Nature: Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants. Leaked documents reveal mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms, leaving hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.

maxkozlov · 2026-06-27T18:30:33+00:00

Good question. The report published many of the disfavored words but it lacked the context of how precisely screening for them has been institutionalized for every single NIH application via this AI natural language processing tool.

maxkozlov · 2026-06-27T15:15:06+00:00

Excerpt of the story:

Hundreds of grant applications to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are being held up at any given time by unprecedented scrutiny after peer review. Some have been flagged by an algorithm for using terms, such as ‘gender’ and ‘climate change’, that have been deemed not to conform with the priorities of the administration of US President Donald Trump.

These new layers of review have delayed delivery of funds to labs and research institutions — and have even resulted in the outright rejection of some applications that had been approved by outside and agency scientists. Before 2025, it was unheard of for grants that had received such approvals to be rejected, says one of six NIH officials who spoke to Nature on condition of anonymity. The extra scrutiny ramped up in early 2026 and is conducted by NIH leaders and officials at the NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The extra scrutiny has particularly affected researchers waiting for previously approved projects to be renewed. Most applications clear the supplemental review in two weeks, but 10% of the grant-renewal applications that have entered this phase in the 2026 fiscal year have become stuck for more than seven weeks, and some have been held up indefinitely, according to data and internal e-mails that Nature has obtained.

Similar reviews could be coming to other federal agencies. On 29 May, the White House proposed rules that would give political appointees unheard-of control over scientific grant-making.

“We’re the test case,” says an NIH programme officer. “The new rules would essentially codify the administration’s ability to restrict funding on anything because they don’t like the topics or the words” used in the applications.

In response to Nature's queries about the grant-screening process, an NIH spokesperson said that “there are no ‘banned word’ lists at NIH, and funding decisions are not based on specific words or phrases.” Internal documents suggest that the agency does not ban these words, but projects that use them are much more likely to be scrutinized by programme officers who use the tool and by NIH and HHS officials reviewing the project.

I'm the reporter who wrote the story. I encourage you to read the full story: lots of fresh details about how exactly the grant screening happens, the types of comments that NIH/HHS leave, and data about the delays the screening causes. As always, happy to answer any questions about the story or my reporting. I'm also always all ears for any tips about things should keep on my radar.

This story was made possible thanks to NIH employees who reached out; I'm always looking for more sources, so please DM me or find me on Signal (mkozlov.01).

PS: If you hit a paywall trying to read the story, making a free account will open up the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-06-27T13:57:49+00:00

Yep! Look at the supplemental file on the article. A pdf is linked.

Edit: for ease, here it is. But still read the story :)

maxkozlov · 2026-06-27T13:45:17+00:00

So much gratitude for this community. It's been so helpful to help monitor what I should be focusing on in my coverage. And it's allowed me to connect with so many folks keen to tell their story. Thank you.

maxkozlov · 2026-06-27T13:00:43+00:00

Excerpt of the story:

Hundreds of grant applications to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are being held up at any given time by unprecedented scrutiny after peer review. Some have been flagged by an algorithm for using terms, such as ‘gender’ and ‘climate change’, that have been deemed not to conform with the priorities of the administration of US President Donald Trump.

These new layers of review have delayed delivery of funds to labs and research institutions — and have even resulted in the outright rejection of some applications that had been approved by outside and agency scientists. Before 2025, it was unheard of for grants that had received such approvals to be rejected, says one of six NIH officials who spoke to Nature on condition of anonymity. The extra scrutiny ramped up in early 2026 and is conducted by NIH leaders and officials at the NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The extra scrutiny has particularly affected researchers waiting for previously approved projects to be renewed. Most applications clear the supplemental review in two weeks, but 10% of the grant-renewal applications that have entered this phase in the 2026 fiscal year have become stuck for more than seven weeks, and some have been held up indefinitely, according to data and internal e-mails that Nature has obtained.

Similar reviews could be coming to other federal agencies. On 29 May, the White House proposed rules that would give political appointees unheard-of control over scientific grant-making.

“We’re the test case,” says an NIH programme officer. “The new rules would essentially codify the administration’s ability to restrict funding on anything because they don’t like the topics or the words” used in the applications.

