Medical research’s uncertain outlook

In a leadership conversation last month, David Linehan, CEO of the University of Rochester Medical Center, outlined the university’s unique nature and impact on biomedical research.

“You know, we’re an academic medical center literally across the street from a research-intensive university,” Linehan said. “(There’s a) kind of magic that happens between real basic scientists, and then translational science, and then clinician scientists, where we can do rapid bench-to-bedside innovation. We’re uniquely poised to do that at the University of Rochester, and we have.”

Ruth Serra-Moreno, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UR, agrees.

“When I came for the first interview, I really fell in love with the institution. The strong collegial environment was super refreshing, not only within departments, but across departments and schools,” she says. “There were such strong collaborations between researchers and physicians. These two professionals have a common goal of improving human health and working together is very inspiring.”

URMC has over 26,000 employees and reported a total of $280 million in annual research expenditures for fiscal 2025, which ended June 30, placing it in the top 50 of peer-ranked institutions. As a whole, the university logged $522 million in research expenditures for the same period.

University research expenses reflect the amount spent on research aimed at generating new knowledge or applications. These expenditures include both direct costs—such as salaries, supplies, and travel—and essential indirect costs, including facilities, administrative support, and utilities.

Historically, UR has been a magnet for federal research funding, which in turn has attracted talent to the institution, both at the Medical Center and on River Campus, and positioned it at the forefront of research. Success stories abound, from spinoffs to medical breakthroughs. However, early this year, that picture began to change. The Trump administration issued new policy guidance, including requirements for detailing indirect costs for research.

Decisions like those have cast doubt on and spurred concern about the future of research in medicine and other fields at UR and statewide. New York’s biomedical research sector employs 120,000 people and drives nearly $6 billion in annual research expenditures, according to estimates from the Associated Medical Schools of New York.

“New York’s medical schools, research institutions and life science companies have built world-class facilities and recruited top scientists from around the world to become global leaders in scientific innovation, largely through our decades-long partnership with the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other federal funders,” says Jonathan Teyan, CEO of AMSNY, which estimates that every dollar invested in research by the NIH produces $2.50 in economic activity.

The waiting game

During the summer, the budget for NIH, which funds most of biomedical research in the U.S. and is a significant UR research funder, was expected to be slashed. Since then, a government shutdown and failure to pass a budget in Congress have left funding, researchers, and institutions in an uncertain state.

These delays have created challenges for UR researchers, forcing them to seek alternative funding sources; some have accepted industry positions or relocated.

“Obviously, what’s going on has put a strain on research support, which then puts a strain on other funding agencies, philanthropy, foundations, and state support,” says Paula Vertino, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Genetics and associate director of the Wilmot Cancer Center. “It means also, what’s going to happen down the road is, the discoveries, they’re going to slow. There’s going to be a longer lag time between discovery and it having an actual impact.”

“If you’re a researcher, the way it typically works is you’re expected to cover your salary through grants,” adds Steven Silverstein, associate chair for research in psychiatry, and director of the Center for Retina and Brain. “If grants become harder to get, you might have to do something else to cover your salary. These are the kinds of reasons people are having to look at state, foundation, or donor funding.”

Given these challenges, some are calling for the state to build on the already existing research structure, which includes UR. Although AMSNY’s contributions to research funding are dwarfed by the federal government, officials say the state needs to step up its efforts.

“With recent changes in federal priorities, we need a new, comprehensive approach to supporting science,” Teyan says. “With visionary leadership by the state, New York is well-positioned to be globally competitive for many decades.”

Declining funds

President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed this summer. It included a proposal to cut the NIH budget by nearly 40 percent, from $47 billion to $27 billion. The matter is still up in the air, with Congress yet to pass a budget for 2026. Plans from the House and Senate reject the president’s NIH proposal and instead slightly increase the NIH budget. 

