ROLLINSVILLE -- On Friday, March 14, 2025, the National Institute of Health (NIH) informed Columbia University that “a significant portion” of awards and funding from the NIH had been cancelled. Of $400 million of federal funding cancelled, $250 million came from the NIH. On Tuesday, March 18, Kelton Minor, Ph. D. learned that his funding was among those canceled.

In August of 2024, NIH and its director, Monica M. Bertagnoll, informed Minor he had been selected as the winner of the 2024 Director’s Early Independence Award, funded through their common fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. The award went to Minor for “[s]upporting exceptional junior scientists in establishing accelerated career paths leading to outstanding and sustained contributions to biomedical and behavioral research.”

In October 2024, the NIH announced Minor’s award. Now, with the funds’ cancellation, the momentum in his research program has completely halted, as has his promotion to assistant professor at the university.

Minor posted the announcement on social media, declaring his devastation and shock. He wrote, “As a proud American born and raised in the 'land of the free[,]’ I never thought that my scientific research would be cancelled by my very own government.”

Minor urged social media users to share the story and spread the word. It spread enough that Minor was able to share his perspective on the March 20th episode of the BBC World Service podcast Science in Action, headlined “Columbia cuts and ‘transgender mice.’”

In the episode, Minor states that the initial shock of the news “felt darkly surreal and, to be frank, brutally unfair.” He was given no explanation as to why his award was singled out, but now, losing this funding means that his entire academic future is currently in limbo.

Minor’s mother, Rollinsville resident Cari Minor, has felt a different sense of devastation watching from a distance. She feels equally devastated and shocked by the fund’s cancellation and that the years of work her son has dedicated to research science have been suddenly halted.

Through this experience, Minor hopes that people continue to “[s]pread the word, and don’t let what’s happening die in darkness. When we shut the eyes of science, we lose more than we know.”