Inside a most cancers analysis laboratory on the campus of Harvard Medical College, two dozen small jars with pink plastic lids sat on a steel counter. Inside these humble-looking jars is the core of Joan Brugge’s present multiyear analysis venture.
Brugge lifted up one of many jars and gazed at it with reverence. Every jar holds samples of breast tissue donated by sufferers after they underwent a tissue biopsy or breast surgical procedure — samples which will reveal a brand new option to stop breast most cancers.
Brugge and her analysis crew have analyzed the cell construction of greater than 100 samples.
Utilizing high-powered microscopes and sophisticated laptop algorithms, they diagram every stage within the improvement of breast most cancers: from the primary signal of cell mutation to the formation of tiny clusters, nicely earlier than they’re giant sufficient to be thought of tumors.
Their quest is to stop breast most cancers, a illness that afflicts roughly 1 in 8 U.S. girls over their lifetimes, in addition to some males. Their final objective is to alleviate the ache, struggling, and threat of demise that accompany this illness. And their painstaking work, unspooling throughout six years of a seven-year, $7 million federal grant, has yielded outcomes.
In late 2024, Brugge and her colleagues recognized particular cells in breast tissue that include the genetic seeds of breast tumors.
And so they found that these “seed cells” are surprisingly widespread. In actual fact, they’re current within the regular, wholesome tissue of each breast pattern her lab has examined, Brugge mentioned, together with samples from sufferers who haven’t had breast most cancers however have had surgical procedure for different causes, comparable to breast discount or a biopsy that proved benign.
The subsequent analysis problem for Brugge’s lab is obvious: Discover methods to detect, isolate, and terminate the mutant cells earlier than they will unfold and type tumors.
“I’m excited about what we’re doing right now,” Brugge mentioned. “I think we could make a difference, so I don’t want to stop.”
Work in Brugge’s lab slowed considerably final 12 months. In April, her $7 million grant from the Nationwide Most cancers Institute on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being was frozen, together with nearly all different federal cash awarded to Harvard researchers.
The Trump administration mentioned it was withholding the funds over the college’s dealing with of antisemitism on campus.
A few of Brugge’s lab workers misplaced federal fellowships that funded their work. Brugge advised others funded by the NIH grant that she couldn’t assure their salaries. In all, Brugge misplaced seven of her 18 lab workers.
In September, the funding for the NIH grant was restored. However within the intervening months, the Trump administration mentioned Brugge and different Harvard researchers needn’t hassle making use of for the following spherical of multiyear grants.
A federal choose lifted that ban, however Brugge had missed the deadline to use for renewal. So her present funding will finish in August.
Brugge scrambled to safe non-public funding from foundations and philanthropists. She was then capable of reinstate two positions for at the least a 12 months — however job candidates are cautious.
Throughout america, the way forward for federal funding for most cancers analysis is unsure.
President Donald Trump has proposed slicing the NIH price range by almost 40% within the 2026 fiscal 12 months.
In a price range message, the White Home mentioned the “NIH has broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”
However Congress has different plans: The Senate and Home Appropriations Committees launched a compromise invoice on Jan. 20 that might set the NIH’s price range at $48.7 billion, $415 million greater than within the 2025 fiscal 12 months.
Within the meantime, advocates comparable to Mark Fleury with the American Most cancers Society are reminding lawmakers that the most cancers demise price has declined — by 34% because the early Nineties — due partially to federally funded analysis advances.
“But we still have an incredible ways to go before we can say that we’ve changed the trajectory of cancer,” Fleury mentioned. “There are still cancer types that are fairly lethal, and there are still populations of people for whom their experience of cancer is vastly different from other groups.”
Reductions in analysis funding may have a direct impression on remedy choices for sufferers, Fleury mentioned. For instance, a ten% minimize to the NIH price range would ultimately lead to two fewer new medication or remedies per 12 months, in response to a projection from the nonpartisan Congressional Funds Workplace.
A latest research checked out medication that have been developed by NIH-funded analysis and authorized by the Meals and Drug Administration since 2000. Greater than half these medication would in all probability not have been developed if the NIH had been working with a 40% smaller price range.
“We can’t say, ‘But for that grant, that [specific] drug would not have come into existence,’” mentioned Pierre Azoulay, a co-author of the research and a professor on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise. However fewer medication would have made it to market, he mentioned. “It makes us at least want to pause and say, ‘What are we doing here? Are we shooting ourselves in the foot?’”
Amid all of the uncertainty, Brugge has hassle specializing in her objective of discovering new methods to stop breast most cancers.
These days, she spends about half her time looking for new sources of funding, managing her remaining workers’ anxieties, and monitoring the newest information about Harvard, the Trump administration, and the NIH and different federal companies which have skilled grant freezes, workers layoffs, and different disruptions.
She’d somewhat return her consideration to her ongoing investigations, which she’s assured may ultimately save lives.
The breakdown of Brugge’s lab highlights one other downside: The U.S. is kneecapping the following technology of most cancers researchers. Her workers included workers scientists, postdocs, and graduate college students. Of the seven who left the lab in 2025, one left the U.S., one took a job at a well being care administration firm, 4 went again to highschool, and one continues to be on the lookout for work.
One among Brugge’s former staffers, Y., is a computational biologist. She helped design and run a device that analyzes thousands and thousands of breast tissue cells from the samples within the pink-lidded jars.
Y. moved to Switzerland in October to start a PhD program. KFF Well being Information and NPR are figuring out her by her center preliminary as a result of she plans to return to the U.S. for scientific conferences and worries that talking publicly about her expertise may threat future visa approvals.
“I thought the U.S. would be a safe place for scientists to learn and grow,” mentioned Y., who moved to Boston from overseas for Harvard’s grasp’s diploma program in bioinformatics. “I really hope that those who have the opportunities to study this further can fill in those missing pieces in cancer research.”
Brugge is now not accepting job candidates from exterior the U.S., even when they’re prime candidates, as a result of she will be able to’t afford to pay the Trump administration’s new $100,000 price on visas for some international researchers.
The Affiliation of American Universities and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed a authorized problem, claiming the price is misguided and unlawful. The Trump administration mentioned the price would discourage reliance on international staff and enhance alternatives for People.
Brugge doubts work in her lab will ever return to regular.
“There’ll always be, now, this existential threat to the research,” Brugge mentioned. “I will definitely be concerned because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future that might trigger a similar kind of action.”
Brugge has thought of shutting down her lab. However she nonetheless employs workers members whose future scientific careers are tied to ending a number of the analysis. And when she appears at these pink-lidded jars, she nonetheless sees a lot promise.
This text is from a partnership that features WBUR, NPR, and KFF Well being Information.
