UCSD - University of California - San Diego

06/29/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/29/2026 16:04

Pivot Grants Sustain UC San Diego Research After Federal Funding Cuts

Published Date

June 29, 2026

Article Content

Do no harm is a fundamental principle in research ethics. Often considered the golden rule of medicine and public health, the ideology is rooted in the necessity to weigh risks of research participation against benefits while prioritizing participant safety. In human subject research it mandates that the research prioritizes safety, well-being and dignity of human participants above all else.

After the abrupt dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in early 2025, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine's Center on Gender Equity and Health were left scrambling to fulfill their ethical obligations to participants in their research studies, while also ensuring that previously collected data was secured and maintained with the hopes of continuing the work in the future.

"The way we were required to terminate our programs while in the middle of collecting survey data brought forth some ethical challenges," said Lotus McDougal, PhD, assistant adjunct professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of gender data and metrics for the Center on Gender Equity and Health. "We told participants that their data would be used for the benefit of their communities, but suddenly we had no funding to continue the surveys in progress."

Lotus McDougal, Rebecka Lundgren and Holly Baker received pivot grant funding from Prebys Foundation.

A lifeline to continue their work

To help protect San Diego's biomedical research sector Prebys Foundation generously provided a $1 million gift to UC San Diego to support faculty whose federal research grants were disrupted in 2025. Within 30 days of receiving the gift, the School of Medicine developed and launched a pivot grant program, open to any early- and mid-level career researchers conducting health-related research across campus.

McDougal, along with colleagues Holly Baker, PhD, adjunct professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science; Rebecka Lundgren, PhD, associate adjunct professor of medicine; and Kathryn Barker, ScD, assistant adjunct professor of medicine, were among the 19 recipients for the first round of grants.

McDougal, Lundgren and Baker received funding for their project Agency for All. Launched in 2022, the USAID-funded initiative sought to understand how much control, ability and power people and communities have to make decisions about their own lives.

Lundgren described the project as a flagship behavioral change research consortium bringing together global partners to conceptualize and measure agency across domains including reproductive health, family planning and maternity care.

"We were trying to understand agency more deeply - the factors that limit it, the factors that support it, and whether increasing people's agency can lead to better health outcomes," said Lundgren. "Another important part of the work was making sure our global partners had agency within the project itself, allowing them to take the lead in identifying priorities, and shape the research and guide the approaches we implemented together."

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Agency Defined

The awareness of choices, the ability to set goals and the power to take action.

Baker's research focused on young people in late adolescence and early adulthood in Kenya, in communities where social norms often encourage unhealthy sexual behaviors. Baker was looking to understand how to better support these youth. The research team began by asking participants to describe what a "good life" meant to them. This helped reveal their aspirations, values and long-term hopes. The intention was to use these self-defined ideas of a good life as a foundation for helping young people recognize their own agency and make healthier choices aligned with their goals.

"Fortunately, we were able to get full baseline data. Unfortunately, the intervention we planned - a large multimedia program across Kenya - did not happen," said Baker. "The pivot grant played a major role in keeping gender equity at the forefront of the center's work, especially during a period when global support for gender equity has declined."

Kathryn Barker

For Barker, whose project Gender Leadership, Equity, and Advancement for Development (Gender LEAD) also ended abruptly, the pivot funding provided space to continue work on gender norms in new ways. She was able to publish manuscripts, present at international conferences alongside Baker, and continue supporting a stipend for a UC San Diego master's student working on the project who later secured a biostatistics position at another university.

"UC San Diego has been a global leader in the gender equity space," said Barker. "Gender norms are the invisible rules that shape who cares for the home, who pursues education or work and who feels safe in their own community. Unless we name and challenge these unspoken expectations, real progress toward gender equity - and the agency needed for people to pursue meaningful futures - will remain out of reach."

Sustaining science - and responsibility

Amit Majithia

The federal funding disruptions forced abrupt changes in multiple research programs, particularly those involving long-term global health partnerships and human subject research.

For Amit Majithia, MD, associate professor of medicine, the pivot grant provided time and resources to protect and expand his research on insulin resistance and why some people progress to disease while others do not.

"Through human genetics, blood-based proteomics, and adipose tissue biology, our goal is to identify genes and circulating proteins that can serve as biomarkers, therapeutic targets, or better ways to classify risk," said Majithia.

His project grew out of earlier work on sex differences in cardiometabolic disease. Before menopause, women tend to have some protection against insulin resistance-related conditions, but that protection declines post-menopause. That research identified factors released by fat tissue that may contribute to insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease, including a gene called TNFAIP8.

The pivot grant allowed the lab to expand the scope of the research beyond sex-specific questions and generate new preliminary data for future funding opportunities, including programs focused on diseases affecting women veterans.

"The pivot grant allowed us to broaden the work," Majithia said. "We are now studying which proteins secreted by human fat cells may play a causal role in diabetes and cardiovascular disease across broader populations."

In practical terms, the grant helped convert a federal funding disruption from a hard stop into a scientific pivot. "It allowed us to move from a cancelled grant application to a broader, fundable research program," he added.

A fluid impact

After funding from Prebys Foundation was distributed, some researchers' federal funding was reinstated. To further the impact of the original gift, $150,000 in funds have been re-distributed to support additional researchers.

  • Binhai Zheng, PhD, professor of neurosciences, for bridge support for spinal cord injury and neurodegeneration research.
  • Ming Tai-Seale, PhD, professor of family medicine, for the UC San Diego Center on Learning Health Systems Science, which aims to revolutionize health care delivery through continuous learning and improvement.
  • David Cheresh, PhD, professor of pathology, for bridge support to continue his lab's work on understanding the molecular mechanisms promoting angiogenesis, tumor progression and metastasis in order to develop novel therapeutics for cancer.

"The generosity of Prebys Foundation made it possible to act quickly when researchers needed us most," said Sam Ward, PT, PhD, vice dean of research for the School of Medicine. "What we've seen from these investigators is remarkable, not just continuity, but genuine scientific momentum. Careers have been sustained, ethical obligations to research participants have been honored and new discoveries are already emerging. This is what it looks like when philanthropy and institutional commitment work together."

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A Collective Effort

After the announcement of the gift from Prebys Foundation, others were inspired to contribute to the preservation of vital research. An anonymous donor contributed support for eight researchers from the original applicant pool who did not receive awards in the initial funding round. Additionally, a separate alumni-led philanthropic effort raised nearly $50,000 to support a researcher whose critical research was interrupted by federal funding disruptions.

Moving forward

The decline in federal funding is foundationally changing the landscape for researchers and universities, noted McDougal. "Many areas that we have trained in and worked in for most of our careers are being undervalued and underfunded right now," she added. "It's been really meaningful to have recognition from UC San Diego and Prebys Foundation, that what we work on is valid and is important, and that there is a commitment to help us find ways to continue working."

Across these projects, researchers said the pivot grants have helped sustain not only ongoing science, but the ethical responsibilities that come with medical research.

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