The across-the-board U.S. budget cuts scheduled to take effect
on March 1, known as sequestration, will have ripple effects
that hurt scientific and health research for years to come, the
heads of two federal research agencies said this week. In a note
distributed to research institutions, the National Science
Foundation, which awards research grants on topics like climate
change, materials science, and computing, anticipates it will
issue about 1,000 fewer new grants than it had expect this
fiscal year. And Francis Collins, the director of the National
Institutes of Health, said the $1.5 billion cut from its $30
billion budget would slow research in diseases, specifically
calling out a push to develop a universal influenza vaccine—”a
project that is going extremely well,” he told reporters.
Collins said his greatest concern is the effect on young
scientists, because the NIH’s training grants would be cut. He
noted the psychological effects to their dreams and visions, not
just the monetary ones. This may sou