Of course they did. It is all about money and funding. I know someone who works at a research uni that is well known. They do medical research and he said it is an incredible joke. It is all about getting projects funded even though very little ever gets done. The waste and fraud are stahhering. Not blantant fraud most of the time but close. Things go on that would never happen in private industry.
All of the low-hanging fruit in medical science has long since been picked and eaten. Most of what passes for research nowadays is multivariate torturing of enormous data sets of questionable reliability, hoping that something with p<0.05 will fall into your lap by chance.
Is this a gubbermint funded research unit?