HHS has instructed the National Institutes of Health to halt research grants and contract payments to five universities, according to an internal email obtained by Science.
In response to ongoing disruptions to research funding, Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration April 21.
Five notes:
1. In an April 16 email reviewed by the publication, an official with the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research told grant managers to block funding to Harvard; Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University; Providence, R.I.-based Brown University; and Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell University, including its medical school, Weill-Cornell Medicine. The White House had already frozen all NIH funding to New York City-based Columbia University earlier in the month.
2. According to the email, the freeze affects ongoing NIH grants. It also states that NIH staff have been directed not to provide any communications to the institutions surrounding whether research funds are frozen or why.
While the move does not explicitly force researchers to pause their work, the universities say they have received stop-work orders on dozens of projects. Northwestern told the news outlet it has received stop-work orders for more than 100 projects, including those focused on wearable devices and Parkinson’s disease. Cornell said it has received the orders for more than 90 projects, including those focused on cancer research and the spread of airborne infectious diseases.
3. The affected institutions are among 60 universities under federal scrutiny for allegedly failing to adequately address antisemitic harassment, part of an ongoing investigation by the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
4. The latest NIH funding freeze follows an earlier White House announcement to freeze more than $2.2 billion in multiyear federal grants to Harvard. That move came after the university rejected federal demands to enact sweeping changes — including ending all DEI programs and undergoing a “viewpoint diversity” audit — as a condition for maintaining federal funding. That pause has already disrupted high-profile research projects, including an international tuberculosis study and early detection work on ALS.
5. Harvard’s lawsuit, filed April 21 in federal court in Massachusetts, marks a sharp escalation in its standoff with the Trump administration. It accuses the federal government of violating constitutional protections by using threats of funding withdrawal to exert control over university governance, hiring and curriculum. The school is seeking a court injunction to block the funding freeze, arguing it constitutes unlawful government overreach and retaliation.
