NIH walks back some long COVID grant cancellations

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) appears to be reversing course on its decision to abruptly cancel a spate of grants for long COVID research last month. On Mar. 28, the NIH Office of Extramural Research notified an office at New York University (NYU) that funding awarded through the NIH’s long COVID research program—Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER—for pathobiology studies was restored, according to emails shared with C&EN. “Funds made available to you under this award are no longer restricted, and available for us in accordance with our research agreement and any of its valid amendments,” the NYU office tells university researchers in an email. Other researchers at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Emory University have also had their RECOVER grants restored, says Megan Fitzgerald, a researcher and patient advocate who works closely with several RECOVER-funded scientists. One researcher tells her that