Trump administration seeks to pull estimated $100m in Harvard funding

The Trump administration will direct US federal agencies to review Harvard University's grants to potentially end or redistribute funding, as part of the White House's escalating battle with America's oldest university.

The Government Services Administration (GSA) plans to circulate a letter to agencies asking them to identify whether Harvard contracts could be "cancelled or redirected elsewhere", a senior White House official said.

The administration estimates about 30 contracts, collectively worth $100m (£74m), could be reviewed. It already had frozen $2.65bn in federal grants and tried to revoke Harvard's ability to enrol international students.

Harvard University did not immediately comment.

Under the Trump administration, the laboratory lost a National Institutes of Health grant, and researcher Kelly Rich lost a career grant to study age reversal to combat motor diseases. The White House's move to revoke Harvard's ability to host international researchers had affected six people - half of the laboratory's staff.

"The loss of funding not only halts ongoing experiments that cannot simply be restarted, but also jeopardizes the contributions of international scholars who are integral to the lab's operations and the wealth of the US," Mr Sinclair said.

Adam Nguyen, a Harvard alumnus and founder of the admissions consulting firm Ivy Link, said that the potentially "hugely negative" impact would fall on graduate and PhD students. Academics from both the US and abroad rely on outside funding for their research, he said.

"If you have the cuts, they're out of a job," Mr Nguyen said. "It's as simple as that. There's no money to fund their research. You're talking about cuts, lay-offs and immediate stop-work orders for many graduate students."