How Trump’s policy changes to NIH’s ‘indirect costs’ would affect one Idaho research program

People including researchers from Chicago-area universities gather on the University of Illinois Chicago campus to voice concerns about the potential loss of federal funding for medical research on Feb. 19, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois. The researchers are worried about the future of their projects as the Trump administration cuts grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

As hundreds of people rallied on Wednesday outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin took to the microphone.

Raskin, a Democrat who represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, stood up for the thousands of federal workers – including scientists and researchers all over the country who work for the National Institutes of Health – who have been fired by President Donald Trump’s administration and the chaotic efforts of unelected foreign billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 

“I’ve got constituents who are doing the critical research America needs into AIDS and HIV, into autism, into breast cancer, into colon cancer, into leukemia, into cystic fibrosis, into multiple sclerosis, into malignant narcissistic personality disorder,” Raskin said to cheers, according to reporting from the Idaho Capital Sun’s parent nonprofit States Newsroom.

But that kind of research isn’t just happening in Raskin’s Maryland district, and the effects of the Trump administration’s policies aren’t just being felt by the scientists working on biomedical research in the D.C. area.

These effects are also being felt right here in the Gem State. Here’s one example.

Another of Trump’s changes affecting the National Institutes of Health is a new policy announced Feb. 7 that would cap facilities and administrative costs, or what’s known as “indirect costs,” that the agency can provide to universities and medical schools to help conduct research – including the groundbreaking research taking place through the Idaho INBRE program.

INBRE, short for IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, has been an unprecedented statewide effort since 2001 to create scientific research opportunities and collaborations across all major colleges and universities – public and private – as well as other research institutions like the Idaho Veterans Research and Education Foundation at the Boise VA Medical Center.

“The really unique thing about INBRE for Idaho is that it is a grant that comes to the University of Idaho, but most of the money is given out from the University of Idaho as subcontracts to all the other institutions of higher education across the state,” said Idaho INBRE Program Director and Principal Investigator Carolyn Hovde Bohach, Ph.D., in an interview. “We now include all four community colleges and all public or private universities, or what we call ‘primarily undergraduate institutions.’ This would be BYU-I, the College of Idaho, Northwest Nazarene University, Lewis-Clark State College. So it’s not just the public institutions that benefit from this funding. It’s everyone.”

Idaho institutions aren’t the only ones that benefit from this funding. So do the Idaho patients who will have access to visionary drug treatments due to this research as well as the new discoveries and broader understanding about all the ways we can get sick.

And I should know – after graduating from the University of Idaho in 2009, I spent that summer as an intern writing stories about the mostly undergraduate students and faculty members participating in research through INBRE across Idaho.

I interviewed students and faculty at Nampa’s Northwest Nazarene conducting research on Alzheimer’s disease and how it relates to chronic inflammation of the brain. 

I met with a student and researchers at Moscow’s University of Idaho working to determine how a common yeast and lithium, a chemical element commonly used in mood stabilizers, might be used together to better understand patients with Huntington’s disease. 

I talked with an INBRE fellow at the College of Idaho in Caldwell about how his research might reveal how human exposure to the heavy metal cadmium leads to the development of bone diseases such as osteoporosis and osteomalacia. 

I could continue to list the achievements of the 120 undergraduate researchers who were conducting experiments from Pocatello to Coeur d’Alene that summer – anything from drug therapies and treatments to combat cancer to figuring out how how group A streptococcus binds to human proteins found on the surface of injured skeletal muscles. 

But please understand something: that work was over the course of one summer in 2009. In January, INBRE celebrated its 25th anniversary of continuous funding. Over that time, INBRE’s NIH funding has supported research projects for nearly 6,000 undergrads, more than 600 graduate students, more than 50 post-doctoral students and nearly 700 Idaho faculty members. 

“It’s a huge gamut of topics,” Bohach said. “We have people working on cancer treatments. We have people working on eye development, or things that could lead to losing your vision. We have people working on osteoporosis. We have people working on all sorts of infectious diseases. We have people working on drug development. It’s everything you can think of that relates to human health.”

