John Quackenbush

How does cancer progress? Gene behavior holds clues. | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health John Quackenbush does groundbreaking research that uses massive gene datasets to explore how diseases progress, particularly cancer.

This is a nice overview of both my work and the impact of federal research cuts. I am at the point where I need to think about reinventing myself because we are watching the destruction of the research enterprise in the US.

hsph.harvard.edu/news/how-doe...

They are attacking Harvard and using anti-antisemitism as a pretense. But they are also trying to eliminate expertise and any long-term investment in science. There is no logic other than breaking things because they can. It's like a high school bully who attacks smart kids because we threaten him.

@baym.lol, so sorry to hear this. I had an NCI R35, submitted my competitive renewal (more than 40 papers and a slew of new methods- with one NCI called one of 2024's most significant advances). I got a good score and was hopeful. Pre-council, I got an e-mail saying NCI was terminating the program.

Government word search is killing my cutting-edge research The Trump administration seems to believe that some words and ideas fail an ill-posed and completely nonscientific test of orthodoxy.

The irrationality of the war on science that the Trump Administration has been waging manifests as indiscriminate termination of individual projects and whole lines of inquiry based solely on "bad words" appearing in their descriptions. #WarOnScience @statnews.com
www.statnews.com/2025/04/23/u...

If my institution has DEIA policies, so we recruit highly qualified personnel from a range of backgrounds, treat them equitably, create an environment where certain members aren't excluded, and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, we can't work to cure disease. Please, someone, explain.

And now the funds supporting this work are at risk. We've already been told that one funding program has been discontinued and that the grant application won't be reassigned. The project is dead with no attention to the actual work to be done.

My own work sheds light on how diseases such as cancer and emphysema develop, progress, and respond to treatment-and why these differ between the sexes. This isn't "woke science." It addresses real problems and points to better treatments for everyone. We deliver new methods in open-source software.

iPhones and GPS wouldn’t exist without research funded by the US government. What’s at stake in Trump cuts to university funding | CNN Imagine a world without the internet, or GPS, MRNA vaccines or the touchscreen on your iPhone. The science and technology that have become integral to our daily lives may never have existed, experts s...

I'm a proud Harvard Professor, and the University stands behind academic freedom that powers discovery. Grants are not gifts; they are contracts on which we have to deliver. We work long, hard hours, train students, and return innovation and value to the US. #Harvard

www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/u...

A federal research grant is not a gift, but a contract in which the grantee has to complete the work for which they were funded. Receiving a grant comes through a competitive process, and the terms of those contracts are not arbitrary. Harvard doesn't get free money. Grants are hard-won.

NIH funding delivers exponential economic returns — Harvard Gazette Report finds all 50 states reap gains in patient health, job creation, research resources, business development.

Our history of investment in funding biomedical research has positioned the US as the world leader, improved human health, trained generations of highly talented individuals who have founded biotech and lead pharmaceutical companies that employ tens of thousands.
news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

‘This is life or death’: Mass. scientists fear consequences of funding cuts by federal government New changes in how the federal government plans to fund research are sending a chill through many local laboratories.

I was interviewed by a local news channel about the disruptions in NIH funding. While the news story concentrates on the proposed reduction in facilities and administration costs, what they left out of the story is the significant risks of wider funding slowdown.
www.boston25news.com/news/local/t...