Which specific NIH cancer grants were terminated or frozen under the Trump administration and what studies did they fund?
Executive summary
The Trump administration’s interventions at NIH led to the termination or freezing of hundreds to thousands of awards covering a wide swath of biomedical research, including cancer studies; independent tallies and peer‑reviewed analyses put the number of terminated NIH grants in the hundreds (with aggregate dollar values in the billions) and identify the National Cancer Institute among the most affected institutes [1] [2]. A handful of individual projects have been publicly identified—such as two NIH awards to Dr. Nancy L. Keating studying cancer care integration—but most lists are aggregate counts tracked by researchers, journalists and citizen projects rather than a comprehensive public roster of each cancer grant and its exact scope [3] [4] [5].
1. What was actually halted or cut: scope and headline numbers
Multiple independent counts and reporting place the scale of NIH disruptions in the hundreds to thousands of awards: a peer‑reviewed analysis documented 694 NIH grant terminations totaling roughly $1.81 billion across 24 institutes, and Cancer Therapy Advisor reported the National Cancer Institute as one of the top five institutes with the most terminations (59 NCI grants worth >$180 million) during the studied period [1]. Other outlets and plaintiff filings list slightly different totals—678 projects worth over $2.4 billion or nearly 5,000 awards in broader political tallies—reflecting differences in counting methodology (terminated versus frozen, time windows, and whether pending applications are included) [2] [6].
2. Which cancer studies are specifically named in reporting
Public reporting names only a small number of cancer projects by investigator or grant type: reporting in Hematology Advisor cites that two NIH‑funded grants to Nancy L. Keating—an R01 and a P01—investigating how care integration affects patients with cancer were terminated, and Harvard has publicly sued seeking restoration of terminated NIH funding [3]. Beyond that, journalists and trackers cite that major cancer centers and universities (Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Emory, Michigan among others) saw significant numbers of terminations, but most accounts aggregate at the institutional or institute level rather than listing every cancer grant by title [1] [5].
3. Frozen grants vs. terminated grants — legal and practical differences
Reporting distinguishes “terminated” awards (officially ended) from “frozen” awards or delayed reviews (funds committed but withheld or applications set aside), and settlement agreements have forced NIH to re‑review hundreds of delayed proposals even as separate litigation continues over prior terminations [2] [7]. Plaintiffs tracked thousands of affected grants and won partial court rulings: District Judge William Young found many terminations unlawful and ordered reinstatements, though the Supreme Court intervened to limit that relief and the government appealed—leaving many projects in legal limbo [7] [8].
4. Why these cuts happened and competing narratives
The administration framed actions as reorienting NIH to agency priorities and limiting spending on topics it deemed “duplicative” or misaligned (for example, capping indirect costs and targeting DEI or certain topic keywords), while critics and multiple courts described the moves as unlawful, politically motivated “purges” that targeted diversity, transgender health, and other topics and damaged cancer and public‑health research [9] [5] [7]. Congressional Democrats, state attorneys general and plaintiffs framed the effect as stripping lifelines from cancer, Alzheimer’s and other disease research, spurring legislative and legal pushes to reinstate funding [9] [2] [6].
5. What this means for researchers and the record that exists
The practical fallout—labs in limbo, stalled recruitment, canceled contracts and threatened careers—has been documented in first‑person accounts and sector reporting, but a complete, grant‑level public ledger of every NIH cancer project terminated or frozen and its specific research aims is not present in the cited sources; most available documents provide aggregate counts, institutional tallies, a few named instances (e.g., Keating’s R01/P01), and tracker projects that compile public reports [4] [3] [5] [1]. The settlement agreements and court rulings require further administrative review and will change the status of many applications, so the list of definitively terminated cancer grants remains fluid [10] [8].