By Anil OzaMay 21, 2026
General Assignment Reporter
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya is appearing in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, starting at 10 a.m. ET, to discuss President Trump’s budget proposal for the 2027 fiscal year.
That budget, released in April, proposed cutting the agency’s budget by $5 billion and eliminating five of its 27 institutes. Those proposals are unlikely to be enacted, given lawmakers’ strong rebuke of Trump’s 2026 proposal, which called for even steeper cuts. While the most drastic proposals have not manifested, the biomedical research community is still under intense stress.
A STAT survey of NIH-funded researchers, conducted earlier this year, found that 43% of researchers canceled planned projects, about half reduced the scope of their research, and more than a quarter have laid off lab members. Despite the budget holding steady in the current fiscal year, funding rates for grant proposals have decreased because of a budgeting strategy implemented by the White House.
