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Policy

US funding freeze memo rescinded, NIH confusion persists

Acting NIH director Memoli clarifies communication restrictions as White House moves to freeze US government grants

by Laurel Oldach
January 29, 2025

When the Trump administration named infectious disease researcher Matthew Memoli acting director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Jan. 24, researchers asked on social media whether he would act to end disruptions in both intramural funding and the grant review process. By the time the NIH announced a partial answer on Jan. 27, the question was quickly superseded by concerns about whether NIH would fund ongoing research in light of federal guidance to stop all grant payments. That question remained unresolved by Tuesday afternoon when an emergency court order put a temporary hold on the funding block.

Low-angle portrait of a white man in shirt and tie with a stethoscope around his neck.
Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
Matthew Memoli is the acting director of the National Institutes of Health.

Since the announcement last week of a communications freeze across the US Department of Health and Human Services, NIH researchers have been forbidden from communicating with the public until Feb. 1. NIH study sections—a key step in reviewing new grant applications and directing funding for academic research—canceled with little notice.

NIH is the country’s largest funder of medical and biological research, with a budget of $45.7 billion in fiscal year 2024. Its pause in communications has alarmed many scientists. Some reports raised concerns that in addition to delaying grants for research across the country that NIH normally supports, the pause could also interrupt the purchase of supplies critical to continuing clinical trials and maintaining laboratory animals at the NIH’s main campus in Maryland. The most urgent of those concerns appear unlikely to come to pass. In an emailed statement relaying information from a memo Memoli circulated on Jan. 27, an NIH representative told C&EN that procurement related to human health, animal care, and biosafety may continue and that clinical trials supported by NIH are ongoing. “Research laboratories at the NIH are able to procure necessary supplies and support for ongoing research experiments that began prior to January 20, 2025. At this time, no new studies are being launched,” the official wrote. The emailed statement did not address extramural research—the studies that NIH pays researchers in academia and at other institutions to conduct.

Just hours later on Jan. 27, a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to stop paying grants and loans that contradict executive orders on immigration; foreign aid; energy; and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Before the freeze was set to take effect on the afternoon of Jan. 28, a federal judge issued a temporary block; on Jan. 29. the Office of Management and Budget reversed its position, rescinding the freeze.

But before it was reversed, the memo made for a chaotic and alarming 36 hours for many scientists. As of Jan. 28, it was not clear whether the directive applied to the NIH and its extramural research funding. The NIH media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Michael Malone, the vice chancellor for research and engagement at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, wrote in an email to C&EN, “There is [a lot] of confusion around this. Our understanding is that all federal agencies are impacted. We have a few details from some agencies so far, but I think we will have more over the next few days.”

In the meantime, major research universities across the country issued conflicting guidance to their researchers while struggling to analyze the memorandum on Tuesday. An email from University of Chicago Provost Katherine Baicker asked that researchers pause all nonpersonnel spending, including travel, purchases of supplies, and starting new experiments. On the other hand, the president, provost, and dean of research at Stanford University recommended that researchers supported by federal funds “should continue their normal activities” unless specifically instructed that their projects had been ordered to halt.

One researcher told C&EN that they were canceling the day’s planned activities to scramble to submit a mostly completed grant before the end of the day. According to Nicholas Bauer, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, he was unable to access the payment management system that supports NIH extramural funding on Jan. 28, but found his access restored on Jan. 29.

The OMB memo’s reversal appears to return NIH to the holding pattern Memoli outlined on Monday, with NIH staff prohibited from attending external meetings or starting new experiments and extramural funding decisions on hold for the time being. How long it may take to confirm a permanent NIH director is uncertain; the Senate has yet to schedule a hearing for nominee Jay Bhattacharya.

But on social media, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted that the White House still intends to block funding to topics covered in the executive orders. An additional Office of Management and Budget memo, reported by Politico but not posted publicly, requested more information from federal agencies on roughly 2,000 programs from across the government, including at least a dozen supported by the NIH. The list includes whole divisions, such as the Office of Research on Women’s Health, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), along with specific research and training programs from other institutes and centers.

Though the HHS communications freeze lifted Feb. 1, Memoli has remained silent in public. According to a Feb. 4 NPR article, the NIH’s hiring freeze and block on new projects and patient recruitment remain in place. Some study sections resumed meeting to review grant applications, but other meetings of outside experts were abruptly canceled. Announcements of some grant opportunities, including programs aimed at workforce diversity and undergraduate research, disappeared from the NIH website. Scientists reported periodic loss of access to the NIH’s grant payment system, and a tool was disabled that had let researchers request more time to spend awarded funds.

Feb. 5 was one of the NIH’s three annual deadlines for new grant applications. In the continuing information vacuum, few were optimistic. One scientist who had succeeded in sending an application told C&EN, “Chances of it getting reviewed or funded are low, but for now we still seem to be able to submit."

UPDATE:

This story was updated on Feb. 6, 2025, to add information about National Institutes of Health communication and operations after the Health and Human Services communication ban was lifted.

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