Lasers operate in a University at Albany lab in the RNA Institute on Dec. 19, 2022.

When I talk about scientific research, I try to tell stories that convey how the science that happens every day on campuses like the University at Albany’s improves lives. Why rattle off statistics when you can talk about impossibly small lab-grown human hearts?

The problem with that anecdotal approach is that it undersells this work, which has become frustratingly clear amid the federal government’s efforts to overhaul federally funded scientific research.

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The Trump administration recently proposed halving the budget of the National Science Foundation and dramatically scaling back grant overhead critical to universities’ ability to conduct this research on the public’s behalf. This follows similar proposals from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy, currently being challenged in court.

What’s at stake is far greater than the quality of our hurricane forecasts, the speed with which we develop new treatments for diseases like muscular dystrophy or our ability........

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