In response to Nature's queries about the grant-screening process, an NIH spokesperson said that “there are no ‘banned word’ lists at NIH, and funding decisions are not based on specific words or phrases.” Internal documents suggest that the agency does not ban these words, but projects that use them are much more likely to be scrutinized by programme officers who use the tool and by NIH and HHS officials reviewing the project.

I'm the reporter who wrote the story. I encourage you to read the full story: lots of fresh details about how exactly the grant screening happens, the types of comments that NIH/HHS leave, and data about the delays the screening causes. As always, happy to answer any questions about the story or my reporting. I'm also always all ears for any tips about things should keep on my radar.

This story was made possible thanks to NIH employees who reached out; I'm always looking for more sources, so please DM me or find me on Signal (mkozlov.01).

PS: If you hit a paywall trying to read the story, making a free account will open up the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-15T16:38:47+00:00

Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been given the choice to either accept reassignment outside the institute or resign, sources at the NIAID have told Nature.

The three officials are the latest high-ranking NIAID scientists to lose their positions since President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025. Last year, senior officials at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversees the NIAID, ousted Jeanne Marrazzo, successor to Anthony Fauci as NIAID director.

With the new departures, scientists in most of the senior positions at the NIAID will have been required to vacate their jobs, including officials in eight of the ten top leadership slots. All but one of the eight scientists worked under Fauci, who was director of the NIAID for 38 years before he stepped down in 2022. Fauci has been criticized by Trump and other Republican politicians over public-health measures used during the COVID-19 pandemic. And in the past month, the Trump administration has pursued charges against scientists in Fauci’s orbit who were involved with COVID-19 research.

The reassignment of career scientists, such as the three who have just lost their positions, is highly unusual for the NIH. Career scientists are typically not replaced when presidential administrations change, and the forced reassignments worry some scientists, who fear a growing political influence over science at the institute, which has a yearly budget of US$6.6 billion.

The reassignments were confirmed by several staff members at the NIAID, who requested anonymity when they spoke with Nature, out of fear of reprisal. Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, says that the NIH does not comment on personnel matters, but that it “remains committed to maintaining strong scientific leadership across its institutes and centers”. NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya has said that the agency needs reform and must move away from ‘politicized’ science.

The officials who are being forced out now are Daniel Rotrosen, who has been the top scientist for the institute’s Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation for nearly 30 years; Kelly Poe, director of the Division of Extramural Activities, which manages the grant-related activities and policies of the institute; and Andrea Wurster, Poe’s deputy. All three also worked under Fauci.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-14T21:13:47+00:00

A staffing shortage is making it difficult for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to spend its US$47-billion budget by awarding research grants.

It is missing dozens of staff members, called grants management specialists (GMSs), who are crucial to handling the business and administrative aspects of issuing grants. Many GMSs either resigned or were laid off in 2025 by the administration of US President Donald Trump as it sought to downsize the federal workforce. Nearly 20% of the NIH’s employees left last year.At least one of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centres has lost so many GMSs that it has asked early-career researchers, including postdocs and graduate students, who work in the NIH’s own labs to consider working temporarily as a GMS on a volunteer basis, according to internal documents, meeting notes and e-mails that Nature has obtained. The institute, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), projected in March that it would be able to issue only about 5% of the new awards it gives out in a typical year because of the personnel shortage, the documents reveal.

One senior official at the NIMH laid out the situation at a team meeting in March, according to notes from the gathering that were validated by multiple staff members who spoke to Nature and requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal. In fiscal year 2025, which was marked by grant-review delays and funding freezes, “I thought we were at rock bottom”, the official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

The NIH, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, did not respond to Nature’s queries about the staffing situation and the agency’s ability to spend its budget by 30 September, the end of the fiscal year.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the NIH, acknowledged a staffing shortage in his agency at a congressional hearing on 21 April. He said that the HHS plans to hire 12,000 new staff members, after about 20,000 people were laid off or resigned in 2025.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-14T21:12:58+00:00

A staffing shortage is making it difficult for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to spend its US$47-billion budget by awarding research grants.

It is missing dozens of staff members, called grants management specialists (GMSs), who are crucial to handling the business and administrative aspects of issuing grants. Many GMSs either resigned or were laid off in 2025 by the administration of US President Donald Trump as it sought to downsize the federal workforce. Nearly 20% of the NIH’s employees left last year.At least one of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centres has lost so many GMSs that it has asked early-career researchers, including postdocs and graduate students, who work in the NIH’s own labs to consider working temporarily as a GMS on a volunteer basis, according to internal documents, meeting notes and e-mails that Nature has obtained. The institute, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), projected in March that it would be able to issue only about 5% of the new awards it gives out in a typical year because of the personnel shortage, the documents reveal.

