Stanford University doctoral student Delaney Smith was thrilled late last year to learn she landed a prestigious National Institutes of Health grant to fund her final two years of studies in biochemistry.

Recently, though, Smith received word that her application — representing over six months of work — had been canceled before her funding was finalized. The agency effectively killed her grant and others aimed at improving the diversity of biomedical researchers. Gone were the salaries, tuition and research support for Ph.D. students from underrepresented backgrounds in science.

“Everyone who identified themselves as being of a diverse background was just removed from funding, from consideration, from further processing,” Smith said.

She now plans on wrapping up her program two years early — losing out on research opportunities that help propel young scientists from academia into the workforce.

“I feel like if I didn’t tell them that I was from a diverse background, the merit of my science and my own academic background would’ve been sufficient to have this funded,” Smith said.

The Trump administration has canceled hundreds of research grants on topics including LGBTQ+ and minority health care, HIV treatment, COVID-19, global immunizations and child vaccinations, slashing billions in research funding.

Administration officials have told schools to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and threatened the federal funding of colleges and universities that don’t comply. Universities and recipients are also prohibited from boycotting or divesting from Israel or Israeli businesses under a new policy from the NIH.

The NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. California received nearly 9,000 grants totaling $5 billion last year — which supported more than 55,000 jobs and $13.8 billion in economic activity in the state, the California attorney general’s office said.

But since March, the NIH has canceled more than $55.9 million worth of grants at Bay Area universities, targeting research that prioritizes health equity, transgender youth, anti-racism and discrimination, vaccines and aging.

University of California estimated it has lost at least 31 NIH grants, amounting to over $37 million, while California State University said it has lost at least 17 NIH grants, totaling nearly $7 million.

Without access to federal funds, universities have implemented systemwide hiring freezes, scrapped programs reliant on NIH funds, reduced graduate student classes and in some cases, rescinded offers of funding to admitted students.

California researchers said federal funding cuts have a widespread ripple effect, not only impacting students, faculty and universities, but also vulnerable communities reliant on university research projects, and they also threaten biomedical advancements.

Katie Wilkinson, a biological sciences professor at San Jose State, also relies on NIH grants, and worries “about a place like SJSU, where we do some great research here, but we’re clearly not Stanford. … We don’t have an endowment, which most endowments can’t cover this anyway, but it’s not like we would have a wealthy donor that would want to pitch in and help us meet these challenges.”

Private funding sources are also subject to cuts. Grant Hartzog, a biology professor at UC Santa Cruz, said he lost a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute focused on improving equity in introductory science courses. He had expected it would be safe.

Hartzog said he was given no explanation from the institute, but suspects it was a preemptive move meant to prevent the Trump administration from targeting the institute’s substantial $25.6 billion endowment. The institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the institute told this news organization it “is refocusing attention on people-centered programs supporting outstanding scientists across all career stages.”

Additional grants aren’t being reviewed and researchers are stuck in limbo, Hartzog said. They hope to receive new money before their current funding runs out, which would result in students and researchers being fired.“I think the big concern is, if this goes on too long, then we’re just going to lose a generation of researchers who are going to have to go find other jobs,” he said. “I’ve got a 21-year-old son who’s a biochemistry major and has been thinking about whether or not to go to graduate school. And I don’t know if that’s really going to be an option for him now.”

Graduate students are crucial for conducting research and collecting data used for research papers, conferences and scientific discoveries, said Cleber Ouverney, the director of San Jose State’s U-RISE program, a national undergraduate research training program under the NIH.

After more than 35 years of being funded by the NIH to expand diversity and help underrepresented college students access graduate school and biomedical research positions, the agency cut funding to SJSU’s U-RISE program in April.

“This has long-term effects. If you think about it, it will have a huge impact on the training of the next generation of scientists,” he said.

Universities have reduced the number of new graduate student positions available as they shift existing money to support current students, Ouverney said.

Bhavna Mahi is a biomolecular engineering student in her last year at UC Santa Cruz. A stellar student with a 3.7 grade point average, an internship at NASA, glowing recommendations and work experience in a lab at UCSC, Mahi thought she would be a competitive applicant for graduate student programs at Stanford, UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. But she said she was rejected from almost all of them. Santa Cruz, she said, expressed concern about whether the university had the money to fund current students, let alone new students.

Mahi said she doesn’t have the money to pay for school on her own and is hoping to land an entry-level research assistant position, but is worried those positions will get more competitive as more would-be students enter the workforce instead.

“I wanted to pursue grad school, so my heart’s not really in it,” Mahi admitted.

Stanford student Smith said she’s considering career opportunities outside of the U.S.

“I feel like I can’t rely on any kind of government support,” Smith said. “Science feels like it’s not really respected or wanted in the states.”