Study spotlights human toll of abrupt U.S. foreign aid cuts

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

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In January 2025, the Trump Administration announced a 90-day freeze on all United States Government (USG) foreign aid, which subsequently became a permanent shutdown of USAID in July 2025. New research finds that the abrupt cessation of foreign aid disrupted health and humanitarian systems worldwide, with disproportionate impacts on women, girls, and other marginalized populations.

Researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health collaborated with partners to document these negative impacts. The findings appear in the journal BMJ Public Health.

The researchers examined the impacts of the funding freeze during its early months. They conducted 53 interviews with NGO leaders, clinicians, community health workers, government officials, and humanitarian actors in Nepal, Kenya, and Colombia. Interviewees were selected based on their direct or indirect involvement in U.S. government-funded health programs. Ninety-eight global health practitioners also completed an online survey.

The study revealed immediate disruptions across sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), HIV service interruptions and treatment access, the collapse of referral networks and service ecosystems, a mental health crisis among clients and health workers, and the rising vulnerability of marginalized populations—notably, LGBTQ+ populations, sex workers, people living with HIV, and migrants. Both survey and interview data highlighted growing inequities and anticipated reversals in longstanding health gains.

“For many decades, the U.S. government has been the world’s largest contributor of foreign aid, with much of that funding essential health services. The abrupt termination of foreign aid in 2025  was a systems-level shock that exposed structural weaknesses in global health financing and governance,” says first author Sarah Branoff, MPH’25, a research assistant in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School.

“Documenting the lived experiences of practitioners provides critical insight into the real-time consequences of funding disruptions. These insights must inform more resilient and rights-based approaches in the future,” adds senior author Sara E. Casey, DrPH, associate professor of population and family health at Columbia Mailman.

“The findings lay bare what many of us on the ground have known: The funding disruption was a systems-level shock with a deeply human cost. Adolescents lost access to family planning and SRHR services built over years of investment; pregnant women were turned away from facilities; communities that had made hard-won gains in reducing HIV transmission risked losing that progress. Each data point represents a real person: a health worker facing financial ruin, a girl without contraception, a mother without prenatal care. This research ensures those voices are heard, and insists that what appears to be a political decision thousands of miles away is, here in Kenya, a matter of life and death," adds co-author Julia Kosgei, MA, co-founder and head of health at policy/strategy group in Kenya.

“The global funding freeze derailed programs run by INGOs/NGOs, compelled program managers, including frontline staff, to quit their jobs, thereby crippling programs aimed at advancing nutrition care for mothers and newborns, SRHR of adolescents, married couples and transgender communities. The impact of the funding freeze has been devastating, especially for grassroots NGOs committed to prevention, screening and treatment of HIV/AIDS who neither have access to alternative funding sources to sustain their programs nor the required skills to shift their niche to an alternative development program in their working areas,” says co-author Anand Tamang, M.Phil., director of CREHPA in Nepal.

The study’s authors propose several ways to respond to the crisis, both in the short and long term. They call for diversified and resilient global health financing, stronger domestic preparedness, and rights-based approaches to global health. They also emphasize the importance of rapid-response research mechanisms and localization strategies to mitigate future policy shocks.

Additional study authors include Thoai D. Ngo, Sarah Engebretsen, and Claire Greene at Columbia Mailman School; Livia Merlim at policy/strategy group in Kenya, Achala Shrestha and Jyotsna Tamang at the Center for Research on Environment Health and Population Activities (CREHPA) in Nepal, and Camilo Ramirez at HIAS Colombia.

The study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors declare no conflicts.

Photo: A health officer assesses the nutritional status of a baby in a public clinic in Ramechhap, Nepal. Credit: brunoat(link is external and opens in a new window)/iStock

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Journal

BMJ Public Health

DOI

10.1136/bmjph-2026-004904 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Global health consequences of the 2025 US foreign aid freeze: rapid assessments in Colombia, Kenya and Nepal

Article Publication Date

21-Jul-2026

 

Can leaderless societies get stuff done? Ask the honeybees

A new honeybee-inspired analysis suggests that decentralized groups may have an edge when times get tough

University of Colorado at Boulder

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Do organizations do better when they have a central leader who calls the shots or a decentralized group of individuals who sort out their own division of labor?

