My family has a history of dementia and brain cancer, and it has been truly painful for our loved ones to watch our mothers and grandmothers die slowly in front of us. As I grew up, I realized I wanted to take a proactive approach by committing my life to a scientific pursuit in medicine and the neurological sciences because that pain lingers every day, and I want to channel it into something positive. I study at university and volunteer in research labs with this in mind. Like many other students, I wake up excited to learn and be part of scientific discoveries that can help save lives. It seems as if the Trump administration doesn’t believe in this cause.

For aspiring physician-scientists such as myself, the gold standard of internship or research experiences as an undergraduate student are those with the federal government in bodies such as the National Institutes of Health or National Science Foundation. I was lucky enough to be offered such an internship at the NIH, and it would’ve been the most exciting academic opportunity I’ve had thus far in my career. However, I began to get nervous last month when the program informed me it had paused offers “due to a presidential executive order.” Finally, the program announced it was canceling the internships entirely, as “a result of uncertainty.” While the email was not particularly specific, I imagine they were referring to the federal hiring freeze and NIH budget cuts.

The NIH has a designated internship program known as the Summer Internship Program where individual researchers select undergraduates from a portal where their résumés and personal statements are available for evaluation. I was lucky enough for a researcher at the NIH in a functional neurosurgery group to respond to my olive branch email, read my CV and agree to host me for the summer. I spent many hours during the school year meeting with a graduate student on Zoom to be mentored in the research activities of the lab so I could hit the ground running when summer rolled around. I spent countless hours reading recent neuroscience papers, learning how experiments were set up and understanding the baseline science behind hypotheses.

I remember when my grandmother’s ability to speak slowly deteriorated as a result of a botched meningioma procedure. For her, I was deeply excited to learn more about functional neurosurgery science and be part of scientific advances in the field early in my career.

I now find myself scrambling for research mentors and paid opportunities this summer. Unfortunately, even if the NIH had allowed students to come in on a volunteer basis, I cannot afford to live in the Washington, D.C., area for eight weeks without a stipend. Many American medical scientists have found their research dollars dried up which has left me looking to European universities. I imagine thousands of aspiring scientists across the country report similar experiences. We are all trying to find new opportunities after the Trump administration didn’t feel we were worth the price.

Undergraduate research is dependent on student stipends: An unpaid research opportunity is often just not practical in comparison to paid labor. When the going gets tough for research activities, such as when indirect funds are slashed to 15%, undergraduate student stipends are among the first to get cut. The cuts to training are not limited to summer internships at the NIH. Graduate student admission numbers have also been slashed across the health sciences.

Perhaps, President Donald Trump is engaging in a cost-cutting measure to save tax-payer dollars. However, investment in life-saving research and training of young scientists to conduct that research is absolutely necessary. Countless Americans, regardless of political affiliation, have lost loved ones to health crises or have themselves experienced devastating illnesses. I believe an investment in training scientists is an investment for all Americans, any of whom could find themselves in a hospital bed asking a doctor how long they have left.

We will lose so many capable future scientists if we strip them of training and mentorship opportunities. I believe many aspiring health scientists have a personal or family history that motivates them to find breakthroughs and save lives. This next generation of scientists could cure Alzheimer’s, find new treatments for cancer and give hope to millions of people who may have lost it.

Neil Mahto is a sophomore studying chemistry and English literature at Johns Hopkins University, where he’s the opinion editor of the student-run Johns Hopkins News-Letter.