Crisis as Catalyst: The Future of the NIH Driving Scientific Discovery
Ana A Weil, Sarah M Baker, Frederick S Buckner, Geoffrey S Gottlieb, Kevin Hybiske, David M Koelle, Tara B Reid, Michelle C Sabo, Chetan Seshadri, Javeed A Shah, Wesley C Van Voorhis, Helen Y Chu · 2026
Read Crisis as Catalyst: The Future of the NIH Driving Scientific Discovery by Ana A Weil, Sarah M Baker, Frederick S Buckner, Geoffrey S Gottlieb, Kevin Hybiske, David M Koelle, Tara B Reid, Michelle C Sabo, Chetan Seshadri, Javeed A Shah, Wesley C Van Voorhis, Helen Y Chu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13600399.txt.
Description
Ana Weil and eleven co-authors argue that the National Institutes of Health, the United States agency that funds most biomedical research, stands at a turning point. NIH-backed work has reshaped cancer care, HIV treatment, and life expectancy over decades. The authors see two threats to that record and propose concrete steps in response.
The first threat is political: recent policy shifts push the agency toward quick, visible results, add political weight to funding choices, slow grant review, and cut budgets and foreign teamwork. The second threat is older and structural: rules have grown so complex that scientists spend more time on paperwork than on research. The authors warn that early-career scientists feel these strains most, and that long, risky projects, the kind that produce breakthroughs, suffer first. Their title frames the crisis as a possible catalyst for repair.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ana A Weil, Sarah M Baker, Frederick S Buckner, Geoffrey S Gottlieb, Kevin Hybiske, David M Koelle, Tara B Reid, Michelle C Sabo, Chetan Seshadri, Javeed A Shah, Wesley C Van Voorhis, Helen Y Chu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 17 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |