Meetings designed to distribute grant money to fund research were canceled as part of a communications freeze at health agencies.

A new memo by NIH Acting Director Matthew Memoli, obtained by Forbes, clarifies what can and can’t be done with regard to clinical trials, purchasing, research and the like.

Despite concerns about the future of research at the National Institutes of Health, current clinical trials can continue as scheduled, the agency’s acting director told staff scientists in an email Monday.

Major academic research institutions and medical schools in the Philadelphia region are allotted $1.7 billion in NIH funding.