The Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science awarded to Lucy Shapiro | PNAS
Scientists can contribute to society in numerous ways. Some scientists discover new biological principles and found entirely new fields. Some scien...
2025 #LaskerAward winner Lucy Shapiro asked: How do living organisms translate information from a linear genetic code into three-dimensional structures?
And with that, she broke open a new field. 🧪
@pnas.org
#Lasker2025 #systemsbiology
15.09.2025 16:45
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Microbial allies: bacteria help fight against cancer
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Imperial College London and the University of Cologne have discovered that microbes associated w...
"Microbial allies: bacteria help fight against cancer"
✨ News story from #LMS @mrc-lms.bsky.social, covering the beautiful study led by #postdoc Daniel Martinez @dmartimarti.bsky.social - congrats! ✨
#PostdocAppreciationWeek #PAW2025
#Cancer #Microbiome #Chemotherapy
lms.mrc.ac.uk/microbial-al...
16.09.2025 21:24
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CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE - Clip ROBERT REDFORD: Salk Institute -- La Jolla, California, USA - HD
YouTube video by neueroadmovies
Robert Redford (RIP) survived a childhood bout of polio though bedridden for 2 weeks
In 2014, he directed a short film on the architecture and mission of La Jolla's Salk Institute—honoring founder Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine that has saved countless lives, and architect Louis Kahn
17.09.2025 02:52
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Congratulations!
03.09.2025 20:01
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Please share my 1 min video on the importance of maintaining NIH funding of infectious diseases and drug discovery research vs rising antibiotic resistance
Drastic budget cuts harm our health and imperil the next generation of scientists
More @UCSanDiego “Behind Every Breakthrough” bit.ly/3FlXQs3
07.08.2025 20:40
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“Use It or Lose It!” - ASCB
Fourteen Republican Senators have written to Russell Vought, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—the agency responsible for developing the President’s annual budget propo...
Lawmakers to NIH: Use it or lose it.
14 Republican Senators—including key appropriators—are urging the White House to release NIH FY25 funds without delay, warning that stalled spending could harm future research budgets.
Read more: www.ascb.org/science-poli...
30.07.2025 17:15
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Super excited to share our paper online 🚨today🚨 in Cell Host & Microbe! Xiaomei Ren @xiaomeiren.bsky.social and Mason Clark @rmasonclark.bsky.social co-led discovery of ecological factors for Acinetobacter baumannii carriage in the gut, a reservoir for pathogen spread. 🎉
tinyurl.com/443kfefk
04.08.2025 20:26
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In which the Whitney lab describes cool new family of antimicrobial toxins present in some Gram+ pathogens 💊
14.04.2025 15:37
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My quote of the day
(A long one)
Of all the traits which qualify a scientist for citizenship in the republic of science, I would put a sense of responsibility as a scientist at the very top.
1/n
13.04.2025 10:52
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Microbial warfare brought us CRISPR. What big breakthroughs could be next?
Gene editing and many other useful biotechnology tools came from studies of bacteria fighting off viral invaders. But scientists have only begun to unlock the secrets of this ancient arms race.
Gene editing and many other useful biotechnology tools came from studies of bacteria fighting off viral invaders, but scientists have only begun to unlock the secrets of this microbial warfare. Read the Nature feature on what breakthroughs could be next. 🧪
13.04.2025 16:37
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PLOS statement on recent US Executive Orders and scientific integrity - The Official PLOS Blog
Since its founding over twenty five years ago PLOS has been dedicated to advancing open science, ensuring that knowledge is accessible to…
"PLOS will not compromise on issues of scientific rigor and editorial integrity."
From a PLOS post about recent Executive Orders. I'm an editor for PLOSOne and very glad to see this family of journals not comply with anti-scientific political diktats.
#AcademicChatter #StandUpForScience
14.03.2025 15:27
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Extended time, elevated expectations: The unappreciated downsides of pausing the tenure clock | PNAS
Extended time, elevated expectations: The unappreciated downsides of pausing the tenure
clock
I'm already hearing rumblings from academic leaders that tenure clock extensions may be part of how early career researchers weather this new storm.
A reminder that clock extensions are not the easy solution some think them to be: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
We must do better by junior faculty.
12.03.2025 22:24
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Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...
01.03.2025 18:07
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The average American voter thinks that the government is too big but that it should spend more money on everything it does. This explains a decent share of the political chaos of this country.
02.03.2025 19:48
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Damaged heart valve of endocarditis
To: Elon Musk/DOGE
From: Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA)
Subject: Five Things I Accomplished Last Week (🧵)
#1. Destroyed a previously normal heart valve in an otherwise healthy 58-year-old man
24.02.2025 08:16
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2025 Study section tracking
Wondering if your study section cancelled? I update this sheet daily. As of today, 56/124 study sections that should have met since Jan 2, 2025 have "not met as scheduled." docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
24.02.2025 16:17
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NSURP.org
National Summer Undergraduate Research Project
Although we are not federally funded for this summer, WE WILL STILL RUN The National Summer Undergraduate Research Project (NSURP) in 2025. We remain committed to the work that needs to be done and will continue to meet people where they are. 1/4 nsurp.org
24.02.2025 17:47
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Cool work and torial! 👍
23.02.2025 14:36
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Email from Yale deans office February 20, 2025
To the YSM Community:
We are writing to follow-up on Dean Brown’s email (dated Feb. 9) regarding the Feb. 7 supplemental guidance from the NIH on the indirect cost rate. As most of you are aware, there are currently two temporary restraining orders in effect as this guidance is challenged in the courts. Similarly, there are multiple temporary restraining orders in effect, which have paused "stop-work" orders for funding in specific areas.
