“I Think the Entire Future of the United States Is at Stake”

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.

It’s my dad’s fault I became a scientist. 

My dad was Jewish and born in Nazi Germany. He and his family escaped when he was five, just a few weeks before Kristallnacht. They came through Ellis Island and found their way to Lynn, Massachusetts. They were immigrants who worked hard to escape poverty and move into the middle class. My dad was a high school valedictorian, earned a graduate degree, and became a chemist. He saw science as a path forward — if you work hard and do well in school, you can make something of yourself — and encouraged me to follow that path.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, I worked with Jonathan Cohen in the neurobiology department and fell in love with research. Over thirty years later, I am still fascinated by neuroscience, and my lab explores mechanisms of body-brain communication. While scientists have made progress in understanding the sensory neurons involved in our external senses — such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — a lot less is known about sensory neurons that communicate information from internal systems in the body. I think of my research as trying to understand how organs communicate with each other and how the brain acts as the master conductor of the entire symphony. There is a lot of new information to find out, new medicines to create, and new textbooks to write. Hopefully we can continue doing that work.

We study sensory neurons in the vagus nerve, a major body-brain communication pathway that controls functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. We aim to understand the different types of neurons in this nerve and how they work on a molecular level. For example, we’re studying neurons in the airway that control breathing — neurons that make you cough when irritants are present, neurons that cause you to gasp when less oxygen is available, and neurons that alert the brain when infection is present. We’re also interested in neurons that detect changes in blood pressure and neurons that control nausea. By mapping the diversity of sensory neurons in the vagus nerve, we’ve also identified “orphan neurons” that we suspect elicit still-unknown reflexes in the body. Because the vagus nerve controls a broad range of body functions, the options would be almost endless if we understood it well enough to tap into it therapeutically. We could develop better treatments for so many kinds of problems.

Grant terminations have been especially frustrating because basic science is foundational for almost every treatment we have and is the backbone that industry builds on. Industry takes discoveries once they reach a later stage to develop them into drugs. But to get to that point, scientists first have to define the pathways to target. Basic science research is not a for-profit enterprise in and of itself, which means it can’t exist without federal support.

My lab has around twenty people who all work on different aspects of internal sensing. Every lab meeting there’s a new finding, a new discovery; it’s so exciting to be here, and I feel so lucky to do what I do. The people in my lab are smart, hard-working, and selfless. They are following their passions, and they all have the potential to do great things, which is why I am so motivated to make sure they can continue their work and training.

My grant terminations mean that I’m not able to take new people in my lab. I’m scrambling to find ways to support existing people. As my lab becomes smaller, we’ll work on fewer things — and I’ve already had to shut down important projects. It’s heartbreaking, unfathomable. We’re all just doing the best that we can to advance science and benefit the public. I feel like the rug has been pulled from under our feet, and we’re not sure where we’re going to fall.

One of my concerns is that as people leave, my lab will lose the knowledge that has been built over time. Research in my lab involves complex protocols that have been honed and passed on from person to person over the years. If the lab shrinks and people go elsewhere, a lot of that knowledge will be lost. Even if the lab starts up again, people won’t be around to train others, which will have a long-term impact on our research.

There’s no other magic investor that is going to come in and salvage everything.

I’m also concerned about how this loss of funding will impact the next generation of scientists. Some of my lab members have been working on a research project for four or five years, and without funding, they are stranded. Undergraduates will have a harder time getting into graduate school, grad students will have a harder time getting postdoctoral positions, and postdocs will have a harder time getting faculty positions. Every stage of the pipeline will be choked. There will be a reduction of the scientific workforce, and the United States will lose its edge in science and technology.

Since World War II, the United States has had incredible federal funding for biomedical research, which has led to a scientific revolution. This revolution has been every bit as history-changing for science — from sequencing the genome to curing diseases to learning how the brain works — as the Renaissance was for art. Science and technology have fueled our innovation, driven our economy, supported our national security, and improved medicine. They are the reason we won World War II. They are the reason we went to the moon. They are the reason that lifespan in the U.S. has increased. To cut that off seems mind-bogglingly shortsighted.

There are some common misconceptions about federal research funding. One is that the money is a gift to Harvard. It’s not. A federal grant is a contract that enables us to do research that benefits the country and humankind. It’s like if the government awards an aircraft company a contract for a plane. The money is not a gift — the company uses the money to build a plane and give it to the government. Instead of building a plane, scientists use federal research funding to build knowledge that can be used for treatments and cures.

If the government cuts off federal grants, research is going to stop. There’s no other magic investor that is going to come in and salvage everything. The U.S. government is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, which is why the United States has been the world leader in science and technology. I think the entire future of the United States is at stake. Science is a win for our economy, a win for our defense, a win for our society, and a win for our quality of life.

Stephen Liberles is a professor in the HMS Department of Cell Biology.