BOSTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Massachusetts officials say the state stands to lose more than $680 million in federal research funds in 2013 as Congress mulls cuts in the national deficit.
If a bipartisan deficit reduction panel does not come to an agreement by Nov. 23 and automatic cuts to defense and domestic spending are triggered, the state could lose nearly 9 percent of the approximately $7.7 billion it is set to receive, the Boston Globe reported Monday.
The cuts would severely impact Boston and Cambridge, one of the nation's densest concentrations of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and an epicenter for medical research, officials said.
"Reducing funding for research would be an enormous mistake,'" said Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hockfield and some 130 research university presidents signed a letter to committee members urging reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code rather further cuts to scientific research.
"This is the kind of investment you have to make in good times and in bad," she said.
Cuts would hamper promising research and discourage young scientists from entering the field, said Dr. Gary Fleisher, physician-in-chief at Children's Hospital Boston.
"There are important discoveries to be made," Fleisher said. "If we don't get the funding, we don't make the discoveries.'"
