Dr. Jason Stubbs, a nephrologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is on the brink of the biggest breakthrough of his career.
Through studies on mice over the last decade, he has shown that damage to an important part of the kidney’s filtration system can be slowed when dietary phosphate is limited.
If he can make the same link in humans, he said, medicine could have an important new insight about how to help the 37 million Americans who are living with chronic kidney disease.
“One of the questions that we get asked all the time by patients is, ‘What can I do to help protect my kidneys?’” Stubbs said. “If you ask any nephrologist, the majority of them will not say you need to watch your dietary phosphate.”
But people are eating more dietary phosphate all the time. Food manufacturers add the mineral to snacks to boost protein and improve shelf life. And food packaging isn’t required to disclose how much is included.
That’s why Stubbs feels so much urgency to move forward with his research.
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But, as with many scientists right now, Stubbs’ research is in limbo. He is waiting to hear if the National Institutes of Health will fund his latest grant application, which would allow his work to continue. Without that grant, he said, he doesn’t know how he would move forward.
“I’ve never been more excited about our research,” Stubbs said. “I can see where the mouse work can directly translate to improving human care. The downside is, I need the money to be able to support doing this.”
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A recent analysis by The New York Times found that in 2025, NIH awarded 12,588 grants, compared with an average allocation in each of the previous nine years of 16,099.
Eleanor Dehoney, senior vice president of policy and advocacy with Research!America, said the change to forward funding could be fine, but it should have been made gradually. And it should have gone hand in hand with an increase in overall funding, she said. The abrupt change has effectively made it so research institutions across the country are competing for far fewer grants.
“The big, well-known universities that are good at doing grants — the ones that are on the coast, for example — get the big bucks,” Dehoney said. “And it leaves those who are up-and-comers behind.”
