line.

“The question is, could we find resources to support them, such that we don’t have to euthanize them?” Fortune said.

While it’s possible researchers will garner enough external support to save those animals, she says there simply isn’t an alternative funding source large enough to support the entire research program.

As Fortune and her colleagues scramble to do damage control, it isn’t just Harvard University jobs on the line. More than 80% of the money that comes through her tuberculosis contract is funneled to other labs and schools – including University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Washington, UMass and MIT, Fortune estimates.

“The individual institutions that are affected – some of them are moving forward more quickly than others to lay people off,” Fortune told CNN.

The effects of funding freezes are already being felt across the university. During a town hall Wednesday, leadership at the Harvard Medical School told employees to prepare for staffing and program cuts because approximately 75% of their research is federally funded, The Harvard Crimson reported, citing a recording obtained by the student newspaper.

“I know this news is sobering. I know that many of you have been expecting this news, and so to actually be clear and transparent about it, it’s difficult for all of us,” Lisa M. Muto, executive dean for administration for the Harvard Medical School, said as reported by The Crimson.

Harvard Medical School Chief Financial Officer Julie Joncas noted the school only has about $39 million in reserves at a time when they are already facing financial headwinds, the Crimson said.

“It’s important to remember each school is feeling this but is feeling it differently, and it’s important for us to realize we’re kind of all under attack right now, and that is why it’s so hard for Harvard at this point,” Joncas said, The Crimson reported. “Harvard has to figure out the solution and what we can do with what limited resources we’re going to be left with when all the dust settles.”

When reached for comment on The Crimson reporting, a spokesperson for the medical school said the budget cuts are a response to a preexisting financial gap that developed over several years, during which expenses rose faster than revenue. The budget deficit started before the recent funding pauses, but is expected to get worse due to tariffs, inflation, rising costs and cuts in federal research support, the spokesperson said.

‘They came to us’

Harvard Medical School Professor Donald E. Ingber also received stop-work orders on two contracts related to his work on human organ chips – tiny devices filled with living human cells.

The research could help mitigate the side effects of radiation therapy for the more than 70% of cancer patients who need it and reduce the practice of testing drugs and vaccines on primates, Ingber told CNN.

It could also be used to help develop radiation countermeasures, which is why the federal authority responsible for biomedical development approached Ingber in the spring of 2023 and asked him to submit a research proposal.

“BARDA, which is responsible for the defense of the United States, recognized that there’s a critical need for radiation countermeasures,” Ingber said. “There’s only one drug approved and stockpiled in case there’s a nuclear attack or a nuclear disaster, and they desperately need to find new ones.”

The work was going so well that just a week ago, the agency approached Ingber and asked him to expand his research, he said. Days later he received an order to immediately stop the work.

The second project Ingber was ordered to stop was with NASA, he said.

The space organization was “coming to us to develop, literally, avatars for astronauts – human organ chips – in this case bone marrow chips made with cells from our astronauts who are going to go up on the future missions,” he said.

Those chips would go up with the astronauts to study the effects of microgravity and radiation exposure, Ingber said.

“The current administration seems very excited about going to Mars,” Ingber said.

“We’re never going to get to Mars if we don’t come up with countermeasures to mitigate the effects of high energy radiation exposure.”

‘This cancellation will cost lives’

David Walt, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital said he received an email Tuesday from the Department of Health and Human Services that funding for a grant to research ALS was being immediately canceled.

“This cancellation will cost lives,” Walt told CNN’s Richard Quest.

Walt’s project focused on early diagnosis and treatment options for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a motor neuron disease that causes paralysis and affects roughly 30,000 people in the US. His grant was worth upwards of $300,000 per year, according to the student-run newspaper Harvard Crimson.

“This is going to have devastating consequences on innovation, education and the economy for years to come,” Walt said. “The US, in my opinion, is ceding our science and technology leadership to China and to other countries.”

Just months ago, Walt was named laureate for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor in his field bestowed by the US president. Beyond the ALS work, Walt’s lab works on the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and other infectious diseases, to help discover new drugs which can potentially lead to cures.

“If we can even solve any one of these problems, it will benefit many, many patients,” he said. “To take that opportunity away from me and other dedicated researchers, in my opinion, is a travesty.”

Millions of dollars of funding slashed

It is not yet clear how many programs in total will be affected by the Trump administration’s funding freeze – but early reports suggest millions of dollars in funding for life-saving medical research have already been slashed.

The Internal Revenue Service is working on plans to rescind the university’s tax-exempt status, and plans to make a final decision soon, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Like many universities, Harvard receives funding from the US government for research and innovation. Federal funding is Harvard’s largest source of support for research, contributing 58% of total sponsored revenue during the 2024 fiscal year, according to the University.

On Friday, before the funding freeze was announced, a group of Harvard professors sued the Trump administration to block a review of nearly $9 billion in federal funds to Harvard.

The suit, filed by the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors, along with the national organization, warned the White House’s actions have “already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations.”

The Trump administration has taken aim at universities and colleges across the US by ending or demanding new conditions for research grants, deporting international students, and cutting overall federal support for scientific research. Harvard is among the first elite universities to directly reject the White House’s demands, though other schools have lent their support to Harvard after it made its position public.

The fallout at the Ivy League school has been swift – and the consequences will be enormous, scientists have warned.

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