Young scientist’s ALS strategy now off the table

When Kelly Rich was at Ohio State, her investigations into ALS and other neuromuscular disorders were sufficiently promising to earn her a career training award from the National Institute for Aging.

Unlike federal funding which is affiliated with specific institutions, the training award aims to assist early-career researchers as they complete doctoral studies and shift from student to independent scientist, giving Rich the flexibility to take the award wherever she chose. She opted for the Harvard Medical School lab of David Sinclair due to his reputation for challenging conventional views on aging and disease.

Many of the health risks we dread most, such as heart disease, cancer, and dementia, become more prevalent with age. Medical research has tackled, or is attempting to tackle, the most crucial inquiries regarding these ailments: What goes awry in the body, how that breakdown results in illness, and how we can counteract it.

Sinclair considers the situation from a broader perspective: If the chances of a particular condition increase with age, what is it about aging that elevates that risk? His hypothesis is that if we can uncover the answer to that query, we may be able to reduce the risk of multiple diseases simultaneously.

Researchers in his lab and others have made headway towards that objective in the recent years. In 2020, Sinclair and his associates — partly backed by the National Institutes of Health and NASA — graced the cover of Nature after they reversed cellular aging in the optic nerves of lab rodents. The team rejuvenated the neurons’ capacity to create new axons — the link between the eye and the brain — and restored vision in mice afflicted with glaucoma and older mice experiencing age-related vision deterioration.

Since the nerve cells in the eye are the same as the neurons in the brain, the project drew Rich to Harvard. She believes the method utilized to rejuvenate the mouse optic nerve holds potential for combating currently untreatable conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy. 

In recent weeks, however, her research has faced an obstacle. Rich, Sinclair, and other scholars across campus have received notifications regarding the termination of grants connected to the government’s efforts to compel Harvard to comply with proposed governance and hiring alterations, as well as audits of faculty and student perspectives.

“We’re all just looking at one another saying, ‘What on earth just occurred?’ and it’s gradually dawning on us,” Sinclair remarked. “We’re genuinely trying to provide support to our lab members, the students who have committed their lives to this, and the postdocs, who are the ones most likely to face dismissals. It’s profoundly frightening for them.”

Sinclair’s lab lost two significant grants — a five-year, $1.5 million award that forms its financial base and Rich’s career grant of $438,000 over six years, which funds her salary and a technician to aid her research.

“I’m still letting everything settle a bit,” Rich said. “This is an especially challenging time for early-career scientists, postdocs, and students. The impact of these cuts is to undermine the confidence and trust of aspiring scientists who wish to be the next generation of academic leaders in the foundational infrastructure that has supported science and scientific careers. Academia appears drastically different today.”

The cancellation of Sinclair’s R01 grant — the NIH funding sustaining his lab — places his entire research agenda in jeopardy. He believes he has sufficient resources to avert layoffs for a few months, but he has been frantically seeking private funding to substitute federal support.

“I’m traveling throughout the country and internationally to see if I can secure funding to continue, and it’s simply a race against time,” he stated. “I can continue for a while, perhaps a few months, but ultimately, we depended on government funding. Thus, I am seeking backing from corporations and the public to replace what has been lost.”

Despite the unstable climate, Rich expressed her determination to avoid making “hasty decisions” regarding her future actions. Her inclination is to persist with Sinclair and pursue an academic career, but she is also open to shifting to an industry role, especially in light of the fragile relationship between federal research partnerships and higher education.

“I plan to remain where I am for as long as I can at this moment,” she noted. “However, one cannot disregard the reality that it seems more challenging than ever to establish a lab in academia, given that the federal funding infrastructure that so many early-career professors rely on has largely dissipated. I have yet to make any choices, but these are considerations that cannot be overlooked. Practicality is essential when contemplating the next step.”