Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks Wednesday at a Senate Appropriations Committee on Trump administration cuts to biomedical research. Image captured from livestream of Senate hearing

Sen. Susan Collins criticized the Trump administration for cutbacks to biomedical research during a Senate committee hearing Wednesday that highlighted the importance of the work and impact that cuts are having on research labs in Maine and nationwide.

“If clinical trials are halted, research is stopped, and laboratories are closed, effective treatments and cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s, Type 1 diabetes, childhood cancers, and Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, will be delayed or not discovered at all,” the Maine Republican said during her opening statement.

It was Collins’ first hearing as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which heard testimony from several scientists, including Dr. Hermann Haller, president of Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine.

MDI Bio Lab is among the research labs in Maine and across the country that have detailed the impacts of pauses and reductions in research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Collins said the United States is the global leader in scientific research, but the cuts put the nation “at risk of losing that leadership to China. That should be a call for alarm.”

The senator also was critical of the Trump administration during an interview with the Press Herald before the hearing this week.

“For the administration to abruptly cancel grants and slash federal funding with little or no justification clearly puts our nation’s leadership in biomedical research in jeopardy,” Collins said during the interview. “It must be reversed.”

Some of the cuts have been in the form of caps on indirect costs — such as funding for overhead and scientific equipment — to NIH research grants, which scientists have said will devastate ongoing research trials. Those cutbacks are being fought in federal court, and the case is pending.

Haller, in his testimony Wednesday, said biomedical research funding “is not just a cost, it’s a national investment. It drives innovation. It fuels the economy, and it protects Americans’ health. The lives we save tomorrow depend on the decisions we make today.”

MDI Bio Lab would be directly hurt if the cap on indirect costs were to stand. The administration has said no more than 15% of NIH research grant funds can be used for such costs. While indirect costs vary by grant and by year, indirect costs represented 26% — or $9 billion — of $35 billion in grants in 2023, the latest year data is available. MDI Bio Lab’s indirect costs totaled 69% for its NIH grants.

Dr. Hermann Haller, president of Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine, testifies Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee about the impact of federal funding cuts. Image captured from livestream of Senate hearing

The Trump administration has not given a detailed rationale for capping indirect costs at 15% — a limit supported by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. But Musk has said on his social media platform, X, that indirect costs amount to “corruption.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked pointed questions during the hearing about why indirect costs are higher for NIH grants than for grants from private foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, that limit overhead costs to about 10%.

“Why can’t we live with 15% overhead?” Kennedy said. “Every penny we spend on overhead that’s not being audited … is money taken away from research.”

Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in response to Kennedy’s questions that the definitions for indirect costs and overhead vary from the Gates Foundation to NIH, so the comparisons are “apples to oranges.”

And Dr. Barry Sleckman, director of the University of Alabama Birmingham’s O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, said indirect costs are not unnecessary extras, but crucial to being able to conduct research.

If the cuts stand, “we would no longer be able to support the level of staff needed to safely open and run clinical trials,” Sleckman said.

And the cap on indirect costs isn’t the only thing that worries researchers. DOGE also has taken aim at other aspects of the federal health infrastructure, including canceling $1 billion in current research grants for references to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he’s “enraged” at the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle decades of work to build up a robust system of health research in the United States.

“DOGE, in my view, is a horde of locusts unleashed on the federal government,” Coons said.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention laid off about 40 subcontracted employees after $91 million in federal cutbacks as part of a nationwide cut to state and local health agencies.

The Trump administration has also terminated thousands of employees, including about 1,200 at NIH and about 10,000 across the entire U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with more layoffs expected this summer.

In the interview, Collins criticized the various cuts by the Trump administration affecting the nation’s public health and research infrastructure.

“The administration continues to make what I believe are very harmful cuts in personnel at … all of the key health care agencies,” Collins said, listing the NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The myriad cutbacks, and also the uncertainty in U.S. immigration policies, could affect how many young scientists decide to come to the U.S. to study at American universities, Collins said.

“I worry that we are going to lose our top researchers and scientists to other countries,” Collins said. While she supports vetting of students who come to the U.S. to study, “they are, in general, the people we want to stay here.”

“I’m worried the younger people may decide that the support is not there for the research they want to conduct,” Collins said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a long history of criticizing vaccines and falsely linking them to autism, is slated to testify before the appropriations committee in May.

Collins, who voted in favor of Kennedy’s nomination, said Kennedy’s performance so far is “mixed.” She said she’s made her case to him in person about the negative impacts of the research cutbacks. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, voted “no” on Kennedy’s confirmation.

Collins said Kennedy has been “very receptive when I call” and that she’s not sure the cutbacks “are his preferences, or if they’ve been imposed on him by (the Office of Management and Budget).”