Kerri Mowen studies the chemical regulation of proteins, especially the role they play in arthritis and other auto-immune disorders. — Nelvin C. Cepeda

It’s a restless time for Kerri Mowen. The Scripps Research Institute immunologist often lies awake at night, worrying about money. And her anxiety may get worse.

Mowen is one of the thousands of scientists who get most of their funding from the National Institutes of Health, which underwrites more biomedical research than any government agency. NIH has a $30.7 billion budget that could be sharply cut over the next year, causing alarm in labs from La Jolla to Boston.

Things are already tight. So far, none of the grant proposals Mowen sent to NIH last year have been funded.

She isn’t keeping mum about her anxiety to herself. Mowen, 37, took an unusual step for a young researcher, starting an online petition drive that seeks to rally the public against cuts in NIH funding. The results have been mixed, as Mowen noted during an interview about the role money plays in science.

Q: Why did you create the petition?

A: There are proposals that have gotten grades of “A” from NIH that are going unfunded because of the fiscal crisis. Imagine getting an “A” in your calculus class and still failing. My colleagues and I wonder how biomedical science will survive. My students and postdocs wonder if there is going to be a future for them. I figured that we can either sit around being frustrated or we can try to insure that the U.S.’s long-term investment in science is not wasted. Imagine U.S. research and development infrastructure as a Jenga tower. You remove the NIH piece, and the whole tower tumbles.

Q: The economy is still struggling. Shouldn’t all programs be open to cuts?

A: I think we should be strategic about program cuts, and the NIH should be exempt. In addition to funding discoveries that lead to medical advances, money from the NIH led to $68 billion in economic activity in 2010. It’s simple, really. We need to tackle the current budget deficit by increasing revenue and decreasing health care costs. Funding NIH can accomplish both.

Q: Most of the roughly 3,500 people who’ve signed your online petition work in science. Why hasn’t there been a big response from the general public?

A: We are all being constantly bombarded with unfiltered information from multiple sources, and I think it can be hard to grab attention for even the most pressing causes. Even so, I am disappointed that the petition has not caught on faster and I’m continuing to work to get it circulated as widely as possible. I do think most members of the public care about the well-being of science and medical research. But I think few understand how federal funding of the NIH leads to improved treatments and cures. When you pick up a prescription at CVS, you have NIH-funded research from 15-20 years ago to thank for that. And it’s not just prescriptions. NIH also funded vaccines, chemotherapy, medical procedures and medical devices.

Q: Does the average person understand what occurs in a lab like yours?

A: I expect that most people don’t know the details of scientific research, and that is unfortunate. While I think it is great that shows like “CSI,” “Bones” and “House” show some cool things science can do, the scientific process is much more rigorous and time consuming. Scientists need to be more proactive in engaging the public while illustrating the tangible benefits of research.

Q: NIH will get about $30.7 billion in funding in fiscal 2012. Why is it so hard to get proposals funded?

A: Although the number sounds big, it’s actually not a lot of money. Consider this: Clinical trials (through phase 4) can cost about $1 billion. Americans spend about $80 billion a year on cigarettes. The combined 2012 Medicare/Medicaid budget is about $755 billion. Health care costs are about $2.6 trillion.

After factoring in inflation, the NIH budget has actually been stagnant or even declining for the last eight years. At the same time, we have had new investigators finish their training and begin competing for the same pool of resources. And the research costs of new technology have increased. The cutoff point for funding has dropped precipitously — so much so that we are no longer funding about 50 percent of the grants we would consider “the best” — those that would have the greatest impact of public health.

Q: How many grant proposals did you file in 2011?

A: I submitted seven grants. Five were not funded. I am waiting to hear about two of them. At any one time, I have 5-8 people in my lab, and it takes 1-2 grants to fund things. I currently have one NIH grant.

Q: Are there consequences if you don’t get grants?

A: Yes. All of us who are responsible for operating academic research labs must keep them funded. If I cannot maintain funding, I will lose my lab and my job. I know that even if I lose my job I have survived worse situations. My incentive for speaking up about the funding crisis is that I know that I am hardly alone in this situation. If the U.S. loses scores of the academic researchers that the government has already invested in, it would be bad news for our future health care situation and for our economic recovery.

Q: How much time do you spend worrying about whether your proposals get funded?

A: Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, particularly between the hours of 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.