On Apr. 21, 2025, LifeScienceHistory.com published the cartoon: “The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Healthcare in Crisis” which illustrates the demise of the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.

The NIH Institutes are what made our nation the world’s leader in life science innovation, and they are being dismantled with massive budget cuts, employee layoffs, and research program cancellations, a first in our nation’s history, and no one knows what the final impact will be.

Is the sun setting on great science from the NIH Institutes and nation? Will China, Japan and the European Union be the new centers of innovation?