"We're proceeding as if the grant is going to return," one North Carolina university researcher said. "We're also preparing for the reality where nothing will change."

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Monday that the Trump administration's decision to cancel more than $1 billion in National Institutes of Health research grants was illegal and discriminatory, and ordered most of the funding restored.

The decision means that the US biomedical agency has to restore funding to hundreds of research projects, but the government will likely appeal.