Letter from Harvard

This week, I received the following letter. It is reprinted here with permission by the author, although he has asked to have his name redacted. I provide commentary after.

I am an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School. I am the first in my family to go to college and the son of a working-class household that knows the weight of loss, and the hope of science to recover such losses. I am also a three-time Trump voter from Washington State, and as one among few conservatives at Harvard, I think my perspective is quite unique.

When I was 11, I lost my mother, a strong, beautiful, and stunningly brilliant woman to cancer at the age of 48. That loss became a defining compass in my life. It is what led me to medicine, to science, and eventually to Harvard. From St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, TN, to the hospitals and labs boasted by Harvard, I have devoted over a decade of my career to understanding the proteomic and biochemical underpinnings of cancer. Having the honor of being a member of such an institution, in a fully funded MD-PhD, is a role I do not take lightly. It is the motivation of my life.

My current research — at the intersection of artificial intelligence, kinase signaling, and mass spectrometry — aims to understand how cancer cells rewire signaling networks and how we might stop them. So many of cancer's complexities rest beyond what is immediately perceptible to us, making AI critical in redefining our understanding of this disease. Our discoveries have real implications for drug development, targeted therapies, and the future of precision oncology. The algorithms I write in this endeavor have tremendous national security interest, and the scientific knowledge accrued in this field has great potential to impact the broader public. This is the very reason we devote so much to the funding of good science.

This week, I received word that the grant funding which supports my research — and that of countless other physician-scientists in training — has been terminated by the federal government. In fact, a majority of my MD-PhD cohort, who have fully funded positions in the medical school and graduate school, are no longer being funded.

In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration has abruptly ended NIH funding to Harvard Medical School, including the cancellation of 32 F30 fellowship awards1 and both

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