Tamara Dubowitz’s study of cognitive aging in Black residents of low-income Pittsburgh neighborhoods was nearly done. The five-year, $9.6 million grant from the National Institute on Aging had roughly $7 million spent, a cohort of about 600 predominantly African American residents tracked through interviews and health measures, and a completion date in sight. On August 4, 2026, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya sent a letter to the University of Pittsburgh stating the grant would be terminated in full.
The cancellation is part of a new wave of terminations targeting health-disparities research at the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya’s letter cited his stated priorities of measurable health outcomes and solution-oriented approaches, arguing that the study relied on subjective survey and interview data and that its neighborhood stressors (unemployment, education access, safety) all fall outside of biomedical research’s sphere of influence. NIH concluded the grant would not lead to actionable healthcare interventions and could not be modified without completely changing the work.
A second Pittsburgh investigator, an Emory precedent
A second University of Pittsburgh researcher, Ann Cohen, faces the same fate. Her grant, also from the National Institute on Aging, examines health and socioeconomic factors in cognitive decline using blood tests and brain imaging, with $5.2 million of an expected $9.6 million spent. She had not yet received a termination letter, but HHS notified the Senate Committee on Appropriations that her grant was being canceled, as required by a three-business-day advance notice provision in the FY2026 NIH spending bill.
The wave began with Negar Fani’s Emory University grant, a National Institute of Mental Health study of brain changes caused by racial discrimination in 220 Black volunteers in Atlanta, awarded in December 2024. NIH sent a second notice of award terminating it in mid-July 2026, with agency sources calling it the first of more planned terminations. The NIH RePORTER system now lists the grant as terminated under departmental authority.
The legal and statutory rationale
NIH’s legal argument rests on new grant language in awards made after October 1, 2025, which permits cancellation when an award no longer aligns with agency priorities. The agency is now spelling out its reasoning in letters, a departure from earlier rounds that drew judicial rebuke.
The earlier campaign provides the context. In early 2025, NIH canceled more than 1,700 grants touching vaccine hesitancy, DEI, transgender health, and other politically sensitive topics; about half were later restored after a federal judge found the terminations arbitrary and capricious. A JAMA research letter counted 694 grants totaling $1.81 billion terminated between late February and early April 2025 across 24 of 26 NIH institutes, with NIMH and NIMHD losing the most. Senators Patty Murray, Tammy Baldwin, and Representative Rosa DeLauro later cited at least 2,370 active grants terminated, cutting off more than 210 institutions and $4.9 billion; STAT’s accounting put the 2025 total above 2,600 grants and $8.9 billion.
The Supreme Court in August 2025, in a 5-4 ruling, stayed a lower court’s reinstatement order, holding that challenges to grant terminations likely belong in the Court of Federal Claims. A July 2026 ruling in New Jersey v. OMB found agencies cannot terminate grants based on priorities adopted after the award was made, a decision that technically does not cover NIH but signals the direction of the law.
The human cost
For the researchers, the timing is the crueler detail. Both Pittsburgh investigators received long-delayed annual payments on June 20, 2026, and have now been told they may spend funds only to close out their projects. The terminations, they argue, waste millions already invested, will cause layoffs, and fly in the face of federal law requiring NIH Alzheimer’s research to address health disparities. The University of Pittsburgh has estimated terminated NIH grants have cost it $40 million so far. The researchers have appealed to Congress and are exploring legal options, but with the projects so near completion, the most immediate question is what happens to the data already collected and the residents who gave it.
Sources
- Science (ScienceInsider), “NIH Director Bhattacharya kills more health disparities grants,” August 5, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/science.zvq4uwd
- Science (ScienceInsider), “NIH is again terminating grants that the Trump administration dislikes,” July 24, 2026
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 6, 2026
- NIH RePORTER records: 5R01AG072652 (Dubowitz), 5R01AG072641 (Cohen), 5R01MH138893 (Fani)
- JAMA research letter (Liu et al.), May 2025
- U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations (minority), June 9, 2025
- Inside Higher Ed, July 21, 2026; Dorsey & Whitney client alert, July 27, 2026