Led by Professor Ester Sabino of the University of São Paulo, the project had been suspended due to a funding freeze by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
A Brazilian research project on Chagas disease that had been interrupted by the actions of Donald Trump administration in the United States has resumed after the release of payments that had been withheld by order of the US federal government.
The SaMI-Trop project is led by Professor Ester Sabino, from the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of São Paulo (FMUSP), and funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), as part of a program aimed at studying neglected tropical diseases. The aim is to develop new technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of Chagas disease, which is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and affects around 7 million people worldwide (most of them in Latin America).
Ester Sabino – Photo: Léo Ramos Chaves/Revista Pesquisa FAPESP CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sabino told Jornal da USP at the beginning of February that the NIH had denied payment of the project's expenses for January and that the release of the funds would depend on an analysis by the US government's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The denial came amid a series of restrictions on scientific activity announced by the Trump administration at the very beginning of its term, including a freeze on funding, suspension of programs, withdrawal of data from the Internet, mass layoffs, and even a ban on meetings to analyze projects and issue press releases.
Without knowing how long the funds would be withheld, or even if the project would continue to be funded, Sabino suspended work as a precaution. “How am I going to continue studying if I do not know if I am going to have the money to pay the bills?” said the researcher, in an article published by Jornal da USP on February 12th.
Two days later, Sabino saw news in the US press that several actions by the Trump administration were being challenged in the US courts, and that a judge had unblocked NIH's research funds. She then decided to submit a new payment order for US$50,000 for project expenses in January and February. Four days later, payment was received and work on the project resumed. “We are taking a bit of a risk, but we are back to work,” says the researcher.
Sabino says that so far she hasn't received any communication from the NIH and that she cannot say exactly what is going on or how things will work from now on. More than a thousand NIH employees have been laid off, several activities are still paralyzed, and the agency – the world's leading biomedical research center – is under intense pressure to conform to the Trump administration's new policies.
The SaMI-Trop project was approved in an international call by NIH in 2022, with a term of five years and an estimated budget of US$400,000 per year. The concern now is what might happen in March, when the project will go through an annual process to renew its funding contract with the US agency – subject to revisions in the estimated amounts, according to NIH's budget and priorities. “I am a little relieved that I no longer have an urgent situation to deal with, but I am still apprehensive about whether we will be able to continue with the project or not,” says Sabino.