A/Prof Sam Stehbens PhD (She/Her)

All the feels tonight for the Australian biomedical research sector #nhmrc

‘Complete joke’: Efforts to reduce funding wait times ends with longer blowout A long campaign to improve Australia’s sclerotic research bureaucracy has culminated in an extraordinary blowout to grant approval times, leaving scientists despondent.

“A complete joke”

After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race.

Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants.

By @liammannix.bsky.social

Sounds like a gummy bear company…

Does anyone know of an anti mStayGold antibody that works for immunoblots / IP? Anyone tried the one from HUABIO (not even sure that’s a real company)? Thanks!

A man standing up in a crowded room of people sitting. He is dressed in workman's clothes and has his head raised as if speaking up when not necessarily belonging there.

We are a rich enough country to be funding 37% of all basic research proposals, not just considering "the best" 37% and then maybe only funding 12% in the end.

Screenshot of LinkedIn post from ARC saying that DP27 EOI outcomes will be released on RMS on the 26th Feb 2026.

The ARC have said (on LinkedIn) they will release outcomes for Discovery Projects Expressions of Interest (2027) tomorrow👇

Grant delays feared as ARC ramps up ‘due diligence’ Researchers brace for renewed funding uncertainty as security checks prove ‘more time-consuming than imagined’

The massive delays ARC announced for all grant schemes – with longer processing times & 3-month announcement windows – were examined in Senate Estimates recently.

Here’s John Ross reporting on it, & the confusing Estimates hearing, for Times Higher Ed👇

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/grant-d...

It was a really great meeting- I learnt a lot. Brought together scientists from vastly different areas in such a complementary way. I look forward to seeing it continue.

Blood vessel development and lumenization in a zebrafish embryo. Credit to Dr. Kazuhide Shaun Okuda @latrobeuni.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Airports have no time zones. Therefore you are correct- never ‘too early’ 😆

a blue dog and an orange dog are standing next to each other and waving ALT: a blue dog and an orange dog are standing next to each other and waving

Michael Krieg, Verena Ruprecht, @felixmendu.bsky.social & Giovanna Petrillo. You have set the bar very high for any Australian conference I help organise 😆 you were wonderful hosts.

Home from a great #EMBO workshop in Barcelona. Intracellular mechanics & organelle Mechanobiology was such a fun topic! @christanny.bsky.social made sure I didn’t get lost. It was great to catch up with @katemiro.bsky.social 1st time in almost 10yrs!!. Thank you to the hosts.. (continued) 1/2

Do you want to pursue your ideas in computational biology independently, running your group in @embl.org‘s uniquely collaborative environment, beside world’s most comprehensive biomolecular data resources @ebi.embl.org in Genome Campus next to @sangerinstitute.bsky.social?
Apply to join us & share 🙏

"authors also express frustration at the amount of work expected for a single publishable unit, a concern we
share (while humbly noting that it may not be
held by the same authors when they serve as
reviewers of other work)" <-THAT www.nature.com/articles/s41... ht @ritastrack.bsky.social

I’m likely shouting into the echo chamber here but 👉 #DiscoveryScience is so important.

Septins buffer actomyosin forces to protect the nucleus from genotoxic mechanical stress www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#NARF is on bluesky! 👉 if you’ve held a fellowship in the last 10 years, you should join.

I came here looking 👀 for a cat. I heard there might be a cat in this tutorial? 😆

So excited to share the preprint with the bulk of my PhD work in the Beach @myosincity.bsky.social and Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social Labs at Loyola University Chicago! We investigate the structure, recruitment, and function of septin networks around the nucleus. A thread:
doi.org/10.64898/202...

Figure 1. Spectraplakins, including MACF1, are large cytoskeletal scaffold proteins that crosslink actin filaments and microtubules to coordinate cellular architecture, polarity, and intracellular organization. This group of proteins has a modular architecture consisting of an N-terminal actin-binding domain, central spectrin-repeat rod regions, and C-terminal microtubule-binding motifs (left). These complex proteins have various functions in neurons, including regulation of neurite outgrowth, axon guidance, synapse organization, and intracellular trafficking (right). Figures from Cusseddu et al. (2021) under a Creative Commons CC BY license.

The MACF1 puzzle: when a cytoskeletal giant causes multiple brain disorders | Beyond the Ion Channel

...we just published our new post on why interpreting MACF1 variants is so difficult, highlighting how this massive spectraplakin gene can produce distinct neurodevelopmental phenotypes.

🔬 Postdoc position – Infection Biology & Cryo-ET (Zurich) 🇨🇭
We are looking for a motivated Postdoc to join our interdisciplinary team.
📩 Interested? Check out the job advert:
www.imm.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:cb17...

👉 More info on the lab: www.weiss-laboratory.com
Please share with interested colleagues!

Interested in cell-cell communication and microscopy? We are searching for a motivated postdoctoral researcher to join Münster! Please Apply! @uni-muenster.de

New from the lab: we report the development of our glutamine biosensor, iGlo, and use iGlo to study spatial and temporal dynamics of glutamine metabolism. Plasmids are being deposited with Addgene!

I purchased a kindle for my daughter- she asked for one after watching me read mine. I too worry we’ll lose reading as a hobby. 😞 too much quick fix dopamine in reels & tiktoks

Not my cat but very much my cat’s vibe. #CatsOfAcademia

I have an Australian spotted gum cutting board 70x50cm. Problem is- it’s too beautiful to cut on!

I’m considering baking a second ham…because 6kg apparently wasn’t enough to last a week

I'm on the Board of @biologists.bsky.social. Many know them as publishers of @dev-journal.bsky.social, @jcellsci.bsky.social, @jexpbiol.bsky.social , DMM, and @biologyopen.bsky.social --but they also are a major funder of small grants that empower young biologists and enable scientific meetings 🧪

Having seen a NFC at a show. You’d know. THEYR’E HUGE. 😆

Ha- I mean 2025. Clearly- I’m in next year mode already