A research program at Northern Arizona University that studies infectious diseases has been forced to lay off seven staff members.
The cuts in April come after the Trump administration terminated more than $2 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants.
NAU’s Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI) receives funding from NIH along with several other federal agencies, private companies and foundations.
A university spokesperson didn’t specify which grants were impacted but said the cuts were unfortunate and necessary for the sustainability of the institute.
Katrina Jackson researches valley fever at PMI.
It's a fungal infection found throughout the Southwest.
She was told in April that her contract will end in June.
“I have never talked to somebody from Arizona who doesn't have a valley fever story, and it's just so insane to me that we would take this work that, like, helps everybody else and just cut it off,” Jackson says. “A lot of the work that we're doing on the vaccine studies will have to stop just because there won't be enough personnel to continue doing it.”
PMI has been working on what would be the first ever fungal vaccine to counter valley fever.
It’s unclear how that work may be impacted by the cuts.
“I grew up in Colorado. So studying a disease that impacts the place where I live and the people that I'm most connected to was very important to me. But also, it's not well-studied. There's nobody else doing this work,” Jackson says. “So, having all of this ripped away from me has just been extremely painful.”
Cari Anthony was an operations manager at PMI and had worked at NAU for 15 years before she was also let go.
She began working at PMI just under a year ago.
“I thought moving into this department was going to be the last job that I was going have on campus, so it was devastating,” Anthony says. “I thought I was finally taking a step into an organization that I thought had so much stability because of the work that they did and the international [reputation PMI has.]”
According to the NIH’s funding data-base, the agency provided more than $12.5 to NAU last year, with nearly half of that connected to PMI.
This year, NIH has awarded the university just $270 thousand with none of that going to the institute.
In a statement to KNAU, NAU Associate Vice President Kim Ott says the university continues to use $58 million to pay for 20 active projects from previously awarded NIH grants, with 23% of that related to PMI.
“We continue to monitor changes in federal research funding trends,” Ott wrote.
Ott described the institute's financial outlook as uncertain.
“Challenges in the federal funding landscape are hindering PMI’s ability to utilize existing funds and plan for future expenditures. As a result, we have had to make the difficult decision to downsize staff in PMI as well as project commitments to align with available resources,” Ott wrote in an email. “It is unfortunate, but imperative, that we navigate the current financial uncertainties for the sustainability, effectiveness, and long-term viability of PMI.”
Jackson says she worries about the future of her career in the sciences because of the cuts in grant funding by the Trump administration.
She says she plans to look for jobs outside the United States where she believes there will be more support for scientific research.
This story has been updated to reflect ongoing project funding, in addition to newly awarded grants.
