Fired NIH workers lost their 'dream job.' Due to a Kafkaesque appeals process and slim private-sector offerings, their futures may be in jeopardy, too

A man outside in the snow holds a sign with rainbow lettering that reads, "Save kid's cancer research from 'DOGE' please!" (Credit: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group—Getty Images)

• The National Institute of Health, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, fired 1,200 employees as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting bureaucratic overhaul. Current and former NIH employees told Fortune the firings and freezes have disrupted workplace productivity and jeopardized the careers of the terminated scientists, who have scant options for appeal or private sector job opportunities.

Katrina Le Blanc spent Valentine’s Day evening refreshing her email on her work computer, waiting to be fired.