Federal funding cuts driving Massachusetts brain drain
A combination of moves by the Trump administration—including research funding cuts, policy shifts, and an immigration crackdown—are taking a huge toll on the personal and professional lives of scientists in Massachusetts and creating upheaval in the state’s research landscape and in the overall economy, according to a Feb. 11 Boston Globe article.
The Globe partnered with MassINC Polling Group to ask National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant recipients about the impact of federal funding cuts.
John Quackenbush of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was among those who participated in the survey, and one of about two dozen interviewed for the article. The professor of computational biology and bioinformatics, who has worked at the School for 20 years, is now shuttering his lab after losing a key grant from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Quackenbush had expected to receive a second Outstanding Investigator award worth nearly $7 million over seven years, but the program was terminated. His Harvard Chan lab used to have eight postdoctoral researchers and one PhD student—now he has just two postdocs.
Given the loss of NIH funding, Quackenbush has decided to move his lab to Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine, where he will receive $8 million in grants from Baylor and the state of Texas, thus reducing his reliance on federal funds. He told the Globe that the federal cuts are driving talent and investment away from Harvard and from Massachusetts. He said, “I thought I would work [at Harvard] until I couldn’t work anymore.”
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The toll of uncertainty
More than two-thirds of the Globe’s survey respondents said that the cuts and policy changes had moderately or significantly reduced the scope of their work. Respondents also reported advising their students to consider careers outside academia, delaying hiring in their labs or laying off workers, and losing researchers to institutions in other countries.
The article noted that although most of the federal funding that was frozen or cut by the Trump administration in 2025 was restored after court challenges, significant damage has already been done—plus future funding remains uncertain. Experts quoted in the article said that it’s tough to recruit or retain promising international scientists amid immigration crackdowns. Given the uncertainties, many schools, including Harvard, are cutting their PhD enrollments, and there are fewer research positions available because of hiring freezes.
Lisa Berkman, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and of Epidemiology, told the Globe that her lab, which studies aging and dementia in low-income countries, had its funding frozen, which forced the layoffs of two-thirds of the staff. The money was eventually restored but no one has yet been rehired because of the hiring freeze and uncertainty about future funding, she said.
LGBTQ health researcher Colleen Reynolds left Harvard Chan School last September for a postdoc position in the Netherlands after her lab lost support and her position was eliminated. She said it’s been painful to watch her colleagues scatter, although at least she is now “at peace being in an environment where my work and my personal life are safer.”
Read the Boston Globe article: Boston built a global biotech empire. Now the talent is quietly drifting away.
