Federally-funded scientific research is worth the investment for Oregon and for the US

An Op-Ed I pitched to the Baker City Herald

Growing up, I spent my summers in the creeks, glades and forests of the Elkhorn range. My grandfather Jim Baker—who owned and operated the Baker Super Market on 9^th and Broadway until the late 1960s—was a rockhound and a moth collector. My parents took us hunting butterflies and insects up Pine Creek, and I can still picture the black and white backs of longhorn beetles and the fluttery wings of “the blues” come to drink at a seep. I carefully pressed and dried aromatic yarrow and the hot pink monkeyflowers we spotted at Anthony Lakes. My sister and I bravely searched for cougar tracks on the forest floor near my grandparent’s cabin, where my mother now lives.

Those rambles among the plants and animals of the Baker Valley fueled my curiosity about the natural world and led me to a rewarding career as an academic scientist. I spent years in graduate school and post-graduate training in California, then took a faculty position at a university in the Midwest. I taught plant biology and genetic engineering and ran a research laboratory there until retiring a few years ago.

My team wanted to understand how plants interact with the physical world. How does a germinating seed, deep in the soil, know up from down? How does a root continue to grow down around rocks and other obstacles in the soil? How does a pea tendril sense that it is touching a support—and how does it change its growth patterns to wrap around that support? These are fundamental questions about plant biology, but the answers are likely to help farmers grow corn in hard-packed soil or let wheat breeders create varieties that are resistant to lodging (falling down).

Most of our research was supported by two federal agencies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In general, NSF supports research and education in science and engineering, while NIH supports biomedical research. Grants from these two institutions allowed me to pay the stipends of students and other trainees, purchase supplies and services, and share the results of our work with researchers around the world.

Now, despite decades of bipartisan support, NSF and NIH are facing serious disruptions. NIH funding remains completely frozen despite a court order. NSF funding is also slowed as grant proposals that include banned words are pulled from consideration. NSF has been told to expect a 50-75% budget decrease in the coming year. Both of these agencies have also been part of the federal employee purge: NSF lost 12% of their workforce, and NIH has seen similar cuts, including the staff and incoming Director of the newly formed Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias. A recent Executive Order would reduce the overhead associated with an NIH research grant—money that helps universities maintain the staff, buildings, equipment, services and infrastructure needed to support research—from approximately 50% to 15%.

If these actions are allowed to continue, they will effectively end federally-funded research in the US. Why should anyone care, other than scientists and our families? Well, there are many pressing reasons for our country and our state to invest in scientific research. Here are three for you to consider:

First, scientific research yields a substantial return on investment. NIH reports that in 2023, every dollar spent on research generated $2.46 in economic activity through job creation, the purchase of research materials, and related services. In Oregon, the $417 million awarded by NIH in grants and contracts during FY2023, directly supported 5,013 jobs and $992 million in economic activity. The same return on investment can be assumed for NSF, which sent $97 million to Oregon in 2024.

Second, scientific research outcomes are valuable and far-reaching. Basic and biomedical research funded by NIH has led to treatments for cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes, and heart disease. The development of technologies like cell phones, LASIK eye surgery, and 3-D printing was substantially supported by NSF. Specifically in Eastern Oregon, basic research supported by NSF and the USDA informs our approach to forest management (via the Center for Advanced Forestry Systems, and cattle farming (via the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center).

I want to emphasize that the high-risk, high-reward research that is funded by NIH and NSF is rarely undertaken by the private sector. Rather, tech industries build on the fundamental scientific knowledge that is created by federally funded work. According to a recent study, NIH research contributed to the development of 386 of the 387 drugs that were approved by the FDA from 2010-2019. Furthermore, it’s impossible to know in advance what knowledge we need to make groundbreaking discoveries possible. Did you know that the development of GLP-1 inhibitors like Ozempic was influenced by research into the saliva from venomous lizards (link)? Or that the recently approved suzetrigine, the first non-opioid, non-addictive pain killer to hit the market for decades, was developed by basic researchers trying to understand why a family of firewalkers didn’t feel pain when walking on hot coals (link)? Or that NSF and USDA provided more than $200 million research dollars from 2017-2021 to develop precision agriculture (automated technologies that raise yields and reduce the need for fertilizer, pesticides, and water) for American farmers (link)? Without exploratory, curiosity-driven research, these breakthroughs would not have been possible.

Third, funding from NSF and NIH provides essential career training for graduate and post-graduate researchers who then take their scientific experience outside of academia and into the real world. The inventive and motivated PhD students that studied with me when I was running my research laboratory—all funded to some degree by NSF or NIH—now work in a range of sectors, including the agricultural technology industry, venture capital, and scientific writing and communication. These sharp young people are determined to make their communities and the world better, healthier, and more sustainable.

So, Iet’s not be shortsighted as we consider how to balance the US budget. For a tiny portion of the budget (~1% was allocated for all science and medical research in 2024), federally-funded research provides an outsized contribution to economic prosperity, supercharges US innovation, and trains the next generation of US scientists.

I hope readers will contact their representatives and urge them to support federally funded scientific research at NIH, NSF, and other agencies. There is a world of knowledge out there as big and beautiful as the view from Rock Creek Butte—and none of us can predict what might be the start of a new medicine, cancer treatment, or agricultural innovation.

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I was inspired by Science Homecoming to write this Op-Ed article. They recommend writing for the local newspaper that serves your hometown, but I grew up in a college town whose population is likely aware of the dire funding issues facing scientists. Instead, I pitched the following to The Baker City Herald. Baker City is my mother’s hometown, and where she lives now. It’s in Eastern Oregon, a gorgeous, vibrant small town surrounded by the Blue Mountains and the Wallowa mountains. I’ll let you know how it goes!