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While sequestration and funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health have heavily affected scientific research across the U.S., the UNM Health Sciences Center has seen an increase in NIH research funding and in additional extramural funding overall.
The amount of money the NIH receives from the federal government has dropped over the past year. NIH funds were $29.15 billion in 2013 compared to $30.7 billion in 2012, a cut of five percent. This has since forced the NIH to dispense less money to universities via grants.
However, Richard Larson, the executive vice chancellor at the HSC, said that despite NIH cuts, grant funding from all sources has been on the rise at the HSC, with a record high of $149.7 million in fiscal year 2013 up from $148.3 million in 2012.
“We have been very fortunate that due to a number of very strategic initiatives over the past few years, we’ve been able to increase our research funding from other federal agencies,” he said. “That’s unique among universities.”
Funding from NIH to the HSC has also been on the rise the past three years, amounting to $43.3 million in 2013, which is up from $28.3 million in 2012, according to the NIH website.
Though the amount of funding overall is up, it is the amount granted that has increased, meaning fewer grants are available for researchers, Larson said.
According to the NIH website, about 640 fewer grants to the HSC were available this year compared to 2012.
Larson said HSC has received a record number of grants from outside sources, such as the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality to subsidize this problem. However, the non-NIH funding does not support the same type of research projects as NIH, he said.
“Nonetheless it’s very important to reinstate NIH funding since the type of research they fund is not always supported by other federal agencies,” he said. “And as a result, if it is not reinstated we will see significant declines at this institution and nationally in many areas of basic discovery, as well as clinical research that NIH would have historically funded.”
Nancy Kanagy is one UNM researcher who has suffered from the lower number of research grants provided by the NIH. Her research is on sleep apnea, a disorder that causes breathing pauses during sleep, and its relation to changes in the human body’s cardiovascular system.
When she started researching the effects in 2008, there was merely an association between sleep apnea and high blood pressure, she said. She set out to find out if there was a direct connection, and discovered there was.
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But since 2010, she has seen both of her NIH grants run out. She is now running on the HSC’s Bridge Funding, an HSC initiative that started five years ago. This funding allows researchers to get a stipend to continue their research for one year and continue to apply for grants.
“Once a lab shuts down completely, it’s very hard to get it up and running again,” Kanagy said. “So it’s allowing me to continue to run my lab. I have four grants pending right now, so I’m generating data, I’m publishing papers to try to get grant funding.”
The $60,000 she receives in Bridge Funding is a stark contrast compared to the $250,000 she was receiving from NIH grants, she said.
Bridge Funding is only for one year, while NIH grants can last anywhere from two to five. She said researchers normally receive a portion of their salary from grants, and Bridge Funding can only cover supplies and the salaries of students and fellows who work in her lab.
She currently has one technician in the lab who works only 30 hours a week to save on funds and one post-doctoral fellow who has her own American Heart Association grant to fund her fellowship. She previously had six students total, but cuts mean she can’t replace them.
Kanagy plans to apply for at least two more grants by February, she said. Each grant proposal must have its own set of unique objectives as no project can be funded from two different grants, she said. The application process for a single grant can take months of writing and research, Kanagy said.
The low-funded environment can be very discouraging for students trying to go into research, Larson said.
“The NIH funding reductions due to sequestrations are very concerning,” he said. “It will make an already very competitive environment even more competitive.”
Kanagy said the NIH funding cuts are also concerning because it slows down scientific advances.
“The research that I do is sort of a little niche, and if I don’t do it, I don’t know that anyone else will pick up that particular piece,” she said “It will slow down the progress that has been made in that field.”
Kanagy said she is not very hopeful that NIH funding will be restored soon by Congress. The cuts to NIH have made a huge impact on researchers, she said, though its contribution to the overall U.S. budget is pretty minimal compared to other sectors.
“You have to really cut the big pieces if you’re going to impact the budget,” she said. “It’s like decreasing your spending on socks to try to solve your overall budget. It’s just not going to make the impact.”
