A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The first Trump administration pressured U.S. universities to investigate researchers with ties to China because of worries that China was stealing America's secrets. It was part of the China Initiative led by the FBI, which critics say ruined careers and lives. NPR's Emily Feng reports. And a warning - this story mentions suicide.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Dr. Jane Wu, a neuroscientist, came to the U.S. 40 years ago for her Ph.D., focused on cancer and ALS research.
ELIZABETH RAO: She always found inspiration in brilliant women.
FENG: ...Says her daughter, Elizabeth Rao.
RAO: She saw America as a place where women can flourish through their own hard work and their own intelligence.
FENG: Wu became one of the few women running a noted lab. Some colleagues cited her as a role model for girls in science. Her lab was at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She was a single mom. She battled cancer once while launching a biology conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JANE WU: So today, I will discuss about mitochondrial dysfunction.
FENG: And as here, she presented frequently about her work.
ARNOLD STRAUSS: Oh, she was very intense about her work.
FENG: Dr. Arnold Strauss, a pediatric cardiologist, was one of Wu's peers and remembers her as a work-obsessed extrovert.
STRAUSS: Jane would always bring her laptop to any interaction we had.
FENG: But in 2019, the National Institutes of Health began investigating her research ties and funding in China, one of dozens of such cases. The NIH declined to comment to NPR on its investigation, and Wu always denied any wrongdoing. The year the investigation began, she was part of six active NIH research grants.
TOM MANIATIS: That is a huge accomplishment. I've never had six grants like that.
FENG: This is Tom Maniatis, a renowned molecular neuroscientist. Wu was once a postdoctoral fellow in his lab. A study of Chinese American researchers in 2023 found nearly three-fourths of them did not feel safe in the U.S. because of the kind of scrutiny Wu faced. This fear lingered even after the China Initiative ended in 2022. The initiative was widely considered a failure, resulting in convictions in only about a third of cases, usually for lesser economic charges, not espionage. Wu had been a U.S. citizen since 2000, but she told research peers she felt targeted as one of the only Asian staff at the school of medicine. Strauss remembers she was distraught.
STRAUSS: She was banned from the laboratory. She had to sign over her grants to another scientist.
FENG: That was in 2019. Wu was never criminally charged, and in 2023, the NIH cleared her. But still, Northwestern refused to give her her grants back. Then it cut her salary, citing her lack of research during the time that she'd been banned from her own lab. And when she started looking for new grants, Northwestern told Wu in 2024 that they were taking away her lab space, a career-ending move, Maniatis says.
MANIATIS: To suddenly be without lab space is a major problem.
FENG: Is it possible to apply for funding without lab space?
MANIATIS: No.
FENG: In emails seen by NPR, Wu begged Northwestern to keep her lab space. Northwestern accused her of barricading herself in the lab. And in May 2024, they called campus and Chicago police to remove Wu, who was then committed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency psychiatric ward. She was released that June, the day after her grant deadlines had passed. A few weeks later, Wu killed herself. She was 60 years old. Rao was so shattered by her mother's sudden death that for the first few months after, she partially lost the ability to speak.
RAO: Yeah. It's taken me time to, like, become more verbal in general since then.
FENG: And now she and other family members are suing Northwestern for discrimination against Wu and alleging her mother's forced institutionalization contributed to her suicide. Northwestern told NPR in an emailed statement it, quote, "vehemently denies" all these allegations. A few weeks ago, more than 1,000 U.S. researchers, including Nobel laureates, signed a letter to Northwestern protesting its treatment of Jane Wu.
STRAUSS: I think the China Initiative was a total disaster. It was prejudicial.
FENG: Strauss here was among the signatories.
STRAUSS: It destroyed people's careers and, of course, her life.
FENG: And he says the China Initiative was a politicization of the National Institutes of Health that should never have happened.
Emily Feng, NPR News.
MARTÍNEZ: If you or someone you know is considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
