STAT+: Columbia scientists reel as Trump administration cancels grants, hitting broad suite of research
It's still unclear the total number of grants, dollars and people affected, but the cuts could be a harbinger of what’s to come at other universities.
Uma Reddy was sitting at her kitchen table Monday night, wrapping up patient notes, when the notice finally came: The $16.6 million grant she had used to build a maternal health center at Columbia University had been terminated.
Reddy spent the next 18 hours calling and emailing dozens of collaborators and trainees across New York. For 19 months, they had painstakingly planned with community workers and a cohort of trainees new research to curb America’s devastating maternal mortality rate. The centerpiece was a 600-person randomized trial, set to be conducted across three New York hospitals, to test whether trained doulas and specialized education on mental and cardiovascular health — two leading drivers of postpartum death — could improve outcomes.
The trial finally launched in December. Twenty-two patients were already enrolled. Now, she told them, teary-eyed, it would be cancelled.
