The Trump administration has treated cancer research like a budget line to be gutted and a bureaucracy to be hobbled. Its FY2026 plan proposes about a 40% cut to NIH and about a 37% cut to the National Cancer Institute, which would mean fewer grants, fewer clinical trials, and fewer high-risk ARPA-H projects. It also talks about ending or merging key programs, including the minority health institute. OMB funding freezes and blocked NIH notices have delayed peer review and awards. A new 15% cap on NIH “indirect” costs—now tied up in court—would pull money from labs, staff, and patient care that trials rely on. Removing equity requirements in cancer care models and sidelining federal science at EPA further weakens the pipeline from prevention to cure. Together, these moves slow discovery and put future cancer breakthroughs out of reach.
The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium (PBTC) was a unique NCI-funded network created in 1999 to run early-phase clinical trials for children with brain tumors. In 2025, the Trump administration’s NCI said it would end PBTC funding after March 2026 and move its work to another program. Soon after, PBTC paused new enrollment across its trials—including promising CAR-T studies—so children who had waited months for a spot were turned away. Doctors and advocacy groups warned this would cause real harm, because pediatric brain tumors are a leading cause of cancer death in kids, and for some diagnoses—like DIPG—standard treatments are limited or don’t work well. Ending PBTC support and halting enrollments didn’t just change paperwork; it cut off immediate options for families who needed these trials now.
📺 - Click here for our Example Content Library
The example content is only intended to illustrate potential uses of the included research, it has not been vetted or cleared for paid distribution.
¶ The administration’s FY2026 budget aggressively sought to cuts and restructure NIH and NCI, slashing cancer research capacity
- HHS testimony requested only $27.5B for NIH (about a 40% cut from FY2025) while asserting NIH has “broken the trust of the American people,” signaling both reduced resources and hostile posture toward mainstream medical research. (hhs.gov)
- The White House budget preview outlined eliminating the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and other NIH components and consolidating programs. Universities warn these changes would upend U.S. research. (ofr.harvard.edu)
- The President’s budget would cut the National Cancer Institute to $4.531B—about 37% below its current funding.. (fightcancer.org)
- The National Cancer Institute confirms its FY2025 appropriation is $7.22B, underscoring the magnitude of the proposed reduction. (cancer.gov)
- CRS finds the budget would cut new NIH competing grants by 29% and reduce ARPA‑H from an estimated $1.5B to $945M, directly shrinking high‑risk cancer R&D. (congress.gov)
Brookings estimates NIH direct research funding would fall ~40%, with National Cancer Institute research grants down 38.6% and intramural research down 36% from 2025 levels. (brookings.edu)
- OMB’s January funding freeze created immediate uncertainty; courts intervened, while HHS also “indefinitely” blocked NIH Federal Register postings needed for peer‑review meetings—delaying grant awards—before partial reversals. (alston.com)
- The administration briefly halted NIH research funding via an OMB footnote restricting spending to salaries and facilities, pausing grants and contracts until public and congressional pressure forced a reversal. (washingtonpost.com)
- Reuters warned of “backdoor” cuts by delaying obligation of billions in health and education funds at fiscal year‑end—an executive tactic that can cancel congressionally approved spending. (reuters.com)
¶ A mandated 15% cap on NIH “indirect costs” would cripple the research infrastructure that enables cancer studies nationwide
- Trump’s NIH issued a policy capping indirect cost reimbursement at 15% for new and existing grants; a federal court imposed a nationwide preliminary injunction, but litigation continues. (congress.gov)
- 22 states and major institutions sued, with judges blocking the cuts amid warnings of layoffs, lab closures, and stalled clinical trials. (reuters.com)
- Universities and medical groups say the cap would gut support for labs, staff, patient operations, and compliance essential to cancer trials. (news.stanford.edu)
- Independent analyses estimate the cap would strip roughly $4B/year from institutional research infrastructure, triggering widespread layoffs and facility shutdowns. (embopress.org)
- Trump’s budget preview proposed eliminating NIMHD, directly shrinking research into cancer disparities and community‑based participation. (ofr.harvard.edu)
- CMS quietly dropped key health‑equity data requirements from the Enhancing Oncology Model, rolling back tools to integrate social determinants into oncology care. (ajmc.com)
NIH documents show health disparities impose enormous national costs, underscoring the stakes of cutting minority health research capacity. (nih.gov)
¶ Trump’s Politicization and downsizing of federal science weakened research into cancer causes
- Trump’s EPA eliminated its Office of Research and Development and began mass layoffs, reducing independent environmental health science that informs carcinogen regulation and cancer prevention. (apnews.com)
- Executive actions to reclassify civil servants (reviving Schedule F‑style authority) make it easier to purge career scientists and reviewers across agencies central to health research. (reuters.com)
- AP’s analysis shows EPA’s deregulatory push minimizes health benefits in rulemaking, risking increased pollution‑related morbidity and mortality that cancer research must confront. (ap.org)
¶ The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium (PBTC) was the only NCI-funded network dedicated solely to early-phase pediatric brain tumor trials and had a long track record of lifesaving research.
