WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s drastic cuts to National Institutes of Health funding will cripple biomedical research, stifle innovation and eliminate thousands of jobs, including in red states that voted for the president, scientists warned this week.

Over the weekend, the NIH announced it is sharply reducing federal funding for overhead costs at universities, hospitals and institutes required to conduct research. Known generally as “indirect costs,” they include things like rent for space, utilities, internet access, payroll, equipment and other intangible benefits, like free research assistants. This differs from “direct” costs of doing the research, such as salary and supplies.

Typically, about 30% of an average NIH grant to an institution is earmarked for indirect costs, but some universities get much higher rates, upward of 60%. This varies because the cost of doing research varies from state to state and city to city. The new 15% indirect cost rate — which the NIH claims will save taxpayers $4 billion a year — applies to new and existing grants, an abrupt funding change that has already halted some research projects and thrown people out of work.

The move was challenged in court on Monday by 22 states, who argue it is illegal because Congress specifically prohibited NIH from changing its grant formula without its approval.

Scientists and researchers who spoke to HuffPost expressed deep alarm about the impact of the funding cuts on medical research, warning it would cripple efforts to cure cancer and other deadly and debilitating illnesses around the world. Most requested anonymity because of fear of intimidation or retribution by the Trump administration.

“This attack on the very structure of the academic research enterprise is threatening a system that every other country in the world has tried to reproduce, for no gain on any side that I can see,” a research professor at the University of Chicago told HuffPost. “It seems spiteful and targeted at those of us who just want to contribute to a better society.”

“Virtually everyone I know has scrubbed their institutional information from all social media profiles, save maybe LinkedIn. It feels like a dark time is ahead. We’re going to try to weather it, but we’re not optimistic that it’ll pass soon,” added a biomedical researcher at a university in Pennsylvania.

One recently retired researcher told HuffPost that a 14-year study examining disability in the senior population to better guide caretakers was axed by the funding cuts. “About 200 people were suddenly thrown out of work,” they said. “Of course, the funding had already been granted for the year, and I can’t imagine what the head manager said to people who turned down other jobs to take this ‘guaranteed’ year of work.”

John D. Clements, a retired professor of microbiology at the Tulane University School of Medicine, said he was “astounded at how shortsighted” the administration’s decision is given the outbreak of bird flu in the U.S. and around the world that is wreaking havoc on poultry markets.

“We are on the cusp of an avian influenza epidemic with the potential to cause disease and suffering on the scale of the 1918 influenza outbreak,” Clements said. “Now is not the time to cut back on research or, as suggested by [Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], put a moratorium on infectious disease research.”

Trump’s allies, like billionaire Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency who’s been empowered by the president to unilaterally slash federal spending, have complained about elite universities with large endowments “siphoning” grants with high rates of indirect costs. They argue that reducing funding for indirect costs will steer money toward research projects themselves, adding that a 15% rate is closer to what private foundations provide for similar work.

But experts maintain that while there are smart ways to reduce waste, doing so in this way would stifle world-leading research responsible for developing lifesaving drugs and treatments.

“A lot of us believe the rate of indirect costs (a huge reason institutions push us so hard to write these federal grants since private foundation grants usually come with much less if any) should be revamped,” one physician in an email. “But cutting it off, even on ongoing grants, is effectively the same as stopping much of this research cold. Few institutions are able to step in and cover these costs, which were carefully budgeted for years ago.”

Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, warned the Trump administration has dropped an “atomic bomb” on the biomedical research community — including in states that supported his election.

“Those endowments will not be sufficient to negate the devastating impact of this NIH cut,” Tishkoff wrote on social media, responding to the advocates of the funding change. “Further, the institutions that are going to be hurt the worst by this policy will be the public universities, particularly those in ‘red’ states, which will have devastating impacts on public education and on the local economies.”

Red states with multiple major research universities will lose a tremendous amount of federal funding under the new NIH grant formula, including Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, Indiana, Alabama, Utah, Iowa and South Carolina.

One Republican lawmaker has already expressed concerns about the NIH cuts: Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama. The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s health system stands to lose funding and jobs as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts, which Britt nodded to in a careful statement to AL.com over the weekend.

“Every cent of hard-earned taxpayer money should be spent efficiently, judiciously and accountably — without exception,” Britt told the outlet, before going on to say that “a smart, targeted approach is needed in order to not hinder lifesaving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also said Monday that the “poorly conceived” NIH cuts would be “devastating” to health institutions in her state. The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee said she called RFK Jr. over the weekend, who promised to “reexamine” them if he is confirmed as Trump’s HHS secretary.

“There is no investment that pays greater dividends to American families than our investment in biomedical research,” Collins said. “In Maine, scientists are conducting much-needed research on Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, and on how to improve efficiency in drug discovery, helping to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and conducting many other life-enhancing or lifesaving research.”