Fifty years of Harvard research will be flushed through the toilet.
Since 1976, the university has gathered more than 1.5 million samples of human stools, urine, toenails, saliva, hair and blood of people for scientific research, so that they can keep track of how bodies change over time.
Researchers behind the project say that it can reveal important mutations that lead to cancer or habits that can help someone live longer.
Dr. Walter Willet, a doctor who has been with the project since 1977, said that the collection could also be a wealth of information about the reasons for the increase in colon cancer among young people.
But now all these possibilities will be lost after three subsidies to support the project – worth $ 5 million a year – were cut by the Trump administration.
Dr. Willet has succeeded in securing Harvard emergency financing for the collection, but says that this could be within a few weeks.
If more funds are not collected, he said, it is likely that the collection will be packaged in plastic bio -heating bags and sent to a combustion oven – together with the valuable information it contains.
“We can’t let that happen,” said Dr. Willit on DailyMail.com, “We are working hard to ensure that the resources are not lost.”
Shown above are some of the great freezers who store the monsters at Harvard University
The Database-de Harvard BioPository called-has monsters of more than 200,000 women and men who participated in studies led by Harvard.
This includes participants in the Nurses Health Study, 121,000 women who have been followed since 1976, and the follow-up study for health workers, following 51,000 men since 1986.
For both studies, the participants were asked to complete biennial surveys about their diet, exercise and health value researchers can detect factors that can increase a person’s risk of suffering from disease such as cancer.
More than 10,000 participants have already died, but scientists continue to conduct the surveys about those who live – some more than 95 years old – hoping to detect hidden instructions for a long service life.
Since 1982, the researchers have also gathered organic samples from the participants to add further data to their project.
From the Nurses Health Study, the database currently owns 62,000 blinking periods, 50,000 urine samples, 30,000 saliva samples, 20,000 hair samples and more than 16,000 feces samples collected between 1982 and 2019.
It also contains an estimated 1.5 million blood samples of more than 30,000 participants, and tissue samples of 16 cancers who came to the participants during the investigation.
From the follow-up study of the health workers, the blood samples of more than 18,000 participants and more than 1,700 samples of tissue of cancers, including prostate cancer, includes.
The Nurses Health Study has already resulted in the publication of more than 400 cancer -related studies, almost 300 projects and participation in 33 cancer consortia.
Top studies include one 2007 paper Those higher levels of inflammatory proteins found in the blood, brought the risk of colon cancer and a 2004 paper This discovered that people with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood had a lower risk of colon cancer.
There are also early studies in the intestinal microbiomas of participants based on analysis of stooled samples from 2019. Although it is still too early to reveal these reasons for the wave in cases of colon cancer, they have promised
Other remarkable findings are one 2003 paper Postmenopausal women with higher estrogen levels thought that was a higher risk of breast cancer.
Above is a scientist who has access to some of the samples, which are held in liquid nitrogen at -320f (-196c)
And one 1995 Analysis From toenagel clippings that suggested that people with lower levels of selenium in their diet – a nutrient that is found in nuts – can have a higher risk of lung cancer, although this was later disputed by other research.
In recent years, data from the questionnaires of the studies has also been used to suggest that a diet with a lot of red meat is suggests could increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.
And studies that link a higher consumption of trans fats – a kind of fat that influences cholesterol and that is used in cookies, cakes and other bakery products – to a higher risk of coronary heart disease. The work was an important role in the FDA prohibition of 2018 on hydrogenated oils – which are used to make trans fats – in the US.
The samples are stored in a maximum of 60 large cylindrical freezers who are five feet long at two feet wide at two locations on Harvard. It is divided into two locations to protect the collection in the case of an incident as a fire.
The toenails and the hair are not frozen because they do not break down easily, Dr. Willit, which means that they are relatively easy to store.
But the rest of the collection is stored in the freezers that have constantly pumped liquid nitrogen -which has a temperature of -320f (-196c) -to retain the samples.
The freezers alone costs around $ 300,000 a year, Dr. Willit.
The team receives a few dozen requests a year to access the collection of scientists, he added.
In response, samples are sent to the scientists whether the team undertakes the research in their lab and the scientists send the results.
A scientist is presented above who has access to samples stored in the collection
Researchers also constantly contribute to collecting cancer samples from patients when the disease comes to the fore and new data via surveys.
Until now, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in New York has agreed to offer financing to maintain the cancer samples of the Nurses Health Study. It is not clear how long this financing will last.
But Dr. Willit says they keep looking for backers for the monsters in the rest of the collection.
The database was supported by three federal subsidies from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
It comes in the midst of a gigantic battle between Trump administration and Harvard University, which has seen more than $ 3 billion in subsidies cut from the richest institution of America.
In the last Salvo, a federal court has blocked the efforts of the Trump government to prevent Harvard organizing foreign students – who form about 27 percent of his student organ.
The administration has repeatedly accused the university of doing too little to combat anti-Semitism on its campuses and to steal pro-Palestinian protests that some classes disturbed in 2024 and 2025.
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