AURORA | Federal funding cuts to medical research could have a devastating impact on Colorado’s healthcare system, economy and global scientific leadership, according to leaders at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Rep. Jason Crow.
During a visit to the campus on Tuesday, Crow met with staff and CU Anschutz Chancellor Don Elliman to discuss how proposed cuts by the Trump administration are already straining the campus and threatening future progress.
“The biggest issue that we have is the uncertainty about future funding,” Elliman said.
The proposed cuts target funding from the National Institutes of Health, which awarded $575 million in grants to Colorado in 2023, supporting more than 7,000 jobs statewide, according to a letter from Crow’s office.
“This is life and death stuff for Americans and for Coloradans,” Crow said.
These funds are essential to groundbreaking research on cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, substance abuse, infectious diseases, Down syndrome and more, according to the letter. The economic impact would be substantial, generating more than $1.5 billion in activity across the state, according to Crow’s letter.
“We’re going to figure out a way to continue to do our mission to the best of our ability,” Elliman told reporters after meeting with Crow. “To think that the current atmosphere is not going to have an impact on how we do what we do, especially in the research arena, would be naive. The level of uncertainty right now is definitely causing us to rethink priorities and how we go about our jobs.’’
The CU Anschutz medical campus is home to the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the university’s nursing and dental schools, as well as University Hospital, the region’s VA Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado. In addition, the campus is the site of a variety of research labs and projects both independent and linked to campus entities.
The campus has already seen impacts with halted research projects, terminated grants, “stop work” orders and increasing delays in new and renewal funding, Elliman said. Many grant applications have been stalled, and planning for future studies has come to a halt.
With everything changing day to day, it is difficult for the medical campus to give exact numbers or estimates of the changes and impacts they are working with.
“We’ve lost at least a quarter in terms of timing for when those grants are going to be re-awarded,” Elliman said. “It’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty, a lot of anxiety, we’ve had some job eliminations, not a huge number yet, because we’ve increased what we call our bridge programs to carry people over when their grant is not funding their position at that point in time.”
Elliman said that can only help so much, though.
Some job eliminations have occurred, though Elliman said the university has cushioned the impact, so far. Funding from clinical revenue has helped sustain research staff temporarily, but Elliman said that the solution is neither scalable nor sustainable long-term.
Crow said that while talking to Elliman, they talked about the “chilling effect” the administration’s message was having on the talent pipeline.
“We’re already seeing people taking early retirement, people opting to go elsewhere, people not coming to the United States because they’re afraid of the environment here,” Crow said.
The disruption and funding cuts not only risk future breakthroughs but it also endangers current healthcare quality and access, Crow said.
“Hundreds of thousands of Coloradans have been directly impacted in a positive way by what’s happening here on this campus,” Crow said. “Millions of Americans nationwide could be impacted by the cuts to the research that are being proposed to this campus.
Although the Trump administration says proposed budget cuts are needed to enact government reform, they are misguided and dangerous, Crow said.
“I’m all about a bipartisan approach to making things work faster,” Crow said. “The pendulum has swung so far the other way that now we have the opposite problem. We’re just cutting things without thought.”
The danger of the arbitrary cuts is not only to healthcare systems and research, but there’s real danger to the greater local economy, Crow said.
Every dollar that taxpayers spend on the National Institutes of Health, there is a $2.50 return to our economy, he said.
The CU Anschutz Medical Campus includes Aurora’s Fitzsimons Village, which includes some housing and a variety of entities using the remnants of what was once the Fitzsimons Army Base and hospital.
New to the vast assortment of healthcare and research entities is the Fitzsimons Innovation Community, an effort created by the City of Aurora to promote healthcare and bioscience industries and interests on the campus.
The greater Anschutz Medical Campus is touted as the second-largest economic driver in Colorado, according to the Innovation Community, second to Denver International Airport. There are 28,000 people who work at the hospitals, medical schools, research facilities and support businesses, according to the Innovation Community.
The NIH and related cuts won’t just affect Anschutz, officials warned. Other institutions around the state, including Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and National Jewish Health, all face similar issues, according to Crow’s letter.
Research into colon and pancreatic cancer, Down Syndrome, asthma treatments and DNA sequencing could all be scaled back or stopped entirely, according to Crow’s letter.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined 21 attorneys general from other states in a lawsuit against the federal government to block the cuts. A federal judge has temporarily suspended them, but the outcome is uncertain.
“This is not just about researchers or labs,” Crow said in a statement. “It’s about jobs. It’s about health. It’s about keeping Colorado on the frontlines of medical science. We can’t afford to fall behind.”
Anschutz has contributed mightily to public health with the first liver transplant and the development of the shingles vaccine that you hear about every day on TV. Smaller incremental advancements are also made daily through shared research with other world-class institutions. This is what Trump and Musk are sacrificing so that they can justify tax cuts for the wealthy billionaire oligarchy. It’s a direct transfer of dollars that was used to improve healthcare for millions of regular people to billionaire owners of corporations and wealthy shareholders. No hard-working middle-class voter that I know wanted this outcome. Trump says this will cause a little pain, but it will cost jobs and lives in real terms!