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\u201cThe University of California is facing the most significant disruption to our research enterprise in our history,\u201d UC President James B. Milliken said to the bill\u2019s supporters, who braved the rain Monday to march at the state Capitol. \u201cIt\u2019s research that supports tens of thousands of good local jobs, propels our state\u2019s global leadership and innovation, (and) delivers life-changing care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Manriquez, 25, who also spoke at Monday\u2019s rally, was born without a vital gene that produces a needed protein for muscular development, resulting in a disease called spinal muscular atrophy. Before researchers developed treatments to replace the missing protein, the condition was the leading genetic cause of infant mortality. Manriquez started his treatment about a decade ago, which allowed him to maintain use of his arms and gain independence and life expectancy doctors didn\u2019t think possible when he was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The UC graduate has started making appearances with Wiener in support of the bill, which nearly a third of legislators signed on to as co-authors. He wants to put a face to the type of breakthrough research that saved his life, even though a multibillion-dollar price tag might be a lot for some voters to stomach\u00a0\u2014 especially as California faces a budget deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t put a price tag on what it means to add years to the lives of thousands of people across the state,\u201d Manriquez said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we owe each other, when we\u2019re having this conversation, not scientists, advocates or politicians, but as fellow human beings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If approved by voters, Wiener\u2019s bill would create the California Foundation for Science and Health Research to fund grants and loans. Wiener said the funding structure would protect scientific advancements encompassing wildfire prevention and climate change, and debilitating conditions that don\u2019t yet have cures or treatments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the state of California, we believe in science and we\u2019re not going to let them take a wrecking ball to science,\u201d Wiener told a rally crowd of more than 2,000 people. \u201cBut now we have this administration, this completely deranged regime, that for reasons just breaks your brain to think about it, wants to stop research for ALS, for Alzheimer\u2019s and for cancer and diabetes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, UCLA scientist Heather Christofk suddenly lost 70% of her cancer research lab\u2019s budget when Trump froze the school\u2019s funding over claims of anti-semitism on campus\u00a0\u2014 allegations unrelated to any of the campus\u2019 ongoing scientific research. Even though the funding was restored, Christofk and others are still feeling the impacts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cA lot of us feel like there\u2019s so much uncertainty with the funding climate that it doesn\u2019t feel safe to hire, because I\u2019m not sure my funding might just disappear again one day,\u201d Christofk said. \u201cThe future of my cancer research is, I guess, on thin ice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christofk recently met a Stanford student who would normally be the perfect fit for her research lab of eight people, which focuses on how the body\u2019s metabolism influences cancer and other diseases. But she, like others, feel like they\u2019re in \u201chunker down\u201d mode and need to be thoughtful with the dollars they have\u00a0\u2014 even if it stymies their progress. They don\u2019t want to risk taking on more trainees they suddenly won\u2019t be able to pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The end result is fewer people coming through the research pipeline, she said, and that will mean fewer new breakthrough discoveries years into the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to Trump\u2019s administration efforts to cut \u201cwaste\u201d and tighten science research budgets, the administration has also targeted research related to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases that often have an outsize impact on people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. It\u2019s part of the administration\u2019s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost every day there is something new that\u2019s affected our ability to steadily do our good research, which is trying to improve people\u2019s lives and trying to save lives,\u201d said Dr. Monica Ghandi, director of the UCSF Center for AIDS research. \u201cThat degree of instability, which keeps on going, is exhausting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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NIH as a whole, Gandhi said, is no longer prioritizing HIV research or new drug discovery for the disease. She also said researchers have had to be careful in grant applications to avoid evening mentioning transgender people directly out of fear their project would automatically get tossed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The NIH is currently vetting grants before approval using an AI analysis stool that scans for terms such as \u201cracism,\u201d \u201cgender\u201d and \u201cvaccination refusal,\u201d according to the New York Times<\/a>. The screening process has slowed the grants being doled out, resulting in only 1,900 grants awarded from October to late March, less than half the number given out in the same time period over the years prior under Biden.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re starting to have to lay off staff again, hold people\u2019s salaries,\u201d Gandhi said. \u201cWe\u2019re still in trouble even this far into the administration.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Researchers and UC employees say the instability underscores the need for the funding.<\/p>\n
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Maxwell Parks, a Ph.D. student at UCLA studying planetary science on a NASA grant, said he\u2019s already seeing a \u201cbrain drain\u201d of fellow graduate students leaving the U.S. to pursue their research. One friend just moved to France, he said. He said he\u2019s also seen undergraduate students begin to question what the political climate means for their own futures in research and whether they even want to apply to graduate programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to tell them we\u2019re still doing good science and everything is OK,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s tougher to make that argument when funding can be pulled at the stroke of a pen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-S.F., holds a microphone for Ryan Manriquez, a UC Berkeley graduate student with spinal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,143,145,144,13],"class_list":["post-299993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-california","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}