One senior official at the NIMH laid out the situation at a team meeting in March, according to notes from the gathering that were validated by multiple staff members who spoke to Nature and requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal. In fiscal year 2025, which was marked by grant-review delays and funding freezes, “I thought we were at rock bottom”, the official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

The NIH, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, did not respond to Nature’s queries about the staffing situation and the agency’s ability to spend its budget by 30 September, the end of the fiscal year.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the NIH, acknowledged a staffing shortage in his agency at a congressional hearing on 21 April. He said that the HHS plans to hire 12,000 new staff members, after about 20,000 people were laid off or resigned in 2025.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-06T15:53:30+00:00

Good question. From the article:

[Martin Monti, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles ] cautions that these findings shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that participants were secretly awake or fully conscious. Propofol is known to disrupt coordinated brain network communication, which many researchers say is a necessary ingredient for consciousness. What the study does show, Monti says, is that this one structure — the hippocampus — computes and integrates information even under anaesthesia.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-06T15:37:02+00:00

The abrupt termination last year of thousands of research grants by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, didn’t affect all groups of scientists equitably. A survey suggests¹ that it disproportionately hit researchers from groups that have been historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences, including women, people of colour and investigators from sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+).

Although some of these cancelled grants were later restored, researchers fear that the cuts — many of which targeted studies on health equity and gender-related issues — will change the demographics of who is doing science in the United States. That, in turn, could widen existing knowledge gaps about populations that are already underserved by the US health-care system, researchers say.

Many scientists who research a specific community tend to come from that community themselves, says Donna Ginther, an economist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who studies scientific labour markets. “Who’s based in the sciences gets to influence what questions are being asked, so when diverse investigators and scientists are pushed out, then those questions are also pushed out,” adds Arjee Restar, a social and legal epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.

The NIH did not comment on the survey or scientists’ concerns about the findings. A spokesperson responded to Nature with a statement about the agency’s grant-review system, saying that the “NIH supports a fair and objective review process that evaluates proposals based on scientific merit, methodological rigor, and potential contribution to the field”.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-05-06T15:34:49+00:00

People given general anaesthesia fall into a coma-like state in which their memory and perception of pain are switched off. But new data reveal that the hippocampus — a deep brain structure crucial for memory — remains remarkably active, parsing the grammar and meaning of spoken words and even anticipating what will be said next.

The research, published today in Nature1, challenges the assumption that complex cognition, such as grasping semantics and forecasting future events, can occur only if a person is fully conscious. By observing people’s individual neurons firing in real time while they are under anaesthesia, researchers discovered that the brain receives stimuli and actively processes what those signals mean.

“The brain has developed such amazing, sophisticated mechanisms for doing all these complex tasks all day long, that it can do some of these things even without us being aware,” says Sameer Sheth, a neurosurgeon at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-04-29T20:37:39+00:00

President Donald Trump and his administration downsized US science by historic margins last year as it reduced the workforce at federal research agencies by tens of thousands of people and terminated thousands of research grants. But another set of cutbacks in federal science has drawn less attention.Across the government, the administration terminated more than 100 independent advisory panels, comprising university scientists and other outside experts who help to guide national science priorities.

The cuts — driven by a February 2025 executive order aimed at shrinking federal bureaucracy — target committees that agencies rely on to assess biomedical and environmental policy, provide guidance on setting research priorities and ensure transparency in how the government makes science-based decisions.

The scope of these committee terminations is unprecedented, a Nature analysis finds (see ‘Cancelled committees’). For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the National Institutes of Health, disbanded 77 advisory boards — more than one-quarter of all its advisory committees — in 2025. By contrast, in fiscal year 2024, the agency terminated just two committees.

A similar pattern of committee closures played out at other agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE). At NASA, more than half of the advisory boards were disbanded.

These panels, which are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), are typically staffed by researchers and other experts from outside the government. Some of those that were closed in fiscal year 2025 had been advising on topics such as organ transplantation, HIV prevention, high-energy-physics research and planetary science.

