Cancer researchers in the United States are once again bracing for a high-stakes funding battle in Washington, as a proposed $6 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for fiscal year 2027 threatens to derail years of scientific progress.
For advocates like Jon Retzlaff, Chief Policy Officer and Vice President for Science Policy and Government Affairs at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the situation feels strikingly familiar and deeply consequential. That sense of déjà vu is shaping the response from the cancer research community, which is now urging Congress to once again reject the administration’s proposal just as it did last year.
To understand the urgency of the current moment, Retzlaff points back to the turmoil of the previous budget cycle. “A year ago, the president had proposed a 40% cut to NIH,” Retzlaff told Inside Precision Medicine. “Things looked pretty bleak.” The consequences were immediate and unsettling: grants were stuck and there were cutbacks on committees and staff.
But Congress ultimately intervened decisively. “We engaged with Congress, who has the power of the purse,” Retzlaff said. “They summarily rejected the president’s proposal for the 40% cuts and instead provided a $450 million increase for NIH.” Lawmakers also delivered a significant boost to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), reinforcing what Retzlaff described as a clear signal of bipartisan support for biomedical research. “What we saw for the current fiscal year… is they summarily rejected the president’s proposal,” Retzlaff said. “So now we are going through the exercise all over again.”
Despite the renewed threat, Retzlaff sees reasons for hope rooted in last year’s outcome. “People asked, ‘How can you be so optimistic?’” He recalled the earlier funding fight. “At least this year, I’m going to be able to tell them why I can be optimistic,” he said. “Because it was Congress that stood up.”
Still, he cautioned against complacency. “We can’t rest on our laurels. We can’t take it for granted,” Retzlaff said. “We will be continuing to press the issue.”
Holding down the precision oncology fort
For AACR, the renewed funding fight underscores a central truth: cancer research depends on long-term, uninterrupted investment. “You need this sustained funding over time,” Retzlaff said. “You go where the science is showing opportunities and also where there might not be opportunities right now.”
He emphasized that scientific progress is rarely linear or predictable. “Even though people can’t necessarily say it’s clear-cut that if we do research in this, we’re going to make some progress,” he said, “for some of the cancers, we just need to do research to try to have that knowledge discovery going on.”
Retzlaff added, “Basic biology is so important,” stressing that foundational science underpins every future breakthrough and the continued growth of precision medicine as the new standard of healthcare. “It’s about identifying the biomarkers that are important,” Retzlaff explained.
Meanwhile, emerging areas such as cancer vaccines are generating both excitement and urgency. “Cancer vaccines are now a big issue,” he said. “AACR is very interested in pushing that kind of research forward.”
Yet all of this progress depends on stable funding. Without it, Retzlaff warned, research priorities could narrow dangerously. “If you start cutting back, the next thing you know, we’re just funding breast cancer and lung cancer,” he said, “whereas the rare cancers need to be investigated. We need to give those people hope.”
Sustained national commitment to health
Funding cuts would also ripple through the clinical research pipeline. Retzlaff, who has become more involved in clinical trials in recent years, noted their complexity and cost.
While pharmaceutical companies often support later-stage development, early and exploratory studies depend heavily on NIH funding. “We rely on pharmaceutical companies… once you get into the translational part,” he explained, but without federal investment at the front end, fewer discoveries will ever reach that stage.
For AACR, protecting NIH funding is about more than preserving scientific momentum; it’s about sustaining a national commitment to health. “We’ve got 50,000 members,” Retzlaff said. “Two-thirds of them are from the U.S., and probably two-thirds of them are completely reliant in many ways on NIH funding.” That dependence drives the organization’s advocacy efforts. “Our number one priority is inspiring excitement on Capitol Hill and from lawmakers for robust, sustained and predictable funding for the NIH,” he said.
AACR’s outreach spans everything from congressional briefings to large-scale advocacy events. “It’s working with the entire community,” Retzlaff said, noting collaborations with hundreds of organizations and initiatives, such as Medical Research Hill Day. “We’re constantly looking at drum[ming] up conversations with the media,” he added. “It’s things like that—briefings, reports, letters—you name it.”
At the same time, AACR is navigating broader policy and public health challenges. Retzlaff highlighted ongoing engagement with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on issues ranging from clinical trial efficiency to tobacco regulation.
Backing cancer vaccines
Prevention, too, remains a critical priority. “HPV prevention is very important,” he said, though he acknowledged that misinformation has slowed progress. “The anti-vaccine movement is a huge concern.”
Retzlaff said that the cancer vaccine issue is rooted in communication and not the regulators. According to Retzlaff, the director of the National Cancer Institute has had some meetings with Secretary Kennedy, who was supportive of moving cancer vaccines forward. “We have to figure out what it is that people will accept about cancer vaccines that they’re not accepting about vaccines overall,” Retzlaff said. “That’s a communication issue… trying to combat the misinformation out there.”
AACR has even debated trying new names for the modality. Retzlaff elaborated, “There was some discussion about whether we can change the name of this from ‘cancer vaccines’ to something else.”
As Congress weighs the proposed cuts, AACR is calling on researchers, patients, and advocates to speak out once again. The message, Retzlaff said, is simple but urgent: “We definitely want to get the information out… about the importance of NIH medical research… and inspire people to take action.”
The outcome will determine not only the trajectory of cancer research but also the pace at which new discoveries can translate into treatments and, ultimately, save lives.
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