The question has intrigued philosophers, biologists, political scientists and business leaders for centuries. More recently, computer scientsits have explored it as they work to develop sythetic multi-agents systems, like drone swarms working toward a common goal.

A new honeybee-inspired study, published in the journal PNAS, offers answers. It suggests that while both kinds of organizations can survive and thrive, leaderless groups may have an edge— as long as communication is good and there’s just the right mix of risk-takers and cautious followers.

“We found that decentralized strategies of decision making are at least as good as centrally coordinated ones and, in many ways, may be more robust and resilient,” said corresponding author Zachary Kilpatrick, a professor of applied mathematics who studies how animals, including insects and humans, make decisions.

Using math to understand decision making

Peek at a bee colony and you’ll find tens of thousands of individuals toiling away, each with their own unique role in supporting the hive. Some explore surrounding meadows, foraging and scouting for information. Others hang back, cleaning the hive. While the queen lays eggs and chemically signals her presence, she doesn’t determine who does what.

Ants and termites operate similarly, without a central authority.

Other animals are more hierarchical.

In a herd of elephants, the oldest female makes the call on where to find water and when to flee, when survival is at stake. Wolf breeding pairs direct where the group hunts and rests.

To get at which system works best under what circumstances, and how leaderless societies manage to accomplish so much, Kilpatrick and his colleagues—Hyunjoong Kim of the University of Cincinnati and Krešimir Josić of the University of Houston—developed a mathematical model informed by research on real animals in the wild.

The model simulated life in a bee colony under different scenarios with varying numbers of bees; good and bad environmental conditions; and a central coordinator vs no central coordinator.

Surprisingly, the study found no difference in outcome between scenarios where a central coordinator determined who does what and scenarios where individuals acted based on their own risk tolerance.

“Turns out those models behave identically,” said Kilpatrick.

And in some ways, the leaderless group was more resilient, the model suggested.

“If one individual is making the decisions for an entire group, and that individual dies, gets removed or can’t communicate with the group it leaves it really vulnerable,” Kilpatrick said. “In a decentralized group if you knock out one communication pathway, there are others.”

Another question at the core of the experiment: How many risk-takers, or scouts, should be sent out to forage and how many should cautiously wait?

The study found that the larger the group, the smaller the proportion of risk-takers it required. That’s because each brave bee that puts its life on the line to leave the hive adds proportionally less new information to the colony upon return.

“If you send too many foragers out, you’re going to waste a bunch of energy for little additional benefit,” he said. “The same scaling logic may hold for human groups, where a small team may need half its members exploring while a large field needs only a handful.”

Lessons for humans

Kilpatrick said the findings could help inform development of artificial neural networks, multi-agent systems and other technologies.

“One of the best ways to design efficient systems and technologies is to look at what nature has done.”

Yhe study also yields other lessons for humans.

Research has shown that our ancestral default, from living in small hunter-gatherer bands, is to make decisions collectively. Some small organizations, like kibbutzim, still do this. But as organizations grow larger, humans tend to build centralized hierarchies and install powerful leaders to control them.

“That flexibility is one of our most distinctive traits as a species,” Kilpatrick said.

Much human advancement can be attributed to moments when, without direction from above, risk-taking individuals break out to make scientific discoveries, launch startups or explore new territories —nudging the more cautious to follow them when the time is right.

As new, more complex challenges arise, humans might want to take a cue from the bees, said Kilpatrick.

“Our research suggests that there can be a real benefit to having decentralized, individuated exploration that ultimately gets shared back with the community.”

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2605309123 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Daring few, patient many: Division of labor in decentralized foraging collectives

 

Peptide isolated from a Cerrado frog increases strawberry shelf life

Study shows that the molecule preserves the fruit’s firmness without affecting its flavor and has potential as a postharvest treatment

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

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Five minutes. That was the amount of time that Oso Grande strawberries remained in contact with the Ctx(Ile21)-Ha peptide – a molecule isolated from a frog native to the Brazilian Cerrado – in experiments conducted in Brazil by scientists at the Tupã campus of São Paulo State University (UNESP). It was enough to demonstrate the molecule’s potential to extend the shelf life of the fruit, which is highly perishable.

