When President Trump took office again early last year, his administration took aim at all kinds of scientific research. Billions of dollars in grants for everything from diabetes to vaccine and cancer research have been discontinued or disrupted. At one point, the Trump administration slashed science funding to its lowest level in decades.
North Carolina has felt the impact. As of July 2025, UNC Chapel Hill had received about $50 million less from the National Institutes of Health compared to the first half of the year in 2024, and NC State lost about $27 million in federal awards during the same period. A proposed budget from the Trump administration last year would have cut funding to NIH by 40% — potentially leading to a $3 billion economic blow in North Carolina. As of December, Congress had refused those cuts to NIH but had yet to decide on the agency’s budget.
North Carolina’s Research Triangle has long been a science research and economic powerhouse. But the Trump administration says it wants to refocus research priorities on AI and nuclear energy, for example, to secure the country’s standing “as a global tech leader and ending woke science spending.”
We speak with a reporter and researchers throughout the state, navigating the shifts in federal spending.
GUESTS:
JP Flores, Ph.D. candidate in bioinformatics and computational biology at UNC Chapel Hill
Brian Gordon, business and technology reporter for The News & Observer
Dr. Charles Lee, associate professor and former director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering and Science at UNC Charlotte, and chief operating officer of medical research company VitriStor
