UCLA scientists, medical professors and graduate students are accustomed to presenting their research — into cancer, stroke, brain injury, nerve regeneration — at conferences of their peers with the aid of high-tech audio and visual equipment.
But in back-to-back events in Westwood Village and on a campus courtyard this week, they tapped into their high school memories, erecting hand-made posters on easels and bringing in props from their labs — including a human brain — to simply explain their complex work.
Welcome to the “Science Fair for Suspended Research,” perhaps an understatement of what’s at stake.
UC President James B. Milliken said last week that the University of California is facing “one of the gravest threats in UC’s 157-year history” after the Trump administration cut off grants before demanding a $1.2-billion fine as punishment for UCLA’s alleged antisemitism.
Standing near their displays, these high-level researchers said they are nervous about the future of their life’s work. The Trump administration has suspended $500 million of their medical and scientific research grants. The intent of the science fair — a rudimentary act of frustration and hope — was to garner more public attention for the life-saving and cutting-edge research they quietly conduct behind closed lab doors.
Billions are similarly frozen at Harvard and other elite universities. At UCLA, nearly all the grants on hold are from the National Institutes of Health, after a court case led to the restoration of $81 million in briefly suspended National Science Foundation grants.
The fairs unfolded before a key federal court hearing next week that could bring back hundreds of millions of dollars in NIH funding. The UC regents will also meet next week for their first public discussions since the late July cuts.
“It’s been very stressful,” William Zeiger, an assistant professor in the neurology department. His funding was cut in the third year of a five-year grant to study Parkinson’s disease. He is using emergency funds to continue his research, which does experiments on mice. But he may have to eventually cut staff.
“Even if we were to physically stop doing the research, we still have an obligation to maintain the tools, the people, the animals that we’ve been caring for and have been so central to doing this research,” Zeiger said, uncertain about what’s ahead and how to preserve years of work.
“It’s not like you can just hit pause and pick it up and continue,” Vidya Saravanapandian of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute. She stood at a table Wednesday displaying two 25-year-old preserved human brains she placed on cafeteria trays. Office workers out to lunch got an impromptu lesson on its parts.
Saravanapandian earned her doctorate from UCLA in 2021 using an NIH training grant, and her research led to a brain discovery related to Dup15q syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that can lead to autism. The discovery is now part of clinical trials. But the same grants for current students are suspended.
“The time that we’re losing now hugely impacts the progress that we’ve been making in science,” Saravanapandian said.
Stroke recovery
Elle Rathbun, 29, set up Wednesday on the grassy patch across from a Chipotle and Pret a Manger. Like a sidewalk marketer, she handed out fliers with an image of the brain that said, “neuroscience research matters.”
A sixth-year neuroscience PhD candidate, she lost a $160,000 NIH grant in July. Her research looks at potential treatments to repair the brain after a stroke.
She memorized her pitch:
“After a stroke, affected cells in the brain die and the area forms a scar that shrinks over time. Our research displaces that dead tissue with a biomaterial also known as a hydrogel. It reserves that space and acts as a scaffold to rebuild that part of the brain,” said Rathbun, who runs experiments on mice.
Like many PhD students whose salaries and lab work are paid for by federal grants, Rathbun is now applying for funding from private organizations and stretching the non-NIH funds left in her lab’s budget.
But the clock is ticking.
“Everyone is floating right now as best as they can, but I think it’s going to get much, much worse” if funding isn’t restored soon, she said.
Cigarette addiction
A few steps away was Michael Apostol, also a neuroscience PhD student. He stood in front of a poster that said, “re-calibrating the mind: how brain stimulation can treat depression and addiction.”
He also brought a prop.
He pointed to a transcranial magnetic stimulation device, a small handheld machine that has been proven effective in treating depression by boosting helpful brain activity and reducing harmful brain patterns. His defunded research studies how to use the device to reduce cigarette cravings and nicotine withdrawal.
Apostol had an NIH training grant that covered his salary. Now he is trying to find a teaching assistant job to make up for losses.
Some passersby were in the area for doctor’s appointments at UCLA facilities, while others were running errands at the nearby UPS and Amazon stores.
“So this is what the Trump cuts are all about,” said one visitor, glancing at a display about how studying communities of ants can help humans understand supply chains and disease transmission.
“What does this have to do with Jewish people? I’m confused,” he said.
Basic research
Much of the research at UCLA is “basic research,” which focuses on advancing human knowledge of the body, earth and medicine so it can be used as a building block of specific experiments to develop, for example, drug treatments.
Lydia Daboussi, an assistant professor in the neurobiology department, conducts such research through her study of cells. Her five-year, $1-million NIH grant has been suspended, threatening her lab’s ongoing discoveries on nerve regeneration.
“Nerve injury is something that essentially 40% of Americans will experience either through carpal tunnel, injury, diabetes, HIV, cancer, chemotherapy,” Daboussi said. “Nerves can be really sensitive and people want to be able to get up and walk around and not experience pain all day. Our lab is focused on trying to understand how we can better assist our bodies to recover.”
The grant money paid for storage and upkeep of lab materials such as cells, as well as the costs for a staff of six that included undergraduate and graduate researchers.
These days, what doesn’t make sense to Daboussi is Trump’s raft of reasons for canceling her lab’s mission — allegations around antisemitism, UCLA’s admission process and the equal treatment of transgender people on campus.
“Our research grant touches none of those topics,” she said. “To my knowledge, we have participated in none of these activities.”
‘Evolution in your tummy’
Those who showcased Wednesday were largely from the medical school, one of the hardest-hit areas among the hundreds of grant suspensions at UCLA.
On Thursday, members of the UAW 4811 union also held a science fair outside of Rolfe Hall on campus. The union represents graduate student teaching assistants, researchers and other academic workers who work closely with faculty.
One of the displays at the UAW event was titled, “Evolution in your tummy: on the hunt for adaptations in the microbiome to improve health.” The project lost $2 million between two suspended grants, lending to a slowdown in research to develop new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease.
UC considers next moves
In addition to grant cuts and fine demands from UCLA, the Trump administration has also proposed sweeping changes at the Westwood campus. They include the release of detailed admissions data — the government accuses UCLA of illegally considering race when awarding seats — restrictions on protests, and an end to race-related scholarships and diversity hiring programs. The Department of Justice has also called for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors at UCLA healthcare systems.
UC leaders, led by Milliken and the board of regents, are negotiating to restore funding. But wide gulfs remain between the government’s proposals and UC.
The regents have also considered whether to sue the Trump administration at the encouragement of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Times photographer Genaro Molina and Marcos Magana contributed to this report.
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