Thriving during times of uncertainty requires flexibility and creativity. Over the last few weeks, the Executive Group (chairs and deputy deans) of the school continue to develop contingency plans to address potential challenges ahead.
As part of this work, we have developed guidelines and a mechanism for bridge funding for any faculty member who receives a premature termination notice for an active grant due to a policy change. This bridge funding is intended to provide time for faculty members who do not have other sources of funding or have been recruited within the last three years to pivot their program.
Universities show their true colors during crises so I'm proud to read that my US employer, Yale School of Medicine, is funding faculty whose labs have been hit by political meddling
In addition to bridge funding I gather Yale lawyers are directly challenging anti-science actions in Washington
21.02.2025 00:27
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February 18, 2024
TO:
Dr. Matthew Memoli, Acting Director, NIH
CC:
John Burklow, Chief of Staff, NIH
Julie Berko, Director, OHR, NIH
FROM:
Nathaniel James Brought, Director, ES, NIH
SUBJECT: Resignation
Dear Dr. Memoli,
On July 3, 2001, I stepped off a bus on Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot Perris Island. Scared out of my mind, I stood on a pair of freshly painted yellow footprints, raised my right hand, and recited the oath of enlistment:
I, Nathaniel James Brought, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
For the last 23 years, 7 months, and 15 days, I like to believe I have faithfully carried out the duties of each office to which I've been appointed in my military and civilian service to this nation. That Service has taken me from the Marine Corps to 3 different federal departments, spanned 3 continents, included service in one war zone, and has included:
• For the Marine Corps and the National Security Agency, I worked on intelligence operations at the highest classification levels using bleeding edge intelligence tools to ensure America's special operators put boots-to-asses on America's enemies overseas (including commendations crediting my work for the kill or capture of dozens of terrorists), ensuring America's policy makers were able to track the movement of dangerous dual
nuclear technology across international borders, and monitored the flow of terrorist financing across the international banking system.
• Utilized information from all-source intelligence to ensure the continued security of America's homeland from international and domestic threats.
• Worked with some of the finest lawyers in the world to ensure America's security operations were effective, while upholding the rights of all those who interacted with them.
• Ensuring that America's rural communities had access to programs like rural development loans, farm aid, and that America's children wouldn't be hungry as they sat in their classrooms and tried to learn.
• Most recently, and frankly most dear to my heart, working with each of you here at the National Institutes of Health to advance the future of science and medicine. Not for Americans. Not for any one group of people. But for ALL of humanity.
I am unbelievably proud to be able to say that there are Americans who are alive, and terrorists who are not, because of the work I've done to serve this nation. I am proud to say that my service to this country has allowed me to ensure that my children have never faced the struggles of poverty that I grew up with. That service didn't begin because of some great altruistic impulse or drive. I didn't grow up saying "I want to do the great work that needs to be done to weave the fabric of America and ensure her people are not only safe, but healthy." Frankly, that service began because I was poor, and I was inspired. I grew up as a free lunch kid who lived in project housing. It was my fellow Americans who made sure I wasn't hungry in class and that I had enough food to excel academically the way I did. It was Americans who had more than we did that made sure I had good schools to attend where I could learn things that expanded my mind.
As I approached the end of high school, I dreamed of going to college and figuring out how to make a living that would allow me to do more tha…
to go to college. I knew my grades weren't good enough to compete for scholarships with kids who were as smart as me but also had private tutors and didn't have to work after class to be able to drive their brand-new cars to our school each day. So, I gave up. I nearly failed my senior year of high school with an attendance failure, even though I only needed two classes to graduate. I didn't see the point. What was the point of learning calculus? So it would be that much harder when my dream of being a brain surgeon died not because I was incapable, but because I didn't have the means to make it come true? I resigned myself to being one of the working poor. I resigned myself to needing a spinal fusion before I was 50, like my father, because he literally broke his back trying to make his dreams come true. The example of my father didn't inspire me at that time. It reminded me of the futility of trying to escape the rung of the social ladder I had been born onto. No matter how smart or "gifted and talented" I may have been, I saw no path that led me to a place where I could realize my potential. So, instead I accepted that it would be wasted.
Ultimately, the reason I find myself here today, rather than in the place I saw as my only end, is because of another young man who committed to serving his country. Shamefully, I do not remember his name, but there was a young corporal from the United States Marine Corps who had been assigned as a recruiter in Reading, Pennsylvania at that time. This man spoke to me about my plans for my future during lunch one day at school. I told him I planned to do what my father had done. Work hard jobs until my body broke down, maybe start a struggling business, and try to do what I could to stay above the poverty line and off welfare. I told him I hoped to be successful enough that my kids never had to watch me use food stamps at the grocery store. It had been hard to watch my mom go through that. How sad is that? I was a smart young 18-…
Over on LinkedIn, the head of the Executive Secretariat of the NIH -- a central part of NIH leadership 🧪🩺-- resigned with a lettter worth reading
www.linkedin.com/posts/nathan...
20.02.2025 18:43
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Graphic with image of the Capitol and text reading AAI Responds.
AAI is deeply concerned about the risk posed by a drastic reduction in the #NIH workforce. Disruptions of this magnitude could have serious consequences for life-saving research and training the next generation of scientists. Read AAI's full statement: news.aai.org/2025/02/15/s...
15.02.2025 14:28
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