On August 25, 2025, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced the cancellation of the Minority Biomedical Research Support program. The program, which awards federal grants to colleges and universities to help more students from marginalized backgrounds enter biomedical sciences, will end on September 25, 2025.
Kennedy cited two executive orders, signed by President Donald Trump in January 2025 that aim to eliminate so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives from the federal government as the reason for the program’s cancellation. Rochelle Newman, a University of Maryland psychologist who relies on a program grant to pay and train undergraduate researchers, said that “cutting [] these programs means that an entire generation of students will end up being lost to science.”