Trump Froze Nobel Prize Winning Lebanese-American Scientist's Grant. Then China Offered Him Funding at Any School

A Nobel Prize winning Lebanese-American who left his war-torn country for America in 1986 now has the opportunity to take his research to China after the Trump administration froze his federal grant.

After earning his doctorate, Ardem Patapoutian became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2000, he joined the Scripps Research Institute as an assistant professor, and since 2015, he has also served as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2021, the renowned molecular biologist and neuroscientist was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.

Dr. Patapoutian joined a growing number of American academics speaking out after President Donald Trump's administration cut more than $1.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health's budget in February, leaving institutions like Scripps Research with a $38 million shortfall.

After warning his Bluesky followers that the cuts would undermine biomedical research and push talent out of the U.S., Dr. Patapoutian told The New York Times that within hours, he received an email from China offering to relocate his lab to "any city, any university I want," with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

Although Dr. Patapoutian ultimately declined, citing his love for his adopted countries, he warned that emerging scientists may have no choice but to leave, placing future U.S. scientific breakthroughs and research at risk.

Originally published on Latin Times