President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jayanta Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., said Wednesday that he will address recent cuts made to the agency if confirmed but avoided sharing specific plans.
When senators from both sides of the aisle questioned Bhattacharya about recent NIH cuts—such as federal layoffs and caps to “indirect costs” for research grants—he deferred to broad, vague statements during his March 5 Senate confirmation hearing.
For example, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine asked whether the physician-scientist would reverse the cap if confirmed.
“I absolutely commit to following the law, to addressing this issue very directly,” Bhattacharya said. “I think that this is one of those issues—to me, it’s an indicator of distrust that some have of universities and the scientific process, and so I want to make sure that we address those concerns as well.”
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“I wasn’t involved in the decision about the cap, but if I’m confirmed as NIH director, that’s something I’ll look very carefully at,” he added later in response to another senator.
“Every dollar wasted on a frivolous study, every dollar wasted on administrative costs that are not needed, is a dollar not spent on research,” Bhattacharya said separately.
When Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington inquired about the recent cuts, Bhattacharya said he will work to ensure scientists “have the resources they need.”
“I don’t have any intention to cut anyone at the NIH,” he said, later adding that he “was not involved” in the personnel cuts.
He said his work would align with Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The HHS is the parent organization of the NIH.
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Bhattacharya currently serves as the director of Stanford University's Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, a role he has held since 2011. He’s known for co-authoring an open letter in October 2020 that called for an end to pandemic lockdowns.
Previously, the NIH had a yearly budget of nearly $48 billion, making the agency the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.