The NIH says funding cuts would save it billions of dollars a year. D.C.-area industry and academic leaders say it would cripple R&D.

Sweeping layoffs, funding freezes and executive orders have provoked outcry among federal researchers and their university partners, who fear that science itself is under siege.

From bipolar disorder to hepatitis, and from strokes to development of magnetic resonance imaging, research tied to NIH grants has changed life for millions of people over time. So why ...