The Trump administration recently announced that the National Institutes of Health, or the NIH, will make big changes in the way it funds researchers.

White House officials say they'll save $4 billion by capping so-called indirect costs, or what you might think of as traditional operating expenses.

That's funding universities that receive on top of money

for direct research. Those can range from 30 to 70 percent in additional funds. The administration

wants to cap that at 15 percent. Scientists say the move will have a huge effect on their work.

We spoke to medical researchers to hear what they had to say.

Hi, my name is Carol Lebon, and I am a professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern University.

I'm Dr. Rachel Hardiman, and I'm the Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity

at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the founding director of the Center for

Anti-racism Research for Health

Equity at the University of Minnesota. My name's Theodore Iwaschina. I'm an ICU physician

and professor of medicine and health policy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

So in science, you can think of direct costs as one specific to a particular research project,

the chemicals and the cells

and the salaries of the researchers. But then they're the indirect costs of maintaining and

replacing equipment, ordering, bookkeeping, handling hazard waste, and compliance with government

regulations. The NIH decision to shift the indirect costs has an impact on myself and my colleagues and many researchers

across the country because what it means is that a smaller percentage of funding is flowing

into our universities, into our institutions to help do very simple things like keep the lights

on, make sure we have paper and printers and supplies.

All projects of every scientist are being affected. So take any particular area of research you want,

let's say pediatric cancer. This would amount to a 15 to 20 percent decrease in funding for

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