The Association of American Medical Colleges said federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump's administration are impacting medical research and students trying to enter the field, including one Ohio State University graduate from Campbell who reached out to 21 News, worried about what this all means for his future.

Anthony Kantaras is a 2024 grad with a neuroscience degree, now trying to get into a research program, a critical next step for him to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.

Coming from a working class background, Kantaras said he's paved his way into this field, an already challenging pursuit to excel in this field has been amplified by federal cuts to the National Institute of Health, the world's leader in biomedical research.

"It's forcing so many people, not just current students, but professionals and PhDs that are already well established into their careers. It's forcing them to pivot," he said. "I, of course, am very disheartened, discouraged."

After applying to about 10 research education programs, he said admissions directors informed him they have paused their application review due to a "delay in receiving expected funding" from NIH.

He's not alone.

"We are hearing from our colleagues all around the country about similar concerns and similar scenarios," Association of American Medical Colleges Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick (Md, MPH) said. 

The federal budget reduction for the NIH has led to canceled grants, funding shortfalls, and layoffs at major research institutions across the country.

"This is after grants have been reviewed and funded, usually by the NIH, and are now being terminated. That's a very unusual action in the community of academic medicine," Fuentes-Afflick said, "Anything related to NIH funding will have an impact. NIH has been for decades, for about 50 or 60 years, the world's leader in funding of biomedical research."

"It's really hard not to really want to give up," Kataras said, "considering I'm putting so much time into applying and studying for my MCAT, which is a really intensive, eight-hour long exam."

It's not just aspiring doctors and other medical professionals who are impacted.

"If we talk about the more common suspension or termination of individual grants, what that means for that individual team is that they have to stop the work that was funded. They stopped the work, whether it's in their lab, whether it's a clinical trial, whatever it is, they have to stop because they no longer have funding," Fuentes-Afflick said, "People will be laid off. All the people who work in a lab or on a clinical project, the clinical coordinators, the lab techs."

Fuentes-Afflick said cuts could affect everything from cancer research to drug development, including clinical trials.

"The important research that they were going to do, the discoveries that they were going to make, are gone," she said, "If you or someone in your family or someone in your community has cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, asthma, arthritis, a form of childhood cancer, I can promise you that you have directly benefited from NIH-funded research."

Despite the uncertainty, Kantaras said he is remaining optimistic about his future. 

"If there's one thing that all this uncertainty and trial and error and just, pure pivoting, has taught me over the last year, over the last month, more than ever, is the importance of resilience," he said, "and the ability to pivot, because I've done plan A, plan B, plan C, and, you know, we're kind of on like plan Q at the time moment."

He added that he's firm on the mindset that "through adversity, sprouts growth, and you've got to learn to accept the rain, to grow. And let's just hope that this is one of those situations."

The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed major cuts are necessary to root out "waste, fraud and abuse," although evidence of such abuse has been widely challenged.

Kantaras urges people who are concerned to write to their representatives.