The Trump administration cut a $44 million federal grant on Thursday to the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub for clinical trial diversity and vaccine development, according to U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham).
Sewell said on X, “That $44 million would’ve gone to help ensure that Birmingham took its proper place as a leader in biotechnology. The grant is being administered by the Southern Research Institute and just last week they were here talking to me about what they were going to use the $44 million for.”
“Simply preposterous that they would think that in the area of healthcare and technology and the intersection between that that somehow providing resources to make sure that clinical trials are diverse would be something that’s not worthy of getting funding. Now we have to recompete for it. It’s not fair. It’s not right,” Sewell said.
According to a press release from the city of Birmingham in January, the federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub would have supported the “application of AI-driven biotechnology to increase diverse representation in clinical genomic data and clinical trials.”
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