Harvard Professor Studying ALS Loses Funding After Federal Freeze

The Trump administration halted more than $2.2 billion in funding for Harvard University academics who refused to comply with policy requests, including a laureate professor who is researching on early diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

The Department of Health and Human Services emailed David Walt, a professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, on Tuesday to inform him that funding for a grant to study ALS was being immediately revoked.

“This cancellation will cost lives,” Walt said.

Walt’s initiative concentrated on early detection and therapy alternatives for Lou Gehrig’s disease, better known as ALS, a motor neuron disease that affects about 30,000 people in the United States and causes paralysis.

His award was valued at over $300,000 annually, according to the Harvard Crimson, a student-run publication.

The project’s cancellation comes after the Trump administration announced Monday that it would freeze $60 million in multi-year contract value and $2.2 billion in multi-year grants at Harvard after the university refused to abide by demands to ensure merit-based hiring practices, ban masks at campus protests, and end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, among other things.

The White House presented the deal as an attempt to stop antisemitism on college campuses, but Harvard President Alan M. Garber stated that the university would not “surrender its independence or its constitutional rights” by agreeing to it.

The US government provides Harvard with financing for research and innovation, just like it does for many other colleges.

According to Harvard, 58% of all sponsored revenue in the 2024 fiscal year came from federal funds, making it the University’s greatest source of financing for research.

By terminating or imposing new requirements for research grants, deporting foreign students, and reducing overall federal funding for scientific research, the Trump administration has targeted colleges and institutions across the United States.

Although several prestigious universities have offered their support to Harvard after it made its stance public, Harvard was one of the first to publicly reject the White House’s requests.

Scientists have warned that there will be severe repercussions from the Ivy League school’s quick downfall.

“This is going to have devastating consequences on innovation, education and the economy for years to come,” Walt said. “The US, in my opinion, is ceding our science and technology leadership to China and to other countries.”

Only a few months ago, the US president named Walt a laureate for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest accolade in his area.

In addition to the ALS research, Walt’s group studies early detection of cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and other infectious diseases in order to find novel medications that may one day cure them.

“If we can even solve any one of these problems, it will benefit many, many patients,” he stated. “To take that opportunity away from me and other dedicated researchers, in my opinion, is a travesty.”

The White House stepped up its efforts Tuesday, stating that President Donald Trump “wanted to see Harvard to apologize” for “the egregious antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students” and threatening to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status.

The number of programs that will be impacted by the funding freeze is still unknown, but preliminary reports indicate that millions of dollars in financing for life-saving medical research have already been cut.

His assistant informed him that two stop-work orders on contracts for the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which creates vaccines, medications, treatments, and diagnostic instruments for public health emergencies, have been issued to Professor Donald E. Ingber as one of the impacted projects.

The value of one of the cancelled contracts exceeds $15 million.

According to a source at Harvard’s School of Public Health who is aware of the details, Professor Sarah Fortune was given a stop-work order for her research on tuberculosis.

According to the source, Harvard and other US colleges are involved in a $60 million National Institutes of Health contract that includes the research.

A group of Harvard professors filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday, before to the announcement of the funding freeze, in an attempt to prevent a review of roughly $9 billion in federal monies to Harvard.

Along with the national organization, the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors filed the lawsuit, stating that the White House’s actions have “already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations.”