Curtis Pickering

@markhisted.org wrote an informative commentary about the damage being done to NIH and research. Every concerned scientist and citizen should read this and speak up to help stop it. Talk to your colleagues about it. Call your representatives. US research is being destroyed. We used to be the best.

The Principled Investigator - January 23, 2026 Weekly digest

Our digest this week is focused on the NIH budget in congress. There are lots of details to understand that we try to summarize. theprincipledinvestigator.substack.com/p/the-princi...

No it did not. The baseline I used was 0% MYF.

The number of funded grants can recover to normal levels, even with MYF in the funding mix. However, temporary MYF can induce large oscillations in the number of funded grants unless there are additional interventions to modulate the swings. 13/13

In conclusion, introducing large amounts of MYF into NIH funding system will can cause dramatic reductions in the number of new grants, as we saw in FY25. Since biomedical research requires stable funding streams, these dramatic reductions are likely to cause labs to close. 12/n

In this model, the oscillations don’t go away and average around 2000 new grants per year. In reality, the large oscillations could be moderated by surging larger numbers of shorter-term grants to get the system to stabilize around the usual 2000 new grants per year. 11/n

Graph of new NIH grants modeling 2 years at 39% MYF and then 0% MYF for the remaining years. Very large oscillations are introduced into the system.

Interestingly, if FY26 recovers from 39% MYF then large oscillations are induced in the system. If there are 2 years of 39% MYF before recovering to 0% MYF, then very large oscillations are introduced with swings from 1220 new grants to 3084 grants over 3 years. 10/n

Graph of 39% MYF for 1 year and then 80% MYF for the remaining years. Total new grants drop for 2 years before recovering.

Any level of MYF higher than 63% will push the total number of new grants lower than FY25 (year 1 in the plot) before rebounding and oscillating. 9/n

Graph modeling 39% MYF for 1 year and then 50% MYF for the remaining years. An initial drop in total grants is followed by a recovery and oscillation in future years.

So, what might happen in the next few years? If the MYF level increases further to anything less than 63%, the total number of new grants actually increases relative to FY25, because the amount of already allocated funds keeps decreasing for each year of MYF. 8/n

This modeling shows a 31% drop in grants the first year of 39% MYF. Nature reported that NIH grants dropped 24% from the 10-year average in FY25. The discrepancy is likely due to my modeling only including 5-year grants and NIH has other lengths in the mix. 7/n

Modeling a switch to 39% MYF. Total new grants drop in the first year before recovering and oscillating in future years.

What happened in FY25 at NIH was 39% MYF. If we keep a constant 39% MYF in this model, the new grants drop to 1376 in the first year before recovering and increasing by year 5. However, the system then oscillates on a 5-year timeframe with an average of about 1990 new grants each year. 6/n

Plot of modeling new NIH grants after a switch to 100% MYF. There is a large drop in grants in the first year with a gradual recovery over 5 years.

In this modeling, 100% standard system results in 2000 new grants each year. What happens during a transition between standard NIH funding and MYF funding? In a 100% MYF system, new grants drop to 400 in the first year before recovering to 2000 by year 5. 5/n

In a standard NIH system 80% of the funds each year go to already funded grants and 20% will go to new grants. In a fully MYF system 100% of funds can go to new grants, but because each year 1 is 5x as large, the total number of new grants is equal in both systems. 4/n

I modeled a consistent NIH budget of 10,000 arbitrary grant units. New grants come out of the funds not allocated to standard NIH grants from the previous 5 years. Standard grants are 1x each year for 5 years and MYF grants are 5x in 1 year. Year 0 is 100% standard NIH system. 3/n

Let’s start with the modeling assumptions: A standard 5-year NIH grant, such as an R01, is budgeted at NIH as 20% of the total grant budget each year for 5 years. In contrast, a MYF grant is budgeted 100% in the first year and 0% for subsequent years. 2/n

Plot of modeling new NIH grants after a switch to 100% MYF. There is a large drop in grants in the first year with a gradual recovery over 5 years.

There is a lot of talk lately about multi-year funding (MYF) at NIH. This is mostly a paperwork issue, but it can have a dramatic impact on the number of grants that get funded. I was curious how this would impact grant numbers over time, so I did some simple modeling. 1/n

This is an important discussion about how NIH is being destroyed from the inside. Please contact your senator and representatives and let them know what is happening.

The Principled Investigator - November 14, 2025 Weekly digest

Here is the Principled Investigator post for this week. We also plan to have a couple extra posts this week on particularly important topics, so stay tuned. theprincipledinvestigator.substack.com/p/the-princi...

The Principled Investigator - November 7, 2025 Weekly Digest

@principledinvestig.bsky.social has a new post this week with lots of good information about the destruction going on at NIH, lost datasets, impacts to healthcare, and more. It's worth a read. theprincipledinvestigator.substack.com/p/the-princi...

The Principled Investigator - October 31, 2025 Weekly digest

I saw it in the Principled Investigator Substack, and they reference a Science article that notes an NIH presentation. open.substack.com/pub/theprinc...

There are reports that the goal is to get to 100% MYF by FY27.

If you are overwhelmed by all of the attacks on science in this country and have trouble following it all, below is a new resource to digest it all. They will have weekly posts with key information. Subscribe and share it. It is run by scientists from across the country.

I have been thinking about "this is what NSF has meant to me" style posts and I want to talk a little about two sisters: one who had a chance to make a career in a country that had NSF/NIH and one who didn't.

Screenshot of the AACR GENIE cBioPortal website notice of being temporarily down to ensure compliance with US regulations.

Well, the AACR GENIE cBioPortal site is down to make sure it complies with the new regulations. Let’s hope it’s temporary.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

The Continuing Crisis, Part VII: An Overview

Another “Continuing Crisis” post, this one covering some larger principles and explaining why I’m doing these in general:

a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card

I am not going to call this a Bluetorial, because I do not want to sully that term (which, at least I, find joyful).

Let’s call it a Orwellial.

Did you know - the medicine that President Trump takes each day to lower his risk of having a heart attack is a direct result of NIH funding? Let me explain -

I think people both within science and outside science don’t fully appreciate the miracle that were the Covid-19 vaccines. How much courage it took to get the sequence out, how much work had already gone into figuring out the best viral antigen and how best to present it. 1/

Once upon a time, some villagers came across a large, ornate wooden box in the local woods. On the side of the box was a message:

“Whatever money you put in this box will, in future, grow to become 2.5 times larger.”

1/