PROVIDENCE — Amy Nunn nearly fell out of bed watching President Trump’s State of the Union address in 2019. Trump announced he would seek to eradicate HIV within 10 years, promising to bring together Democrats and Republicans to get it done. “I never expected President Trump would announce the first plan to end the epidemic,” said Nunn, a social scientist. But six years later, things have changed. On March 20, the Trump administration shut down Nunn’s large-scale study at the Rhode Island Public Health Institute that was seeking to decrease the spread of HIV among gay Black and Latino men, who contract the virus at higher rates than white men. “I was alarmed,” Nunn said. “He’s basically undoing a lot of the progress from his first administration. Our trial responded to all the priorities he had laid out previously.” Nunn’s research is among at least 60 canceled grants for public health and scientific research in Rhode Island, primarily at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island. It comes at a pivotal time when state leaders are betting on the life sciences industry becoming a catalyst for Rhode Island’s economy. The Ocean State has lagged behind the region in building out the sector, while Massachusetts has funneled more than $1 billion in public money to the industry since 2007. Across New England, at least half a billion dollars worth of health and science grants have been terminated since Trump took office. In Rhode Island, the terminations have come in steadily since February, officials at both Brown University and the University of Rhode Island said, and it’s not clear when they will stop. The Trump administration is also seeking to slash overhead costs for research across the board, and has threatened to freeze an unspecified $510 million from Brown, roughly double the Ivy League institution’s annual federal funding. “I think it might take a generation to bounce back from this, even if we see a renewed commitment later on,” Nunn said. Last year, Rhode Island lawmakers pumped $45 million into the R.I. Life Science Hub, a brand new quasi-public agency that aims to lure biotech companies to Rhode Island and create a Providence version of Cambridge‘s Kendall Square. The new hub relies heavily on the brainpower of researchers at academic institutions like Brown. “You can build a hub, but the hub is staffed by people and you need the resources to support them,” said David Meyers, a Brown professor and researcher. “We are kneecapping our ability to have a workforce that’s able to address these major health challenges.” Nunn’s $3.7 million study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was in the process of enrolling 300 patients in Rhode Island, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. In a letter, the NIH said “ this award no longer effectuates agency priorities." The letter cited diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, saying it “harms the health of Americans.” Dozens of other HIV studies were also terminated . “This isn’t just DEI,” Nunn said. “This is about saving the lives of people who are the sickest, or who are the most likely to get sick.” Many of the canceled grants have some connection to gender, race, LGBTQ+ people or climate science. “To just uniformly cancel all these grants based on political ideology or because they’re enrolling transgender people has really never happened before,” said Dr. Philip Chan, who runs a Providence health clinic with Nunn for LGBTQ+ patients called Open Door Health. Dr. Mark Turco, the first CEO of the new life sciences agency, is optimistic philanthropic funding and private dollars can help make up for the federal cuts. “Some of these cuts actually, in my opinion, need to occur,” Turco said. “We have spent a lot of money and we need to show a lot of return for investment on some of these dollars.” The hub‘s first major project is nearly complete: A 208,000-square-foot lab building on Richmond Street in Providence opening this summer. It will hold a new Rhode Island State Health Lab on two floors, topped by incubator space where Turco hopes biotech companies will set up shop rather than going to Massachusetts or Connecticut. No tenants have been secured but there is a list of prospects, Turco said. Five hundred feet away, also on Richmond Street, Brown recently began building a $400 million, 300,000 square-foot lab building — the largest academic lab in the state — to house 700 researchers studying aging, immunity, brain science, cancer, biomedical engineering and more. But construction could be halted if the NIH’s cuts to overhead costs come to fruition, Dr. Greg Hirth, Brown’s vice president of research, said in court documents. Brown President Christina Paxson declined to be interviewed, citing the uncertainty around Brown‘s funding, as did Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the School of Public Health. At a Boston Globe event in late April, Jha said the funding uncertainty could have “lasting impacts” if budding scientists choose to go into a different field or move to Europe, China or India after graduation rather than work in the US. “We do not want to live in a country where every four years, based on the president’s personal political agenda, we make radical shifts to what we fund and don’t fund,” Jha said. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya sought to quell concerns about the cuts in April, telling an advisory council that the president’s DEI orders are “misunderstood.” “I don’t think that they’re aimed at stopping fundamental research that advances the health and wellbeing of minority populations,” Bhattacharya said. “I wouldn’t have accepted this job if that was the case.” Brown spokesperson Brian Clark said the university has not received any formal notification of the White House’s intent to cut half a billion dollars from the university, other than the three dozen individual grants that have been terminated. “Long-term federal funding cuts of significant magnitude could put at risk or end some areas of high-impact research at Brown,” Clark said. “There is simply no way for us to say otherwise.” Layoffs would be likely, Clark said. At the University of Rhode Island, 23 grants worth more than $47 million have been terminated by the Trump administration, including training for bioengineering students , a shellfish management program for women in West Africa, and research on how hurricanes will impact the coast. That hurricane research, led by Professor Austin Becker, involves a tool called Rhode Island Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling & Prediction, or RI-CHAMP , which tracks the potential impact of a hurricane on critical infrastructure. The research was abruptly canceled by the Department of Homeland Security on April 8. “I was pretty shocked by it,” Becker said. “We hear a lot about DEI work getting terminated and climate change work getting terminated. But this work is really focused on today’s challenges.” The team was working with the R.I. Emergency Management Agency, the Port of Providence, and the US Coast Guard. The finished tool would have helped them prepare for hurricanes. “If and when Rhode Island gets the next big hurricane, we will not be able to run those models,” Becker said. Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The full impact on URI is yet to be seen, said Bethany Jenkins, vice president of research and economic development, including how many jobs will be cut. “We’re not sure when this is going to end,” Jenkins said. Nunn, the social scientist, said she sees Trump’s actions as “an attack on science and truth.” HIV transmission rates are higher in the Deep South, Nunn said. She hopes Republicans speak out. “Look what happened with the tariffs,” Nunn said. “Two or three days of stock market decline prompted an outcry from senators from red states. I’d love to see a similar outcry about science.”
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