What NIH Layoffs Mean for Cancer Patients
When Budget Cuts Cost Time
“I’m running out of time. I know that.”
That’s what 66-year-old Mark Chambers said as he waited for access to a clinical trial for bile duct cancer. His story, reported recently in The Washington Post, is the human face of what happens when research is stalled. His story isn’t just tragic - it’s a warning.
In the rush of headlines about budgets and restructuring, it’s easy to miss what’s really at stake. But I’ve worked in cancer innovation and advocacy long enough to know: when we delay science, we delay survival. When we dismantle the research infrastructure, people die waiting.
Recently, thousands of staff across the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were laid off. These were the people running clinical trials, developing new treatment strategies, and pushing promising therapies toward approval. These are not abstract roles or overhead costs. These are the people behind the bench, behind the data, and behind the hope.
In Mark’s case, the NIH team working on a potential treatment for his rare cancer was disrupted midstream. Not because the science failed. Not because the trial wasn’t promising. But because the people doing the work were no longer there.
This isn’t a one-off story. It reflects a larger, more troubling shift.
We know from study after study that delays in cancer treatment matter. One 2020 study published in The British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that even a four-week delay in cancer treatment can increase the risk of death by 6 to 13 percent, depending on the cancer type. For some aggressive cancers, like cholangiocarcinoma, any delay in adjuvant therapy can sharply reduce survival rates. The timeline is tight. And for people like Mark, the standard treatments have already run out. The clinical trial isn’t a long shot - it is the only shot.
But trials don’t run on hope. They require infrastructure, staffing, oversight, regulatory support, and most importantly - continuity. You can’t start and stop this kind of work without consequences. When you freeze hiring, lay off experienced personnel, and cancel contracts mid-project, you don’t just lose time. You lose capacity. You lose institutional memory. You lose lives.
And this is happening at a time when we should be doing the opposite. Cancer rates are rising globally. In the U.S. alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 2 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2025. At the same time, promising areas like immunotherapy, personalized medicine, and early detection through liquid biopsies are showing real potential. We’re closer than ever to unlocking treatments that could transform cancer from a life-threatening diagnosis to a manageable condition.
But research can’t move forward without sustained investment. That includes the basic science that NIH funds - the type of science that private companies often can’t afford to pursue. It’s the foundational work that takes years to pay off, but when it does, it changes everything.
Think about mRNA vaccines. It was built on decades of NIH-funded research, much of it considered “low priority” at the time. Or the explosion of immunotherapies like chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), which started in federal labs. None of it would have happened without public investment.
This is where people misunderstand the NIH-to-biotech pipeline. NIH doesn’t make the drugs you see in a pharmacy. What it does is de-risk the science early on. It helps identify the molecular pathways, the biomarkers, the therapeutic targets. That work gets licensed to startups or large companies, who then invest in developing, testing, and bringing it to market. It’s not duplication. It’s collaboration. And it’s what has made the U.S. the global leader in biomedical innovation.
So where do we go from here?
We can start by being honest about the consequences of gutting research funding - not just in terms of dollars, but in terms of patients. We can push for a baseline level of NIH support that is stable and protected from political swings. Biomedical research isn’t something you can turn on and off like a faucet. It takes years to build and seconds to break.
Second, we need to ensure that public investment leads to public benefit. That means exploring policies that ensure NIH-backed discoveries remain accessible and affordable when they become treatments. Taxpayer-funded science should serve the public good - not just the bottom line.
Third, we need to center patient urgency in our decision-making. People like Mark Chambers don’t have five years to wait for the next funding cycle. We need faster review processes, more flexible mechanisms to continue high-priority trials during transitions, and strong safeguards to keep research going even during administrative turnover.
Finally, we need to remember why we invest in research in the first place. It’s not just economic. It’s human. These are our families, our communities, our futures.
Every moment counts in cancer treatment. That’s not rhetoric - it’s a biological fact. Budget cuts may look like line items on paper, but in practice, they can steal time from the people who need it most.
About the author
Dr. Catharine Young is a globally recognized leader in innovation and health policy, with a proven track record of creating and scaling transformative initiatives. As Assistant Director for Policy and International Engagement for the Biden Cancer Moonshot at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Young led the development of national and international strategies to advance cancer prevention, detection, research, and care. Dr. Young's leadership in diplomacy and innovation includes roles such as Senior Director of Science Policy at the Biden Cancer Initiative and Senior Science and Innovation Policy Advisor at the British Embassy, where she facilitated international agreements to enhance research collaborations. A Presidential Leadership Scholar and TED Fellow, Dr. Young holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences and completed her post-doctorate work in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University and is recognized for her ability to bridge science, policy, and advocacy to build sustainable, impactful health ecosystems.
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The unflinching cruelty of the cuts paired with the shortsighted and deafening silence from our "leaders" is so disheartening. You would think there would be at least a singe person from Congress, industry, etc. that would go to the steps of the NIH and make a fiery speech.
I also worry about young scientists withering on the vine. A starting Assistant Professor in the sciences has 6 years to get promotion with tenure. That six years involves starting up a lab, recruiting students, getting Federal grant funding, publishing at least 2 or 3 high quality papers in high quality journals, and also learning how to do excellent teaching. Since I have been through this process, I can testify that the six years goes by very quickly. My time as an Assistant Professor was the most stressful period in my life.