A White House budget message sent out before the bill’s passage accused NIH of “(breaking) the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”

“Under Biden or Obama, things like racial disparities for access to mental and physical health care, these were hot topics. But under the Trump administration, they basically said they’re not going to fund grants that focus on specific minority groups,” Silverstein says. “ We had faculty here in psychiatry who were studying things like mental health access of the Hispanic population here in Rochester, or suicidality in Black children, or mental health in the deaf population.

“There was a lot of panic there because people are thinking basically, their careers are ruined,” he adds. “All those people essentially had to rewrite proposals that had already been reviewed, scored, and everyone assumed they’d be funded. That delayed a lot of funding by months, and there are some people who are not going to be able to work around that problem.”

Some Trump supporters argue that grant funding should be paid out in its entirety in the first year instead of gradually, which would create even more uncertainty, Silverstein says. (Typically, a grant spans three to five years.)

The administration’s decisions have already impacted NIH funding, even without the budget’s passage. More than $2 billion in funding to Harvard University was frozen in April after the school rejected the administration’s demands.

By the numbers

According to the latest report from UR’s Office of Research and Project Administration, $375 million in federal funds was spent in fiscal 2025. Of that, $207 million came from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIH. This is the most significant expenditure in ORPA records. While a smaller figure than Harvard’s $639 million, UR remains among the top research universities in the nation.

As previously reported by the Beacon, UR is by far the largest recipient of and most reliant on federal funding among local universities. For example, the $375 million in federal agency expenses was 71.7 percent of total research expenditures for fiscal 2025. Further, ORPA reports note that the category of Other Sponsors includes national laboratories, other nonprofit organizations, and subcontracts from other colleges and universities. The majority of those funds come from federal grants where UR is a sub-recipient.

(While federal funds dominated the university’s research spending in fiscal 2025, it was even more dominant in the past. In fiscal 2011 and 2012, 81 and 80 percent of UR’s expenditures came from federally sponsored programs.)

In a report released today on UR’s economic and social impacts in the Rochester area, the university notes that it “functions as a powerful economic engine that brings external capital into Rochester and New York State. This external funding—almost all of which would not otherwise flow into Rochester and New York State—demonstrates (UR’s) unique ability to attract national resources to benefit local communities.” The report adds, however, that this economic contribution “faces significant risk” because nearly three-quarters of the research budget comes from federal government sources. “These figures highlight the vulnerability of the economic contribution to federal policy changes. Reduction in research would create an outsized negative impact,” it states.

In fiscal 2025, corporations accounted for the next-largest share of expenditures, contributing $53 million (10.2 percent) of the total. Funding sources in the category titled Foundations and Voluntary Health Organizations followed with $26 million (5.1 percent). New York State and Local Government accounted for the lowest amount of sponsored program expenditures at UR, with $19 million (3.7 percent).

Among major federal agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIH, has accounted for at least 55 percent of all UR research spending from fiscal years 1999 to 2025, averaging $167 million over that period.

The Department of Energy was the next biggest agency during that time period, from 22 to 30 percent of total federal expenditures, with an annual average of $69 million. Other important agencies included the Department of Defense, Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics & Space Administration.

Where the funds go

Schools within the URMC, which would most align with HHS and NIH grants, also have historically spent the most on research, or 55 to 65 percent of the total over the past 26 years, spending an average of $218 million.

Under URMC’s umbrella are the School of Nursing, the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the School of Medicine and Dentistry. Within the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the Department of Medicine spent an average of 16 percent on research. The departments of pediatrics and psychiatry, neurology, environmental medicine, and the cancer center also spent significant amounts on developing new ideas.

Vertino joined URMC in 2018 to help establish the Wilmot Cancer Institute. She did so with support from the New York Fund for Innovation in Research and Scientific Talent, a state program that aims to recruit and retain out-of-state research talent. NYFIRST funds enabled Vertino to hire additional staff and purchase necessary equipment to help her lab get up to speed. The Wilmot institute received a National Cancer Institute Designation this year, placing it in the top 4 percent of centers nationwide and signifying excellence in research, clinical trials, education, and patient care.

