Jon Audhya on Impacts of Federal Funding Cuts At UW-Madison

Frederica Freyberg:
As the fall semester is poised to begin, Wisconsin’s major research university, UW-Madison, is grappling with the potential of tens of millions of dollars of cuts to federal funding, most of it cuts to National Institutes of Health research funding. But the cuts span other disciplines, like money from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense. What does this mean for the state’s flagship university? We check in with the senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology and graduate studies at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Jon Audhya. Thanks very much for being here.

Jon Audhya:
Thank you for hosting me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, all told, what is the hit to federal research funding at UW-Madison as it stands now?

Jon Audhya:
So we’ve experienced enormous delays in a lot of funds that we were expecting to arrive on campus. Nationwide that amounts to about $5 billion in shortfall in NIH funding to go to research institutions. We’ve been fortunate in some senses, in that many of our grants have come through. However, many more are sitting, waiting where there’s an expectation for months. I personally even went through a period of time where I waited on a grant to be awarded for four months beyond the time that I expected it to start. This has enormous impacts on our ability to fund our research, to fund our people. And luckily though, UW-Madison has stood up bridging programs, which have been phenomenal. So our chancellor, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, has just reached out and really enabled us to continue to thrive, even in an era where there’s a lot of uncertainty.

Frederica Freyberg:
Where is this uncertainty being felt most acutely?

Jon Audhya:
I would say it’s in our larger research programs. When there’s interruptions in funding to our large grants, this really affects a lot of individuals. And unfortunately, there has been directives from the National Institutes of Health to remove certain language from the work that we’re doing, some of the directions that we’ve been taking historically in really very important areas. Those types of disruptions lead to really enormous challenges in ensuring that our people are able to stay employed. We have put a people first mentality. We want to ensure that the folks that are currently working at the university are able to continue to do so and pursue their lines of research.

Frederica Freyberg:
I know that one area that people often focus on when they talk about research at UW-Madison is Alzheimer’s and dementia research. How much federal funding is — does that research get and is that at risk?

Jon Audhya:
So right now we bring in over $100 million a year in research funding from National Institutes of Health and other federal sources in support of our work directed against Alzheimer’s disease, as well as related dementias. Currently, the grants that we have in that area, the largest ones led by Dr. Sterling Johnson, for example, a grant called clarity, which is hoping to identify biomarkers for dementia. This grant was funded on time, fully funded. Our Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, its core grant, was funded late but fully funded. Many other institutions across the nation have not seen their funds come in when they are expecting them. We’ve been fortunate to this point, however.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the guidance coming out of NIH that puts some of this or other research at risk?

Jon Audhya:
So there’s layers now of additional review that very little — it’s quite opaque to be honest. We don’t actually know who is actually reviewing the grants after the point the scientific review process is done. Those additional layers of review that are being led by the administration, whether it’s within the HHS, Health and Human Services or at NIH specifically, we really don’t understand why they exist, what value, what purpose they serve. But what they do do is cause delays in those grants being funded, and the money being able to be dispersed to the institution.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is some of it they’re looking at research that goes to disadvantaged populations?

Jon Audhya:
Absolutely and as I think many of us know, our disadvantaged populations are often the most impacted by various types of disease. Alzheimer’s disease is no different. We see that Alzheimer’s rates are much higher in groups that are suffering from economic disadvantage, from environmental disadvantage. And when we have to remove language related to those areas, it actually goes against what the science is telling us by studying what’s happening in those populations around the state of Wisconsin, our rural populations, our urban populations. That is absolutely critical for us to be able to meet the needs of everyone across the entire globe, across the entire United States.

Frederica Freyberg:
Are cuts to indirect costs for research operations happening?

Jon Audhya:
So far, they haven’t started. There is sort of this idea that this is coming in the future, and there’s huge concern. We’ve seen, for example, messaging from the National Science Foundation, from the Department of Defense that are requiring us to put in place smaller amounts of indirect costs, which funds the institution, the actual fabric of the university that allows this research to be done. Not yet. We’re really worried about where things could go in the future, however.

Frederica Freyberg:
So if some of this research this year was delayed but eventually dispersed, what about next year?

Jon Audhya:
So big concern is still that delta of about $5 billion that hasn’t made it out of NIH. Come the end of the NIH fiscal year, which is the end of September, if those funds aren’t dispersed, they’re very likely to be reverted back to Treasury. So those are dollars that become — they were appropriated by Congress but not actually fulfilled.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We leave it there. Jon Audhya, thanks very much.

Jon Audhya:
Thank you for hosting me today.