Harvard researcher Joan Brugge says her work has the potential to prevent breast cancer, but the White House is threatening future funding. “I don’t think any taxpayer would want to interfere with progress on a project like that,” says Brugge. She was leading a team that had identified the earliest precursors of breast cancer when she learned her grants were terminated. “It was just like a gut punch. My knees buckled, and I had to sit down because I just never imagined that research focused on a

The Trump administration says the federal government doesn’t have to give money to universities such as Harvard. But bioengineer Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute at Harvard, says the funding for scientific and medical research isn’t simply handed out; Harvard has to compete for it. “We are doing a service for the United States,” says Ingber. “It’s not only medical. It could be for national security and economic security.” | 60 Minutes