“The peptide alone, without any other components, maintained the characteristics of ripe fruit after five days – which, for a strawberry, is a long storage period. We didn’t expect that much,” describes Eduardo Festozo Vicente, who coordinates the Multi-User Equipment Laboratory at the UNESP School of Engineering and Sciences (LEMU-FCE), where the study was conducted with funding from FAPESP.

Peptides are molecules resembling proteins (albeit simpler and smaller) that execute various functions inside the organism. Vicente has been studying the peptide since his master’s degree nearly twenty years ago. He notes that the team has not yet conducted microbiological studies to understand the mechanism of action of the molecule, which is antimicrobial.

In an article published in the journal Applied Food Research, the team focused solely on the physicochemical parameters of the fruit treated with the molecule. They found that the peptide treatments did not interfere with the fruit’s flavor and did not significantly affect the phenolic compounds or total soluble solids. This indicates that the molecule preserved the fruit’s chemical composition.

“When strawberries are stored in the refrigerator for a while, they degrade naturally. The study shows that the peptide slows that degradation, relatively extending the shelf life and maintaining the strawberries’ physicochemical characteristics. Analysis of the experiment showed that the soluble solids, which are sugars highly degradable by microorganisms, were preserved in the fruits that came into contact with the peptide. The texture was also preserved,” said Vicente to Agência FAPESP. “We can’t yet speak in microbiological terms, because we didn’t conduct those tests. But one hypothesis the group is exploring for future work is that there may have been a reduction in microorganisms [based on the peptide’s antimicrobial properties].”

For the experiment, the team dissolved the peptide in water at three different concentrations. Then, they immersed 300 grams of strawberries in the solutions for five minutes. They established a control group in which the strawberries were immersed in water alone. “Then, we let the strawberries dry and stored them in sanitized PET trays covered with plastic wrap at 5 °C in an incubator with precise temperature control. We simulated what a strawberry vendor would do when storing them in a refrigerator.”

The samples were kept in the incubator for six days. Physicochemical parameters (pH, soluble solids, texture, and respiratory rate) and biochemical parameters (ascorbic acid, total phenols, sugars, and enzymatic activity) were evaluated on days 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The experiments were conducted in triplicate, which reduces variability and the margin of error, in collaboration with Professor Angela Vacaro de Souza, also from FCE-UNESP.

Professors Luís Roberto Almeida Gabriel Filho and Camila Pires Cremasco, from the statistics and predictive modeling area at FCE, also collaborated on the study.

Defense

Vicente explains that the Ctx(Ile21)-Ha peptide was isolated and extracted in 2006 from a frog native to the Brazilian Cerrado (Boana albopunctata) by the group led by Professor Mariana de Souza Castro at the University of Brasília (UnB). “This substance is part of the amphibian’s range of defenses. Since it breathes through its skin, it possesses an arsenal of molecules that form an efficient defense system because it’s in direct contact with pathogens in the environment. Ctx(Ile21)-Ha is just one of the molecules isolated for study. And it’s highly active from an antimicrobial standpoint.”

According to him, the group initially planned to use the peptide as a zootechnical additive in animal feed to replace conventional antibiotics, the overuse of which has led to widespread antimicrobial resistance. “The initial project had three main strands: first, to study the peptide biophysically, producing analogs more potent than the original molecule itself; second, to attempt to apply it – or its analogs – in animal nutrition, including ruminants, dairy cattle [for treating mastitis], laying hens, broiler chickens, and pigs. The final component was to apply it to food, with the goal of extending its shelf life.”

Vicente highlights the support provided by FAPESP, including assistance in obtaining the peptide. “We’re one of the few laboratories in Brazil capable of synthesizing, purifying, and characterizing this peptide and any other of biological interest.” The Foundation supported the work through projects 21/06706-9, 22/05319-4, 19/07438-8, and 16/00446-7. 

“We achieved a purity level exceeding 95% in the synthesis of the molecule, which is composed of amino acids. It can be ingested, as it’ll be broken down normally by the stomach, since it is a protein derivative. Of course, we’re still in the proof-of-concept phase, including for use as an animal feed additive. But we now know that the peptide has great potential for use as a postharvest treatment for highly perishable fruits, such as strawberries.”

