A longform analysis traced the National Institutes of Health’s evolution into the backbone of US biomedical research and warned of recent funding disruptions and a proposed 40% cut to the NIH budget for 2026. The piece documented how sustained cuts and abrupt grant terminations in 2025 have unsettled investigators, jeopardizing training pipelines and translational programs. The article reviewed the NIH’s historical role in seeding both basic science and the biotech industry and called attention to the downstream risks if federal support contracts. Universities, small biotech startups, and early‑career investigators face the greatest near‑term exposure, as loss of NIH funding can stall discovery science that underpins new therapeutics and diagnostics.