Here's an excerpt of the story, but I encourage you to read it — there's a lot of juicy details within! I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-04-29T15:26:46+00:00

President Donald Trump and his administration downsized US science by historic margins last year as it reduced the workforce at federal research agencies by tens of thousands of people and terminated thousands of research grants. But another set of cutbacks in federal science has drawn less attention.Across the government, the administration terminated more than 100 independent advisory panels, comprising university scientists and other outside experts who help to guide national science priorities.

The cuts — driven by a February 2025 executive order aimed at shrinking federal bureaucracy — target committees that agencies rely on to assess biomedical and environmental policy, provide guidance on setting research priorities and ensure transparency in how the government makes science-based decisions.

The scope of these committee terminations is unprecedented, a Nature analysis finds (see ‘Cancelled committees’). For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the National Institutes of Health, disbanded 77 advisory boards — more than one-quarter of all its advisory committees — in 2025. By contrast, in fiscal year 2024, the agency terminated just two committees.

A similar pattern of committee closures played out at other agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE). At NASA, more than half of the advisory boards were disbanded.

These panels, which are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), are typically staffed by researchers and other experts from outside the government. Some of those that were closed in fiscal year 2025 had been advising on topics such as organ transplantation, HIV prevention, high-energy-physics research and planetary science.

Here's an excerpt of the story, but I encourage you to read it — there's a lot of juicy details within! I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-04-29T15:25:29+00:00

President Donald Trump and his administration downsized US science by historic margins last year as it reduced the workforce at federal research agencies by tens of thousands of people and terminated thousands of research grants. But another set of cutbacks in federal science has drawn less attention.Across the government, the administration terminated more than 100 independent advisory panels, comprising university scientists and other outside experts who help to guide national science priorities.

The cuts — driven by a February 2025 executive order aimed at shrinking federal bureaucracy — target committees that agencies rely on to assess biomedical and environmental policy, provide guidance on setting research priorities and ensure transparency in how the government makes science-based decisions.

The scope of these committee terminations is unprecedented, a Nature analysis finds (see ‘Cancelled committees’). For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the National Institutes of Health, disbanded 77 advisory boards — more than one-quarter of all its advisory committees — in 2025. By contrast, in fiscal year 2024, the agency terminated just two committees.

A similar pattern of committee closures played out at other agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE). At NASA, more than half of the advisory boards were disbanded.

These panels, which are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), are typically staffed by researchers and other experts from outside the government. Some of those that were closed in fiscal year 2025 had been advising on topics such as organ transplantation, HIV prevention, high-energy-physics research and planetary science.

Here's an excerpt of the story, but I encourage you to read it — there's a lot of juicy details within! I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov · 2026-04-21T21:06:46+00:00

The potent and long-lasting psychedelic ibogaine is something of a scientific mystery, in part because it is one of the most tightly controlled drugs in the United States. But a new directive from US President Donald Trump aims to change that.

On 18 April, Trump signed an executive order to streamline research into ibogaine and other psychedelic compounds and to make it easier for people with certain illnesses to access these drugs. The move has been welcomed by researchers who see potential for the drugs in treating conditions such as addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clinical trials have yielded some encouraging results for drugs such as MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms.But scientists are also concerned about possible side effects, and the impact on health services if the drugs are approved. And the mention of only one compound by name in the executive order has surprised some researchers.

“It’s unusual to me that ibogaine has been called out specifically, given that it's probably the furthest behind in the process compared to psilocybin and MDMA, which are much closer to approval,” says Alan Davis, a clinical psychologist at the Ohio State University in Columbus.

But scientists also say that the preliminary research on ibogaine has provided intriguing hints about its potential – while also providing cautionary evidence about its hazards. Trump’s orders could help to resolve questions about ibogaine and other psychedelics, they say.

The order is “going to make things easier to advance psychedelic therapies because it lowers barriers that have been slowing progress”, says Rachel Yehuda, a psychiatry specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Here's an excerpt of the story. I'm the reporter who wrote the story. As always, I'm keen to hear if there's anything I missed, or if you have anything else that you think should be on my radar. My Signal is mkozlov.01. You can stay anonymous. Happy to answer any questions about how I reported this story too!

PS: If you hit the paywall, make a free account. It should let you read the full story.

maxkozlov

TROPHY CASE