Harvard AIDS research, affiliated hospitals hit by Trump feud: report

NEW YORK, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Trump administration's funding battle with Harvard University is starting to impact projects at affiliated hospitals and has crippled the school's Center for AIDS Research, one of the largest backers in the United States for emerging studies on the condition, reported Bloomberg News on Tuesday.

Harvard funnels a portion of its federal grants to research partners, including the Mass General Brigham hospital system, and that money has now largely stopped flowing after the government froze more than 2.6 billion U.S. dollars in support. Mass General researchers whose work is affected should "stop all activity and spending" unless they have found alternative funding, Paul Anderson, the hospital group's chief academic officer, said late last week.

The Harvard AIDS research organization was separately counting on 3.7 million dollars in federal funds to get through the next year but that award was canceled after the White House suspended the university's ability to receive additional grants, according to its leaders.

The center has backed research that led to the development of targeted medications and vaccines and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, advances that helped turn HIV into a highly treatable disease rather than a death sentence, noted the report.