Harvard Medical School is an epicenter of biomedical discovery with a long history of transformative scientific advances and innovations that have improved, extended, and saved the lives of countless people. Right now, our promising research across a range of disease areas – cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and more – faces an existential threat due to federal funding cuts targeted at Harvard.
To date, more than 350 federal grants and contracts at HMS have been terminated by the government, representing approximately $230 million in funding each year. These terminations also jeopardize more than 230 outgoing HMS subawards to hospitals and academic research institutions in 23 states and in Washington, DC – including more than 100 at HMS-affiliated hospitals and the Broad Institute – who have specialized expertise and equipment needed to collaborate on and carry out this important lifesaving and life-altering research.
On Sept. 3, a ruling by Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston said that the government had broken the law by freezing research funds at Harvard. Since that ruling, Harvard has begun to receive notices of reinstatements of some of the terminated federal awards. However, the Trump administration has said it will appeal the judge’s decision.
The future of this research – funded by taxpayers and done in service to humanity – now hangs in the balance and threatens to disrupt the promise of new discoveries, medicines, devices, and improvements in clinical care.
As we navigate this period of instability and uncertainty, gifts to Harvard Medical School help to bridge critical funding gaps and sustain independent research.
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