By Kareem Elgazzar
and Jessica Wehrman, Staff Writers9:13 PM Monday, November 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — Seeking ways to trim the federal budget, the Congressional supercommittee may be targeting federal dollars that aid in the funding of some of Ohio’s premier research institutions.
The bipartisan group of 12 House members and senators, which includes Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, faces a Nov. 23 deadline to find ways to reduce the federal deficit by as much as $1.5 trillion during the next decade. Congress, in turn, is tasked with passing their recommendations on an up-or-down vote by Christmas.
Everything is on the table, and the stakes are high: If the supercommittee does not reach an agreement, or Congress does not agree with the supercommittee’s results, it will mean sweeping, across-the-board cuts for all federal discretionary programs. The National Institutes of Health estimates its budget could be reduced anywhere between five and 10 percent each year for the next 10 years.
While many Americans are looking to the federal government to get spending under control, the affects of any significant cuts will likely be broad. And cuts in health research will likely curtail developments that would improve lives in decades to come.
In 2009, federal research funding, including the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, totaled $45.9 billion. Philanthropy, meanwhile, accounted for $1.1 billion of federal research dollars, according to Ellie Dehoney, a former aide to Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who now works as vice president of public policy and programs at Research!America, an organization that promotes research.
At the University of Cincinnati, approximately $252 million - or 89 percent of research dollars - come from federal sources, including more than half from the NIH.
Federal funding also impacts about 2,500 jobs to the regional economy, said Santa Ono, UC senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.
Research funding has been a bright light in Ohio’s otherwise dim economy: According to a study by United for Medical Research, NIH funding contributed to 16,675 jobs in 2010.
Ono said possible cuts will impact the effectiveness of UC’s education, which may decrease the “pipeline” of the next generation of researchers and scientists.
The National Science Foundation contributes about $11 million - or 4 percent - to UC research, which also funds many of UC’s science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, Ono said.
Caroline C. Whitacre, vice president for research at Ohio State University, said such cuts have a chilling effect on students who might want to become researchers. The university received approximately $180 million in NIH funding in both standard and American Recovery Act funding in 2010.
“There’s a morale implication in all of this,” she said. “If you have a reduction in numbers of positions that are available, the average student coming down the line who sees that, they say, ‘well, I’m going to go into another field.’”
With less research funding, new scientists are less likely to get grants: many institutions, she said, are looking only to hire investigators who already have secured research funding, rather than those who still need it.
“What really worries me, overall, is who is going to train the next generation of scientists?” she asked. “If institutions like OSU or institutions like Indiana or Penn State only hire funded investigators...then you have this group of young people who basically don’t have anywhere to go.”
“It hurts the position of the entire country,” she said.
For Dr. John Barnard, president of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, the uncertainty is hitting at one of the most exhilarating and most worrisome moments in recent scientific history. Thanks to the Human Genome Project, which cracked the human genetic code, scientists are on the cusp of making life-saving discoveries about hundreds of diseases.
“Scientists are giddy right now for the potential for major breakthroughs and progress in the next few years,” he said.
“When funding is tight, and we can see the potential, it’s doubly frustrating that we can’t move forward,” said Barnard. “We can see the endgame here. For a lot of us, it’s tantalizingly close.”
Barnard said Nationwide received about $70 million worth of external grant money last year. Of that, about $50 million came from federal sources.
The impact would be tangible: At Nationwide, they’re working on a wide variety of research projects. Among them: drugs to treat cancer in children, a vaccine to fight ear infections and research on the impact of premature birth.
Research and medical innovation are “huge economic engines in the United States and in Ohio,” said Barnard, who said for every dollar in NIH funding, seven jobs are created.
“A huge part of our economy is research and discovery,” he said.
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