The next lifesaving medical breakthrough might not happen anytime soon. In fact, it might not happen at all.

Such is the reality of medical and health-related discoveries in the wake of wavering support for higher education from the federal government. Earlier this year, the government reduced its workforce; stopped, paused, and delayed some ongoing research; and proposed substantial budget cuts to agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These decisions have created a moment of massive uncertainty across the entire research world, says Peter Crawford, MD, PhD, vice dean for research at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

“We’re not sure what funding we’ll have a few months from now, let alone what government support might look like in the longer term,” he says. “This affects more than just the research happening in labs. It’s our economy, our workforce, and an integral part of what makes Minnesota a hub of life-changing innovation.”

Since the 1950s, federal funding has supported the majority of health research in the United States and at the University—world-leading work that has led to pioneering cancer therapies, advances in organ transplantation, and better treatments for conditions like diabetes and cardiac arrest.

Federal support is also the fertile soil from which jobs, spinoff companies, and industry collaborations emerge. Today nearly 8,000 Minnesotans have jobs in the health sciences specifically because of federal funding. In fact, for every dollar invested by the NIH, $2.46 is generated in economic activity in the state, Crawford says.

Without federal funding, Crawford says, people will lose their jobs, laboratories will shutter, new discoveries will slow to a trickle, and the careers of aspiring scientists will be derailed. 

Crawford says that although philanthropy is “vitally necessary” to begin to refill the resulting budget craters, nothing can replace the breadth and scale of federal support.

“These cuts represent cures for diseases, they represent thousands of jobs in Minnesota, and they represent the curiosity and innovation of the next generation of scientists,” says Crawford, who also holds the Watson Land Grant Chair in Medicine.

“The reverberations of these decisions will be felt for years to come.”

Here is a glimpse of what’s at stake if federal funding is drastically reduced.

ILLUSTRATION BY CORNELIA LI