- The PBTC was formed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1999 to improve treatment of primary brain tumors in children through multi-center early-phase trials across leading hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. (pbtc.org)
- Leaders in the field note the PBTC was the only NCI-funded initiative focused exclusively on early-phase trials for children and young adults with brain tumors and has been pivotal since 1999. (braintumor.org)
- The Society for Neuro-Oncology warned that discontinuing PBTC funding endangers a cornerstone of pediatric brain tumor trial development. (soc-neuro-onc.org)
¶ In 2025, under the Trump administration, NCI announced it would end PBTC funding after March 2026 and began transitioning trials away from the network.
- NCI stated that, following its assessment, “the PBTC will not be able to apply for another 5-year funding award to continue its funding beyond March 2026,” with activities to be shifted into the Pediatric Early Phase Clinical Trials Network (PEP-CTN). (dctzd.cancer.gov)
- NCI’s transition page reiterates the PBTC will not be renewed beyond March 2026 and describes moving PBTC studies to PEP-CTN “wherever feasible and appropriate.” (dctd.cancer.gov)
- National media and trade coverage reported NCI was ending support for the 26-year-old PBTC, noting the network would be ineligible to seek renewed funding past March 2026. (fiercebiotech.com)
- PBS NewsWeekend reported that, in August 2025, the Trump administration announced it would stop supporting the federally funded PBTC beginning March 2026. (pbs.org)
- The PBTC told member institutions to stop enrolling new patients across six active trials after the federal funding decision; these included a CAR‑T cell trial for ependymoma. (beckershospitalreview.com)
- PBS reported that PBTC “paused enrollment in its ongoing clinical trials,” meaning “all new entries are on hold or suspended.” (pbs.org)
- The PBTC national vice chair confirmed the group lost NCI funding, would dissolve, and had “closed all trials to new enrollments.” (spectrumlocalnews.com)
- KQED reported that “enrollment in active studies was suspended” and “families who had waited months for a spot in those trials were told to go home,” with the PBTC chair adding, “Currently, there are no options for new patients.” (kqed.org)
- Elected officials documented that “terminal patients on waiting lists for these trials will no longer be able to enroll, and those currently enrolled may lose access… as studies are put on hold due to lack of funding.” (gillibrand.senate.gov)
- Clinicians at Children’s Hospital Colorado said trials at their PBTC site were affected and that this unpredictability is “stressful for families,” especially those whose children were already enrolled or awaiting opportunities. (kunc.org)
- Reporting based on the PBTC decision shows children were turned away from specific PBTC trials, including a HER2 CAR‑T study for recurrent ependymoma run across multiple PBTC centers, after new enrollment was halted. (beckershospitalreview.com)
- The New York Times–based reports emphasized that the paused PBTC trials included options for cancers with few or no effective standard treatments for children, underscoring the immediate, individualized impact on those waiting. (beckershospitalreview.com)
- KQED described identified families who had “waited months” for PBTC trial slots but were told to go home when enrollment was suspended, reflecting discrete, real-world harms to those children. (kqed.org)
- Pediatric cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related death for U.S. children, heightening the stakes of lost trial access. (reuters.com)
- Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) remains almost uniformly fatal, with fewer than 10% of children surviving two years, so access to innovative early-phase trials is often the only path beyond palliative care. (news.weill.cornell.edu)