Next steps

Ctx(Ile21)-Ha is not yet regulated for use in Brazil. However, Vicente believes that the regulatory process would not be problematic, as other commercial peptides are already approved and in use in the country. The group has already filed a patent application for its use in laying hens and has another pending for use in ruminants.

“We still need to work on the microbiological aspects and conduct the necessary tests, and that’ll certainly be the next step,” Vicente explains. “In addition, we aim to produce the peptide on a large scale using models well-established in the literature, such as yeast. Another avenue would be the creation of a film or coating to wrap fruits with skins, since current regulations prohibit fruits that are consumed without their skins from being wrapped in edible films.”

The researcher is referring to Normative Instruction No. 211/2023 issued by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA), which establishes the maximum limits and conditions of use for food additives and processing aids authorized for use in food.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe

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Journal

Applied Food Research

DOI

10.1016/j.afres.2026.102073 

Article Title

Effects of the antimicrobial peptide Ctx(Ile21)-Ha on the physicochemical and biochemical quality of organic strawberries during post-harvest storage

 

Premature blood stem cell aging in sickle cell disease may be reversible

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital found that prematurely old blood stem cells from sickle cell disease may be treatable with anti-aging drugs, and highlight a needed improvement to gene therapies

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

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image: 

(L to R) First author Aditya Barve, PhD, St. Jude Department of Hematology, co-corresponding author Akshay Sharma, MBBS, MSc, St. Jude Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy, and senior co-corresponding author Shannon McKinney-Freeman, PhD, St. Jude Department of Hematology.

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Credit: Courtesy of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Month XX, 2026) Sickle cell disease causes premature aging of blood stem cells, which scientists may be able to address with a special class of drugs, according to a new study from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Patients with sickle cell disease experience higher rates of blood stem cell dysfunction and blood cancers compared to their peers, though the reason why has been unclear. The St. Jude researchers found that blood stem cells from young patients with sickle cell disease have features of aging, likely increasing risk for other complications. Giving senolytics, which target aging-related processes, improved disease symptoms in model systems, with implications for curative gene therapies. The findings were published today in Science Translational Medicine.

 

“We saw that blood stem cells from even young patients with sickle cell disease have many markers of senescence or aging,” said senior co-corresponding author Shannon McKinney-Freeman, PhD, St. Jude Department of Hematology. “They become incapable of doing their job of making all other blood cells, including oxygen-carrying red blood cells, but when we gave anti-aging drugs, we eliminated these damaged cells and recovered the lost blood-forming potential in the bone marrow of our models.”

 

Chronic stress accelerated blood stem cell aging

 

Sickle cell disease is the most common genetic blood disorder in the world, affecting an estimated 7 million people. In people with the disease, their blood stem cells have a mutation in the gene for hemoglobin, causing the red blood cells they produce to become sickle-shaped and fail to deliver oxygen well. This has many effects, including chronically stressing blood stem cells as they create large amounts of red blood cells to make up for their inefficiency at delivering oxygen to the rest of the body. The researchers sought to understand how that chronic stress impacted these cells, uncovering a massive effect in samples from patients.

 

“When we looked at blood stem cells from children and young patients with sickle cell disease (6-23 years old), we saw their blood stem cells looked much older,” said first author Aditya Barve, PhD, St. Jude Department of Hematology. The researchers then implanted the patients’ stem cells in mice and treated them with anti-aging therapy. The treatment significantly decreased markers of senescence, and the scientists saw increased blood formation that matched that of the control group of mice without sickle cell disease that underwent the same process.

 

To extend the finding, the researchers repeated the process with two Food & Drug Administration (FDA) –approved senolytic drugs, dasatinib and quercetin, given in combination, observing the same positive benefits. Since the drugs are already FDA–approved for another purpose, the approach could move more quickly into clinical testing, including for enhancing ongoing curative gene therapy trials.

 

Rejuvenating sickle cell disease gene therapy

 

Recently, potentially curative gene therapy efforts for sickle cell disease have been complicated by variable outcomes. Gene therapy requires a large number of a patient’s blood stem cells, making changes to their DNA to cure or overcome the sickle cell mutation, then transplanting them back into the patient to make normal red blood cells. While gene therapy has the potential to cure a patient, it has experienced setbacks, such as an inability to collect enough viable cells to begin the treatment; in the long term, some patients have developed blood cancers. The aging findings provide senescence as an explanation for the increased disease incidence, and offers an explanation for how to improve both stem cell collection and long-term results.

