Proud to share this work with @kevinchalut.bsky.social and Byron Mui. Why do some injuries scar while others regenerate? Using digit tip models, we show the ECM is a key driver. HA-rich ECM promotes regeneration, and boosting it can shift healing away from fibrosis. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Today, leading scientists & educators from New Jersey's 12th District are endorsing my candidacy! Nobel laureates, as well as pioneers in medicine, physics, AI, and chemistry. I'm deeply grateful. And I'm ready to defend science and the prosperity it brings! www.samfornj.org/news/scienti...

Now this is how you kick off GOTV weekend! Thank you so much to @elizabeth-warren.bsky.social, Jan Schakowsky, and the amazing supporters and volunteers that joined us this morning. 4 days to go, let's win this thing!!

I'm deeply honored to be endorsed by many great Illinois leaders. In Congress, I'll work alongside them to fight for the future we deserve. 3 days left until the primary election!!

This is a graph of the death of US science.

Whole-body single-cell atlas of an adult vertebrate in homeostasis and regeneration www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

News from central Jersey: I'm running to represent New Jersey's 12th Congressional District.

By entering the fray, I hope to bring ideas of repairing our frayed republic. Not only to defend it in 2026, but to build something stronger, for generations to come!

samwang.substack.com/p/entering-t...

Our new paper reveals critical new regulators of stem cell differentiation that control where the right kinds of cells are made in planarians.

In particular, we find Anosmin—a gene responsible for Kallmann Syndrome—as a restrictor of neurogenesis.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#basicresearch

Happening now: clergy protest ICE detention center in Chicago.

“Why are you still here? Greg Bovino already left.”

“It’s an internment camp…no medicine…toilets don’t work”

I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago.

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

I'm struck by how many Chicagoans have seemingly felt compelled to write and share reflections on "this is what it feels like in Chicago right now". We know we're going through something awful together and we want the world to understand it.

Threading several of these pieces below.

Donate to Paul Maddox for Congress in NC 11 Paul is running for Congress because there’s a sickness in Washington, and no one is working to cure it.

Dear all, A scientist from UNC Chapel Hill, Paul Maddox, is running for congress in NC for a seat currently held by a republican. If you care about science (and democracy) please consider donating to his campaign #Standupforscience secure.actblue.com/donate/paul-...

Update: the White House account on Bluesky @whitehouse-47.bsky.social now has 6.8K followers vs. 550K+ accounts that have blocked it directly or via a blocklist according to ClearSky.

Chicago - no kings

Here it is! Postdoctoral position to identify the progenitors sensory organs in the regenerating legs of Parhyale

apply here: www.averof-lab.org/pages/tracman

1/3

One of your future coworkers in the Currie Lab, an adorable axolotl.

💥OUR LAB IS HIRING!!💥

We are hiring a research assistant/lab manager to assist with managing our axolotl colony and enabling some kick-ass science! Looking for high levels of organization, collaboration, problem solving and curiosity.

Application link: tinyurl.com/3tpvphpm
#SciJob #JobAlert

Cells can form patterns within themselves just like embryos do. How? Connie Yan's new preprint shows how the anterior-posterior cytoskeleton pattern in Stentor is dictated by regionalized scaffolding proteins

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Alert: The Trump administration is quietly slashing new NIH grant awards, and it's not via the budget NIH’s sudden move to multiyear grant funding is forcing shocking cuts in the number of grants funded. This is an effective budget cut. It's bad, folks.

New, from an anonymous NIH insider: Trump is being pushed to spend more NIH money. The White House is ordering NIH to do multi-year budgets for awards. This budget trick means fewer awards, fewer labs funded, and lower paylines for researchers. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

Project 2025 is gutting medical funding that helped Russell Vought's own kid Its architect's daughter has cystic fibrosis—and benefits from a "miracle drug" backed by an agency he's attacking.

Given his performance on @cnn.com, it’s time to tell this story again. Vought’s daughter is alive because of NIH. He’s destroying an institution that saved his daughter’s life. @mrjoncryer.bsky.social @jamellebouie.net @atrupar.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

FDA-NIH Workshop: Reducing Animal Testing The FDA is hosting a workshop on reducing animal testing. The workshop is open to current FDA and NIH employees.

The NIH is asking scientists and the public to comment on plans to drastically limit animal model research. If you think animal models remain important tools for basic and clinical research tell them! Click the link below and scroll down to send your comments!

www.fda.gov/news-events/...

Happy to announce a new preprint from my lab looking in to the establishment of polycomb domains in early fly development and contributions from pioneer factors Zelda and GAGA-factor.

Opinion | Universities and the government: Which needs the other more? From public health to high-tech innovation, universities are the workhorses of national progress.

Universities are not passive beneficiaries of government largesse. It is the federal government that depends on universities to conduct the research that keeps our nation healthy, safe and economically competitive.I discuss in the Washington Post.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Combinatorial mechanisms specify cellular location and neurotransmitter identity during regeneration of planarian neurons During regenerative neurogenesis, neurons must be created in the right types and locations. Though regenerative neurogenesis is limited in humans, other animals use regenerative neurogenesis to faithf...

A bit of happy news. I'm very excited to share the newest from the R-G lab, a preprint focusing on regenerative neurogenesis in our favorite worms! Grad students @kendallbclay.bsky.social and @taylormlanier.bsky.social co-authored this awesome manuscript. 1/5
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Possible "shadow termination" of non-competitive grants:

Thanks to Grants-Watch (@anthonybarente.bsky.social + @noamross.net + @scott-delaney.bsky.social), we know of another 1,800+ NIH grants that are more than 30 days overdue for what should be routine renewals...

grant-watch.us/posts/tracki...

Breakthrough Prize-Winning Biochemist on the Deadly Cost of Funding Cuts | Amanpour and Company YouTube video by Amanpour and Company

David Liu @harvard.edu beautifully articulates the criticality of basic science funding for developing revolutionary therapeutics like life-saving base editors 👏

youtu.be/8YhJM6zxYDw?...

All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!

Delighted that our work on positional memory is now published. We asked how axolotl cells 'know' which part of the limb to regenerate after injury.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A joy to work with super team Sarah Plattner, Yuka Sugiura, Francisco Falcon and Elly Tanaka.
🧵1/14

More than the freezing of individual grants at Northwestern, I hope it breaks through that all NIH money to Northwestern is stopped even for grants that have not been frozen or terminated. The university has received $0 from NIH since March.

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

There is no replacement (yet) for animal models in medical research The NIH is “reducing animal use in research.” But there is no replacement for animal models.

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research

www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...