Childhood leukemia, a likely death sentence when I was a medical student, is now survivable for most children. Cancer immunotherapy is extending life for many who would have died a decade ago. New technology is letting us repair genetic diseases at their source. The same American scientific research enterprise that produced these breakthroughs also gave us GPS, the modern semiconductor, and the early architecture of the internet.
All of it came out of an American research enterprise that the federal government is now proposing to fundamentally rewire for no good reason.
In my more than 40 years in higher education and research, I have watched the American approach to research weather budget fights, ideological storms, and presidential transitions. Working across administrations, I have seen firsthand how American science survives changes in politics because of the guardrails Congress and the executive branch have historically left in place.
I have never seen a threat to those guardrails like the one now sitting on the table at the Office of Management and Budget.
A new proposed rule, a revision of the so-called Uniform Guidance, would change how federally funded research is reviewed, awarded, and overseen across every agency in the federal government. If finalized as written, it would insert a political lens on top of a process that, for 80 years, has been run by scientists evaluating the work of other scientists.
