NEW YORK – Like every year at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology annual meeting, genomics tools companies large and small were showcasing their latest and greatest technologies this year, sparing no expense on their marketing efforts.
But one thing felt different about this year's meeting, which wrapped up in Marco Island, Florida, on Wednesday: In the face of a 15 percent proposed cap by the Trump administration on the National Institutes of Health's coverage of indirect costs for research grants, new research priorities by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and potential cuts to the NIH budget going forward, there appeared to be deep uneasiness among conference participants, both on the research and commercial side, about what the future holds for genomic research.
While few conference speakers addressed the issue head-on in their scientific presentations, there was rampant chatter in the hallways. Informal discussions with researchers, many of whom are supported by NIH funding, during the breaks revealed a common theme: uncertainty.
Reactions to this uncertainty seem to vary. While some researchers said their institutions had reduced admissions of graduate students this year, for example, and that they were wary about their ability to travel to conferences later in the year, others said their leadership had told them to go ahead with "business as usual," at least for now.
Companies were also trying to get a read on their customers' funding situation and how it may impact their business. According to Joel Fellis, VP of product management of sequencing platforms at Illumina, customers "have a lot of questions about what the future holds. We're here to learn from them and understand how we can help and support them."
"There's a lot of uncertainty," said Barrett Bready, CEO and founder of genome mapping firm Nabsys. "I don't feel like anyone feels confident in their assessment of the situation."
"I think that's a big problem, people just don't know what's going to happen. Is this going to be just a little blip, or is this going to be a huge catastrophe?" echoed John Thompson, principal application scientist at Nabsys.
According to Rob Tarbox, VP of product and marketing at Complete Genomics, there was "a fair bit of conversation here at AGBT" about the proposed NIH funding cuts. While he has seen "a general unease" from customers, he said, at this point, "I haven't seen it expressed in terms of any real material impact."
One palpable effect of the new administration's grip on the NIH was the absence of NIH researchers at AGBT this year. Notably, Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, who was supposed to give a keynote address about the meeting's 25th anniversary, could not attend because of a travel pause that was only recently lifted.
Other government researchers were able to travel to Florida, though — both the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is part of the Department of Commerce, and the US Department of Agriculture, for example, had scientists in attendance at AGBT.
Some researchers publicly pointed out the importance of NIH funding to their work. "In addition to the usual acknowledgements to my team, and collaborators, and infrastructure that have helped us create these data, I want to give a very, very special shoutout to the NIH," said Tuuli Lappalainen, who holds dual appointments at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the New York Genome Center, at the end of a well-received talk about functional variation in the human genome.
"The vast majority of the work that I presented today was funded by the NIH, from the large consortia to research projects in my labs to postdoctoral fellowships, and given the attacks that the NIH is under now, I really hope that we as a community can defend our sources of funding," she said.
The meeting concluded on Wednesday afternoon with a feedback session, during which Joe Beechem, CSO and senior VP of R&D at Bruker Spatial Biology, went up to the microphone and asked participants for a round of applause for Green and his contributions to AGBT. His request resulted in a prolonged standing ovation from attendees.