And all of that research would take a major hit under Trump’s proposed policy to fund “indirect costs” at 15%. That’s because the Idaho INBRE program’s “indirect costs” are currently supplemented by the National Institutes of Health at a much higher rate – 50%. 

While “indirect costs” might seem unimportant due to their name, they are, in fact, essential to pulling off advanced research at this scale, Bohach stressed.

There are “two sides to the same coin” when a researcher applies for an NIH grant, Bohach said. There is the money for the project itself, but there is also money for things like copier machines, office supplies and even utility bills that are necessary to accomplish those tasks.

“So in addition to the money that’s specific for the research itself, we get money that is for indirect costs that provide for, what I would call, the general environment in order to do the research,” she said. “So I need a building where my lab benches are. I need electricity in that building. I need heat. I might need air conditioning. I need staff in order to make sure that I don’t make any mistakes in spending those taxpayer dollars.”

Idahoans may see the cuts Trump is trying to make to reign in deficit spending and a bloated federal budget and think those are good ideas, she said, but Idahoans must also understand that those cuts aren’t happening in a vacuum in a far away state and, perhaps even more importantly, someone would still have to pay for those costs.

“So if NIH wasn’t paying for those things, and we still wanted to do the important research that’s happening, guess who would pay for those things? Idaho taxpayers, right?” Bohach said. “The state of Idaho would have to pay for this. Somebody else would have to pay, or a private company would have to pay, and it’s a huge, huge amount of money.”

It’s important to remember that these cuts haven’t been made – yet.

On Friday, a federal judge announced she will extend a temporary restraining order that prevents the National Institutes of Health from capping indirect costs paid to research universities and medical schools that receive funding from the federal agency, according to States Newsroom reporting.

Good. That means there will be more time for our Idaho congressional delegation to alert the Trump administration on how harmful these cuts would be to Idaho and the innovative research happening statewide in our collective backyards. 

Federal judge extends order blocking ‘devastating’ NIH cap on research payments

Because while I’ve outlined here how much of an impact the INBRE program has had on our students, our faculty and the health of our residents, the consequences of these potential cuts reach beyond that one program.

Indeed there are 65 NIH funded research programs across the state – 33 in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District represented by Republican Rep. Russ Fulcher and 32 in Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District represented by Republican Rep. Mike Simpson. In total, these 65 projects bring in $32 million from the National Institutes of Health, and by extension, from Idaho taxpayers.

In an emailed statement, Idaho Democratic Party Chairwoman Lauren Necochea pointed out that Idaho has a long history of this groundbreaking research, including nuclear advancements at the Idaho National Laboratory and Boise-based Micron’s innovations in memory technology. 

“NIH funding builds on that legacy, powering lifesaving research at colleges and universities across our state, like preventing sudden unexpected infant deaths and reducing the harsh side effects of chemotherapy,” Necochea said. “Yet Idaho’s Republican leaders refuse to stand up to Trump as he guts this critical funding, all to appease a man who cares more about billionaires than working families.”

She’s right. 

Because while Maryland’s elected representatives like Raskin have taken to the streets outside of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services headquarters to demand answers, our congressional delegation has been publicly silent on these transformational and damaging funding changes.

When will our delegation stand up for hardworking Idahoans who are, right now, stepping into laboratories to find the next treatment for the 10,000 Idahoans who will be diagnosed with cancer this year? Or for the 1 in 10 Idahoans who will face their first diabetes diagnosis in 2025? Or for the 30,000 Idahoans who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around the state? 

Isn’t funding cures and drug treatments for Idahoans facing severe disability or even death what we actually want our hard earned taxpayer dollars to go toward? 

Our congressional delegation must understand that these sick patients may be the very people that make up the state’s supermajority GOP voting block and are the Idahoans who likely put them into office in the first place.

These Idaho patients deserve voices and representation in Washington, D.C., that will advocate for this innovative research to continue. 

These Idaho scientists should be commended for the long legacy and growing body of their biomedical research – and for their future discoveries we haven’t yet benefited from – instead of being torn down by confusing policy changes from billionaires who will always be able to afford good medicine and science-based treatment in the face of, God forbid, their own health crisis.

Idahoans, including our scientists and patients, deserve the same.