“The Amount and Pace of Discovery Is Breathtaking”

The federal government has terminated numerous federally funded grants and contracts to Harvard and is scaling back investments in scientific and medical research across the country. In this series, Harvard Medical School scientists discuss how these actions are affecting their research and their labs.

Growing up in New England, my brother and I were very outdoorsy. We spent almost all our free time outside and interacting with nature. We had dogs, cats, ducks, and other pets, and we loved catching frogs, turtles, fish, and snakes. My brother liked to say that he was a better fisherman, and I would be a turtle farmer.

In high school, I was the only one in my circle of friends who even considered going to college. I attended a small Catholic college in rural Maryland handpicked by my mother. When I got there, I didn’t think anything about a career — I just chose a major that was interesting to me, which was biology.

As an undergraduate I worked in a biochemistry lab, and I noticed that my faculty mentor spent all his spare time dabbling in the lab. I was struck by how captivated he was by his work and how excited he got about any incremental advance. I hadn’t seen an older person in my life who got so much joy and satisfaction out of their job, and it stuck with me. I said, “Here’s something you can do for a living and really enjoy it; it’s not like the bell rings at five o’clock and you’re ready to run home.” That experience, along with my love of the natural world, nudged me toward a career in science. On the advice of a family friend who was an NIH scientist, I went to graduate school to pursue an advanced degree. 

Graduate school cemented my desire to become a scientist. I found it exhilarating to ask deep, probing questions about how the world works. Doing research made me feel like an explorer; I got to go where no one had ever gone, and see what no one had ever seen. By the end of my degree, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else — and at the time, becoming a scientist usually meant going into academia, so that’s what I did. As a professor, my work has become even richer. Now, I get to experience the double joy of exploration and discovery and of mentoring and guiding young scientists. 

My lab studies the sense of touch, also known as somatosensation. We want to understand how sensory neurons in the skin detect features of the physical world and communicate this information to the spinal cord and brain to create sensation. There are upwards of twenty different types of somatosensory neurons in the body that alert us to mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli acting on our bodies. Remarkably, touch sensory neurons are conserved across mammals, so we can study touch in mice and apply what we learn to humans. In mouse models, we use genetic tools to study touch neurons one at a time. In doing so, we learn about their properties and functions, including how they translate stimuli acting on the skin and organs into electrical impulses that the brain perceives as sensation. 

We’re constantly looking for opportunities to use the knowledge we’ve gained to develop new therapies for touch disorders. We’re especially interested in developing new treatments for chronic pain. Currently, the world is heavily reliant on opioid-based drugs for treating pain. These drugs are addictive and have led to the opioid epidemic, so there’s a huge need for better pain therapies. Through our research, we’ve identified the precise sensory neurons that report noxious, painful stimuli acting on our skin and internal organs. We now know every gene these pain neurons express, and by extension, every protein they make. Some of these proteins are potential drug targets that can be targeted to silence pain neurons, thereby dampening pain signals at the source. 

We are also applying what we learn to treating different forms of sensory over-reactivity. Children with autism, for example, can be highly averse to light touch, which negatively affects their quality of life. We’ve identified the properties of neurons that respond to gentle touch of the skin. By understanding the molecular biology of these neurons, we have within our grasp an array of potential drug targets for reducing sensory over-reactivity. For both pain and sensory over-reactivity, basic research gives us the level of granularity we need to make informed decisions about which drug targets to pursue. 

We’ve understood the basic wiring of neural circuits in the visual system for many decades, but we still don’t understand the organization of neural circuits for touch. This area is rich and ripe for discovery. We’ve recently developed key tools and techniques needed to study the neural circuitry in the spinal cord and brain that underlies our perception of touch and pain. The amount and pace of discovery is breathtaking.

I have two NIH grants that support research in my lab, and both were recently canceled. Harvard University and HMS have been working with department chairs like me to develop a financial plan to keep research labs afloat. However, this internal financial support is for a finite period of time and comes at a huge cost, because we’ve had to take out loans to pull together “rescue money.” As a result, all HMS scientists are scaling back their research. In the immediate term, I’m reducing my lab by 20 to 30 percent, which means less work will be getting done — and that’s a big hit. Every single lab in my department is dependent on NIH support, so the loss of federal funding is leading to cuts in all research areas. 

I am also extremely concerned about the federal budget for scientific research moving forward. The Trump administration proposed a 40 percent reduction to the NIH budget, which would be devastating to scientists across the United States. The administration is also pushing to reduce funding for “indirect research costs” and they’ve recently placed higher taxes on university endowments. If these things happen at a level even close to what’s been proposed, science in the United States will be even more seriously downsized — we’re talking a 50 percent or more reduction in the workforce and the research done in labs like mine.

Because fundamental science drives progress in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, less federal support for academic science will translate into fewer new therapies for all types of debilitating disorders. Also, federally funded research labs train the next generation of scientists, including scientists who become leaders in biotech and pharma. Without enough funding, young, talented students will steer clear of scientific careers. Plus, new policies restricting international students mean that the brightest individuals from around the world won’t have the opportunity to train here. All told, our pipelines for new therapies and skilled scientists are in grave danger. Everyone can see that science is under the gun. 

I have no doubt that funding cuts will have a major economic impact. The federal contribution to scientific research has provided a huge boost to our economy. In 2024, for example, an analysis estimated a return of $2.56 in new economic activity for every $1 of investment in NIH research. The current administration is waging an all-out assault on science, and we have an urgent need to convince elected officials and voters that federal support for science must remain a priority to ensure the well-being of our nation. 

David Ginty is the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology and chair of the neurobiology department in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.