Governor Healey Visits UMass Chan Medical School to Highlights Harm Caused by Trump’s NIH Funding Cuts
Worcester– Today, Governor Maura Healey visited UMass Chan Medical School, one of the best medical schools in the nation and the only public academic health sciences campus in Massachusetts, to highlight the negative impacts of President Trump’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. The Governor met with senior leaders and researchers about how NIH cuts hurt their lifesaving work in advancing gene therapy, rare disease research, digital medicine and neuroscience. The Governor then toured the Paul J. DiMare Center, the new education and research building that will help expand neurodegenerative and genetic diseases research, including ALS.
“UMass Chan is a foundational institution in our state’s success – employing thousands of people, creating billions in economic impact, and pioneering lifesaving innovations every day. It was incredible to tour the new DiMare Center and learn about their groundbreaking work to treat ALS and Tay-Sachs Disease,” said Governor Healey. “But all of this progress is under threat because President Trump is defunding medical research. He’s frozen the pipeline of new scientists and doctors, halted lifesaving research for cures and treatments, and rolled out the welcome mat for China and other countries to take over our competitive edge. Here in Massachusetts, we stand with the scientists and the community at UMass Chan and research institutions across the nation, and we’re going to keep speaking out against these cuts.”
“These proposed cuts by the Trump Administration will stifle our health care and innovation ecosystems. It’s hurting our ability to find cures to cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases that touch the lives of so many people across the country,” said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. “We need to lean into this research, not pull the plug.”
“Research brings hope to the human condition, and it is shocking to an academic community like ours that research would be attacked, particularly by folks who believe that America should be the best,” said UMass Chan Medical School Chancellor Michael F. Collins. “It’s time to put partisan politics aside, to understand the importance of America’s research enterprise, to get the funding back flowing, and then let all of us come together to work through whatever issues we need to work through so we can assure that America’s Biomedical Research Institute, remains the finest in the world,”
UMass Chan Medical School is one of the leading medical schools in the nation and more than half of their 1,400 students practice in Massachusetts after graduation. With over 6,000 employees, they are one of the largest employers in Central Massachusetts and an important anchor of the region’s life sciences ecosystem, creating over $2 billion in total annual economic impact.
Last year, UMass Chan received over $193 million in NIH funding, which was more than the total amounts going to 26 other states. They’ve already seen more than $30 million in expected grant funding withheld or withdrawn, including for HIV research. Another $50 million is at risk, which could impact critical work in gene therapy, rare disease research, digital medicine, neuroscience, and more. That includes their groundbreaking clinical trials of new genetic therapies for conditions like ALS and Tay-Sachs Disease. Already, they’ve had to furlough 200 employees, cut some positions, freeze hiring, promotions and recruitment, and reduce the size of their incoming PhD class.
Additionally, the Congressional budget resolution is expected to require severe cuts to Medicaid, which approximately two million Massachusetts residents and nearly half of the children in the state rely on for health care. Hundreds of thousands of these patients get care at UMass Chan affiliates.
