I Worked To Cure ALS. Then Washington Shut Down the Project.

This past Tuesday morning, on my daily walk from home to my Longwood campus office, my daughter sent me a text with a screenshot of the Harvard website home page, which prominently featured a photo of me in my lab. The prior day, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 had announced that Harvard would not comply with the “demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community.”

Overnight, and to my surprise, I became the face of research at Harvard. Understandably, the institution felt it was paramount to show the world all the incredible projects comprising Harvard’s vast research enterprise and its impact on patients’ lives — past, present and future.

But my daughter’s text was not the only surprise I would encounter that morning. I also learned I was the latest victim of Washington’s science funding cuts, the consequences of which will devastate American innovation for generations.

When I arrived at my office and opened my email, there was a Stop Work Order from the Department of Health and Human Services for an National Institutes of Health project in my lab focused on ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). The goal of this research is to develop an ultrasensitive diagnostic test for ALS that detects biomarkers present in the blood at the earliest stages of the disease. The test also has the potential to be used to discover drugs that can effectively treat the disease.

I sat at my desk looking at my screen in disbelief. Is working to diagnose ALS controversial? Is there something politically objectionable about this research project? There was no warning, no “wrap things up in the next few weeks.” Just: “stop work.”

When I came out of my daze, I promptly emailed my three lab members working on the project (an MD-PhD fellow, a postdoctoral fellow, and a research assistant) to tell them they had to stop their research immediately. They could not incur any additional expenses to the lab, because the University would not be reimbursed. They had worked on this project for 10 months, had made substantial progress, and now their time and efforts would be wasted.

I immediately reassigned them to other projects in my lab where we have sufficient funding (at least for now), so they could remain employed. These research projects span the gamut — Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers, HIV, TB, Long Covid-19. Our goal is to detect these diseases earlier, when treatment is more likely to succeed and lives can still be saved. This research isn’t political. We are trying to benefit humankind.

Shortly thereafter, the emails started to flood my inbox from members of the media requesting interviews — CNN, NBC, CBS, Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, you get the picture. I spent nearly my entire Tuesday and Wednesday speaking with major news outlets around the world.

My message in all these interviews is simple: Cancelling research projects at Harvard and other institutions across the U.S. will delay new drugs and therapies for debilitating diseases that affect vast swaths of the U.S. and global population — cardiovascular disease, cancers of all types, neurodegenerative diseases, infectious diseases and more. And delaying these lifesaving discoveries will result in unnecessary patient suffering and unnecessary deaths.

This isn’t just a blow to public health. It’s a blow to our economy. By canceling these projects, the federal government is compromising our nation’s future by eliminating science and engineering jobs, discouraging young people from entering STEM fields, and bankrupting the innovation ecosystem that has powered our economy for decades.

Near the end of World War II, Vannevar Bush published “Science, the Endless Frontier,” making the case for science as the foundation of a vibrant economy. It led to a new social contract: The Federal government would fund research, and universities would serve as engines of discovery that would benefit society.

This roadmap for how universities would drive the U.S. research enterprise has not only led to our country being the leader in healthcare innovation with new drugs, diagnostic tests, gene therapies, and surgical procedures, it has also spurred breakthroughs in mobile phones, smart watches, AI, agriculture, the auto industry — the list goes on and on and on.

The progress that took 75 years to build since this social contract was established is being torn down in a matter of months by decision makers in Washington who cannot seem to grasp the destructive implications of their actions.

Let’s hope that there is a quick resolution to the present situation, so that politics do not intrude in our ability to carry out the important, life-saving work that many researchers like me have made our life’s mission.

We need swift action from Washington — not just to resume our research, but to preserve the very system that has fueled America’s scientific and economic leadership for generations.

David R. Walt is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, a professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute.