This past June, Donatello Arienzo was performing epilepsy research at UC San Diego’s Center for Multimodal Imaging and Genetics when lab director Carrie McDonald informed him that the National Institutes of Health had delayed funding for his project, Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis. Though Arienzo and his fellow lab staff continued working, hoping that they would receive funding, the NIH delayed the grant again at the end of July. The team was forced to pause their research indefinitely, leaving many of the researchers in limbo. Arienzo, who had been working on the project for four years and was fully funded by the NIH, quickly found himself without a job.
Uncertain of the fate of his job, Arienzo found himself in a health crisis. He needed to undergo an unexpected surgery — and he needed his insurance benefits from UCSD, which he would lose if the grant was not renewed.
But Arienzo’s surgery was looming, so he returned to his home country of Italy to ensure he could receive the care he needed. While there, he learned that the ENIGMA project had been terminated. He returned to America unemployed and unhoused. Though he is continuing an unpaid part-time position as an adjunct professor at San Diego State University, Arienzo has now been forced to start anew in the job hunt and is even contemplating permanent relocation back to Europe.
Arienzo was the senior data analyst and manager of the ENIGMA-Epilepsy project at UCSD. ENIGMA is a global consortium of neuroscientists, funded through a variety of different sources. Local chapters of ENIGMA can focus on different neurological and psychiatric disorders, but they all share the same approach: using AI machine learning to collect and process neuroimaging data to understand how these disorders affect the brain.
“I was in charge of getting data from all over the world, pre-processing them, and being sure that they can be used for what we call secondary projects, which use AI machine learning,” Arienzo said. “Basically, all the projects that we are doing at UCSD now are trying to predict clinical outcomes based on MRI images of the brain … so they can use a treatment or a specific surgery based on these predictions.”
So far, Arienzo is the only employee within the project that was fully displaced by the NIH cuts. Though Arienzo knows of another researcher from his department who is currently applying for a grant renewal for the project, its future is unclear. His fellow researchers have been able to continue for the time being on alternative grants.
“Some of the postdocs — with the K99 or other types of grants that they are surviving with — at the end, if they don’t get the grant, they will also be open like me to be displaced,” he said.
Arienzo expressed that he is unsure of the U.S. branch of the ENIGMA consortium’s future as a whole — it could be completely defunded.
“We don’t really know,” he said. “The NIH itself is very confused about this grant. When you try to get some questions from them, they also tell you that they don’t know. So, if there is a cut — the 40%, like they were saying — then it will be very difficult to get funded for all 2026 in any direction.”
UCSD warned graduate students at the end of last school year that NIH cuts meant that the University could no longer guarantee funding for incoming graduate students. Now that these cuts have begun to affect UCSD’s longstanding research projects, CMIG researchers, like many across the University, are growing increasingly concerned that grants will not be renewed for the center’s other projects, especially following the Trump administration’s most recent threat of a 40% cut.
Budget cuts to the NIH and other institutions continue to affect research at UCSD. This is an ongoing story. The UCSD Guardian will provide updated coverage as more information comes to light. If you have any related tips, please email [email protected].
