Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs
The famed cherry blossoms on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
The fight now unfolding over the Trump administration’s sudden limit on National Institutes of Health grant funding could have deep financial implications for Washington state’s top research institutions.
Those impacted would include the University of Washington, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Washington State University, PATH, Seattle Children’s, biotech companies and many others.
Organizations in the Seattle area alone received $1.13 billion in NIH funding during the fiscal year ending in the third quarter of 2024, according to CBRE Research.
On Monday, grant recipients got a reprieve from the cuts when attorneys general for 22 states including Washington, Oregon and California filed a lawsuit, and a judge from the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts granted an emergency motion that afternoon for a temporary restraining order.
However, the long-term threat of the funding cap still looms, and the ongoing uncertainty is disrupting research organizations.
The conflict started Friday when the NIH — by its own account the “largest public funder of biomedical research in the world” — without warning announced it was capping its funding for “indirect costs,” slashing the budgets for research and medical institutions across the country.
Indirect costs help pay for rent, utilities, Wi-Fi, administrative support and other needed infrastructure. Researchers also receive funding for “direct costs,” which pays for salaries, chemicals and other supplies, and lab equipment.
Dr. Marion Pepper. (UW Photo)
The new cap would wipe out approximately $100 million of funding for UW Medicine, requiring providers to scale back and stop accepting new patients to clinical trials treating kidney disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, pediatric cancer and other health issues, the lawsuit states.
“These indirect funds really cover all of the supporting elements that allow us to make discoveries,” said Dr. Marion Pepper, chair of the UW’s Department of Immunology, which is supported by NIH grants.
Without both direct and indirect funds, she said, “we can’t do what we do.”
Pepper’s 14-person lab, which includes graduate students and post doctoral fellows, is studying how the immune system makes memories in mice and humans. Some memories are beneficial, like immune cells that recognize and fight infectious diseases, while others are problematic, such as allergic reactions to dust and other triggers. They want to boost some recollections while suppressing others.
“What we do impacts all of human health,” Pepper said, underscoring the critical nature of research into the immune system.
The Trump administration wants to cap indirect funding at a flat 15%. Currently, individual institutions negotiate their own rates, which according to the NIH guidance is between 27% and 28% — though many organizations have higher rates.
The UW’s blended rate is 55.5% for on-campus research, with rates at other UW research locations ranging from 26% for some programs to 83.1% for the Washington National Primate Research Center, according to the lawsuit filed today.
The UW School of Medicine received 657 NIH grants and more than $385 million in the last fiscal year, the lawsuit states.
“Disruptions or limits in funding are wide ranging and impactful,” said UW spokesman Victor Balta by email. “Even temporary pauses in research have the potential to significantly impact decades of discovery and progress — including life-saving medical research.”
He added, “The uncertainty itself is distracting and disruptive to research faculty and staff across the university and to the public and patients we all serve.”
Other Washington institutions likewise rely on higher rates for funding. WSU, which is based in Pullman, Wash., has an on-campus indirect cost rate of 53%.
The university’s focus includes veterinary medicine and the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, which is a leader in detecting and responding to animal-related diseases such as rabies and the current avian flu outbreak. The housing and care of animals cannot be paid for as direct costs, making the funds from indirect costs critical to the work.
Seattle’s Fred Hutch has 750 active treatment trials underway — with many receiving NIH support and often providing a final option for patients with difficult to treat cancers. Its indirect cost rate is 76%.
“Fred Hutch is closely monitoring the NIH policy change,” a spokesperson said by email. “This policy could significantly impact our ability to continue making discoveries to treat, cure or prevent cancer and infectious diseases. We are working vigorously with our peers, partners, legislators and trade organizations to advocate for Congressional intervention.”
This is just the most recent Trump administration directive that has panicked U.S. researchers. At the end of January, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum putting a temporary halt on a vast range of government payments, which was also blocked by a federal judge before taking effect. The OMB rescinded the directive — but the fear remains.
The NIH guidance explained its efforts to cap the indirect costs in terms of fiscal oversight.
“NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life. Indirect costs are, by their very nature, ‘not readily assignable to the cost objectives specifically benefited’ and are therefore difficult for NIH to oversee,” the document states.
The guidance goes on to say that philanthropic foundations such as the Gates Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Rockefeller Foundation and others limit indirect cost rates between 10% and 15%, depending on the foundation and recipient.
Pepper, the UW immunologist, countered that foundations have more limited budgets and rely on the NIH to cover some of these costs. She also pointed to a study last year from United for Medical Research, a nonprofit group, that concluded that every research dollar granted by the NIH provides $2.46 of economic activity.
“Universities are doing an amazing service for the American people by hosting science,” Pepper said. “Discoveries are happening every day that are changing human health.”