UR has been successful in attracting donations from alumni, but those funds are less consistent than federal funding. Additionally, it is challenging to get a long-term commitment from an individual donor or corporate sponsor.

“(Non-federal funding sources) are much less reliable; like you never know if you’re going to have a donor or not,” Silverstein says. “If your research is on the health of children, there’s a donor on every corner. If you study alcoholism and schizophrenia, there are no donors for that.”

At risk

URMC researchers describe reliability as invaluable in research, particularly for avoiding splitting time and effort. They say the grant process can feel like a full-time job when it is uncertain.

“It shifts your focus because then you’re more worried about (securing funding) than the actual science and the work that you are doing,” says Serra-Moreno, who works to identify vulnerabilities in viruses such as HIV or SARS-CoV-2.

Another phenomenon that has been observed, at least anecdotally, by some science researchers at UR is brain drain.

“For people like me, who have been doing it awhile and have been successful, there are times it seems crazy to have this kind of job. But on the other hand, when it’s going well, it’s going great,” Silverstein observes. “More and more people, young people especially, coming into the research field have left. There’s too little reward for too much risk. They go to work for digital health app startup companies or pharmaceutical companies.”

Some researchers are mulling moves not just to private companies but to other nations. A poll in the journal Nature found that 75 percent of scientists surveyed were considering leaving the U.S. for opportunities abroad, favoring Canada or European countries.

Similar to Silverstein’s observations, this was pronounced among younger, less-established scientists. The poll found the majority (79 percent) of postgraduate students were considering an international relocation.

“I worry about the people I’m training because, what are they seeing? They’re seeing things as: ‘Do I really want to get into this profession if this is what the government is doing?’ I worry for them and our future,” says Vertino.

Staying optimistic

Serra-Moreno actually represents the opposite of this phenomenon.

Born in Spain, she received a PhD in microbiology from the University of Barcelona in 2007 and came to the U.S. for the research opportunities here. After doing research at Harvard Medical School and Texas Tech University, Serra-Moreno was drawn to UR in 2020. A NYFIRST funding recipient, Serra-Moreno says she was able to have a fully staffed laboratory and overcome “significant economic restraints” with equipment.

“Having a state like New York that is still committed to keeping this program on, it can inspire you and give you that extra motivation that what you’re doing is right. Because at the end of the day, your research will lead to improving human health,” she says.

NYFIRST has recruited and retained 12 scientists since its inception. Silverstein, who also benefited from the program, agrees with Serra-Moreno and Vertino that it has been successful at attracting and retaining research talent.

“Programs like (NYFIRST) will probably be even more critical for New York because they could lose scientists and talent at this time,” Serra-Moreno says.

AMSNY believes that the potential federal funding changes, coupled with increased competition from states like California, Massachusetts and Texas, could threaten New York’s leadership in the biomedical research field.

Already a firm supporter of NYFIRST, AMSNY wants New York to go even further in attracting talent and research dollars. A letter from a coalition of AMSNY and 35 other organizations, including UR, was sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul this month with that aim.

The letter proposes an “Empire Biomedical Research Institute” that would provide merit-based funding to stabilize the industry in the short term and bolster the scientific workforce in the long term.

In the current proposal, EBRI would provide an initial investment of $500 million to fund research programs and create a new research institute. It would then have a 10-year, $6 billion commitment to “fund investigator-driven research, modernize infrastructure and expand workforce training,” while complementing existing initiatives such as Empire AI and the Life Science Initiative.

“(EBRI) represents exactly the kind of long-term, visionary commitment New York needs,” says Teyan. “It will protect our research enterprise, strengthen our workforce, attract new companies and talent, and ensure that the next generation of medical breakthroughs is developed right here for the benefit of all New Yorkers.”

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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