 

“When we alter cells with gene therapy, we are trying to cure patients for the rest of their lives through what is essentially a bone marrow transplant using their own blood stem cells,” said co-corresponding author Akshay Sharma, MBBS, MSc, St. Jude Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy. “Before gene therapy existed, we performed transplants for patients with sickle cell disease using blood stem cells from a donor, trying to find a young and healthy donor, because stem cells that are decades older than the patient may not remain ‘fit’ for the patient’s lifetime. Our findings show that we also need to consider methods to eliminate the older senescent cells and enrich for young, functional stem cells from a patient before collecting them for gene therapy.”

 

Current approaches to collecting the many cells needed for gene therapy do not take senescent cells into account. The research provides a provocative jumping point for new research into how doing so, whether through anti-aging senolytics therapy or another mechanism, may improve stem cell collection and the quality of starting material, which may also lead to improvements in gene therapy outcomes.

 

“Both anti-aging drugs and gene therapies are still relatively new,” McKinney-Freeman said. “By combining our knowledge of these new approaches with fundamental research into how sickle cell disease manifests in blood stem cells, we’ve opened a completely new field to explore for improving the lives of the many people impacted by this disorder.”

 

Authors and funding

The study’s other authors are Preeti Dabas, Adam Cornwell, Pramika Sriram, Alex Kopyov, Emilia Kooienga, Zakiya Kelley, Jacquelyn Myers, Esther Obeng, Guolian Kang, Yunusa Olufadi, Terri Cain, Lindsay Talbot and Dirk Loeffler, St. Jude; James Johnson, WiCell Research Institute; David Spence, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center; and Mauricio Cortes and Samuel A. Miller, Cellarity Inc.

 

The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Health (F32HL164095, R01HL174644, F31HL170678, U01HL163983, R01HL168893, T32CA236748, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar,

Alex’s Lemonade Stand (Grant # 22-27080), Edward P. Evans Foundation (Discovery Research Grant), American Cancer Society (RSG-22-023-01-CDP) and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), the fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude.

 

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats, and cures childhood catastrophic diseases. From cancer to life-threatening blood disorders, neurological conditions, and infectious diseases, St. Jude is dedicated to advancing cures and means of prevention through groundbreaking research and compassionate care. Through global collaborations and innovative science, St. Jude is working to ensure that every child, everywhere, has the best chance at a healthy future.  To learn more, visit stjude.org, read St. Jude Progress, a digital magazine, and follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.

 

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Journal

Science Translational Medicine

DOI

10.1126/scitranslmed.adv0628 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Premature senescence impairs hematopoietic stem cell function during sickle cell disease in mice and humans

Article Publication Date

22-Jul-2026

 

Maize was likely "nutritionally and symbolically central" to the diet of many ancient Maya peoples, per analysis of bone and teeth samples from Petén, Guatemala

PLOS

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Upper image: The archaeological site of Curucuitz, in southeastern Peten, Guatemala, where maize is still grown today. Lower image: The A-630 vessel from Ixtutz, depicting four individuals, arranged in pairs, sharing the contents of a pitcher.

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Credit: Proyecto Atlas Arqueológico de Guatemala, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Article URL: https://plos.io/4plH2UW

Article title: Profiling the diets of Classic Maya communities living in Southeastern Petén through stable isotope analysis

Author countries: Mexico, USA, Guatemala.

Funding: This work was supported by the SECIHTI (formerly CONAHCYT) Ciencia de Frontera No. 61526 Project titled “Understanding the sensorial experience of Ancient and Modern Maya. New Archaeometric Studies of the Organic Compounds of Foods and Fragrances” and the SECIHTI Postdoctoral Grant “Estancias posdoctorales por México 2022 (1) (CVU 383572)”. Additional support for the UNM Research stay was obtained through the UC MEXUS collaborative project CN-19-128. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0353029 

Article Title

Profiling the diets of Classic Maya communities living in Southeastern Petén through stable isotope analysis

Article Publication Date

22-Jul-2026