NIH silent as White House targets grants

When the Donald J. Trump administration named Matthew Memoli acting director of the National Institutes of Health on Jan. 24, researchers asked on social media whether Memoli would stop disruptions in both intramural funding and the grant review process. By the time the NIH announced a partial answer to that question, it was superseded by concerns about whether NIH would fund ongoing research in light of a federal order to stop all grant payments. Although that order was rescinded , researchers’ worries have persisted, and they have more questions than official answers from the NIH. After a Jan. 22 communications freeze across the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH researchers and administrators were forbidden from communicating with the public . Study sections —external expert reviews key in directing research funding—were canceled with little notice, which alarmed many scientists. In a Jan. 27 email, an NIH representative told