Alán Aspuru-Guzik takes a lot of calls these days from scientists considering an exit from the United States. Aspuru-Guzik, a theoretical chemist, left Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during Donald Trump's first term as US president, from 2017 to 2021, to join the University of Toronto in Canada and hasn't looked back. "I'm the happiest guy here," he says. Aspuru-Guzik left because he didn't agree with Trump's politics and policies.
Unlike many sector bodies, NCUB combines government backing with membership contributions from both universities and businesses, a model it says ensures policy recommendations and practice are grounded in the realities of both sectors. Over the next four years, NCUB's strategy will focus on three core priorities: making the UK a more attractive destination for business investment, strengthening links between universities and companies to accelerate innovation, and building coordinated responses to global change across the skills, research and innovation system.
Parents, grandparents and others their age lined El Camino Real during Monday's 17×17 Labor Day rally - as in previous anti-Trump protests. But where were the younger people? At the protest, aiming to line up 17,000 people for 17 miles of El Camino Real in a safe, civil and welcoming environment, elders seemed to far outnumber teens and people in their 20s. Kristina Schmidt, 63, a bookkeeper from San Jose, said she was in attendance to defend several causes such as gay marriage, immigration and Medicaid.
Perhaps most damningly, the younger Kennedy has elected to " wind down" the development of mRNA vaccines and cancel $500 million in research contracts because of his vaccine skepticism, particularly as it relates to COVID-19 vaccines. Along with its incredible efficacy at staving off further death from the coronavirus pandemic, researchers working with mRNA believe they may be close to achieving a monumental milestone: creating a universal cancer vaccine using the promising biotechnology.
Current efforts to destroy science and slash research funding undermine my ability to provide continued support for nonhuman primate research at UMass. As we are completing a large study to help women with breast cancer live a better life, I have taken the decision to no longer seek funding to support a marmoset colony at UMass.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has not yet rescinded directives that led to the cancellation of more than 2,400 research projects it funded, despite a ruling declaring them illegal.
Of the 20 members in his group, he will soon run out of money to pay the salaries for four. As of June, he estimated that his team has enough to keep going for about six months in its current form if it draws money from other funding sources.
The federal government engaged in 'quintessential viewpoint discrimination' when it rescinded funding to UC researchers, marking a key win for advocacy in educational research.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is pursuing a destructive agenda against science. The White House seems to be intent on telling funding agencies what they can fund, universities who they can hire, and researchers what they can study.
"Unfortunately, something is going to change," said Barbara Snyder, president of the Association of American Universities. "Either we will be part of it or it will be imposed upon us ... Significant division in the research community is going to kill us."
If there are fewer medical diagnostics there will be fewer medical devices and treatments. Real innovation is a function of risk and reward in a mathematical sense.