Trump administration restored funding for major diabetes study. The halt still stung

The Trump administration’s restoration of federal research funding to Columbia University has revived a landmark diabetes study that has tracked patients for nearly 30 years and vastly expanded understanding of the disease, its treatment, and its prevention.

The study, which has been led by a Harvard Medical School professor since it began in 1996, was forced to shut down for nearly five months after the Trump administration froze funding for Columbia, the manager of a federal grant distributed for Type 2 diabetes research across the country.

Scientists are jubilant at the opportunity to resume their work, said David Nathan, the Harvard researcher leading the diabetes study, but the funding halt set back the latest phase of the research: exploring potential connections between diabetes and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.