Rosalind Elsie Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite. Description: Dr. Franklin looks across a checkered table at everyday objects. I think this is in a cafe or a breakroom. Since we know this is Paris, this photo is likely from 1946?

With all she did to make Watson and Crick's discovery possible, Rosalind Franklin was essentially "a de facto collaborator," says Lynne Osman Elkin. Novartis Foundation Dr. Franklin looks to her right, wearing a dark necklace and broad-yoked shirt or blouse. She has short dark hair and eyebrows, and has a look of sharp intelligence, with an edge of weariness.

It's International Women in Science Day ♀️, and I want to talk briefly about Rosalind Franklin.

A conventional choice for unconventional reasons: Dr. Franklin was one of the FIRST STRUCTURAL VIROLOGISTS. Let's talk about her work outside of the Crick & Watson debacle.

This is a handy little website if you want to keep track of how things are going with science funding.

sciencespending.org#overview

I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name

OAI: say no more

As a recipient of federal grants from #NIH (for now! 😭) that funds research in my lab, I'd like to sincerely thank American taxpayers on #TaxDay for investing in scientific research that lays the foundation for medical and technological innovation in this country and keeps us ALL safe and healthy

Trump administration drops court fight to cap NIH payments for research overhead costs The Trump administration will not be asking the Supreme Court to take up its fight to slash NIH support for research indirect costs

Some great (but not surprising to me) news!

"The Trump administration will not be asking the Supreme Court to take up its fight to slash federal support for funding that the nation’s science enterprise relies on for basic operating costs."

www.statnews.com/2026/04/08/t...

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Polymerase trapping as the mechanism of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus genesis Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) derive from H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs). Although insertion of a furin-cleavable multibasic cleavage site (MBCS) in the...

Polymerase trapping as the mechanism of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus genesis www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I got excited when I saw that NIH might have received its first apportionment from OMB today.

Alas, it's for ARPA-H.

OMB still has not given NIH a dime for non-salary, non-emergency expenses from the spending bill that was signed into law on Feb 3.

Polymerase trapping as the mechanism of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus genesis Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) derive from H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs). Although insertion of a furin-cleavable multibasic cleavage site (MBCS) in the...

Transient RNA structures play a key role in the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses! Great to see this collaboration with Mathis Funk, Mathilde Richard, Stephen Cusack, and others in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

💉 Where can you find accurate information on vaccines❓

✅ American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP-...

✅ Medical societies: cmss.org/programs-and...

✅ CIDRAP for in-depth evidence review: vaxintegrity.cidrap.umn.edu/evidence-rev...

Graph of award probability of R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. Fiscal year 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success.

@joshuasweitz.bsky.social recently posted this graph that shocked but did not surprise me.

This graph is based on data recently release by NIH

report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/...

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Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Still waiting for the last lot of snow to melt 🥶

Screenshot from an NIH website reading: "Table 1 shows the number of principal investigators (PIs) applying for or receiving an R01-equivalent grant in FYs 2021 to 2025, disaggregated by career stage. NIH supported 1,423 and 1,144 ESIs in FYs 2024 and 2025, respectively. The decrease seen in FY 2025 may likely be due in part to NIH implementing a requirement to use 50% of its remaining competing Research Project Grant (RPG) funds (starting in June 2025) for full-year funded competing RPGs, which was expected to lead to fewer awards and support fewer researchers overall."

Check this out straight from the NIH website, acknowledging that multiyear funding was likely responsible for a 20% decrease in early stage investigators.

And that it was expected.

A strange approach for someone so committed to the next generation of scientists.

grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

A line graph shown the number of NIH new and competitive awards funded for fiscal year 2026 (through 2/13/26) compared with fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is lagging well behind with only 569 awards made through 2/13/26 compared to >2000 for previous fiscal years.

New and competitive renewal awards.

The number of awards is 569 compared with more than 2200 through the same date in earlier fiscal years.

All ICs have now made awards except for NIAAA, NCCIH, NLM, FIC, and OD. NEI (Eye Institute) made its first award during the new period.

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**JOBS ALERT**

The Virology Unit at @PasteurCambodia
hiring 1 Scientist and 2 Postdocs to join our fast-moving, field-connected, research-driven team on emerging viruses and zoonoses.

🧪🧬🥼🦠🔬🐓💉🦇😷

Limited time to apply — and we need people to start ASAP.**👇

First human #H5N1 case of 2026 in #Cambodia: a 30-year-old man from Kampot province. Sequencing, virus isolation & animal investigations ongoing. Dead chicken at home before onset. Patient has since recovered. 🦠💉😷🐓🥼🔬🧪

Sequencing, contact tracing, and poultry investigations ongoing.

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

Right wing chaos agent Jay Bhattacharya strikes again—making the US less prepared for the next pandemic

One of the most important national centers for studying infectious diseases, based at the NIH, is no longer allowed to study pandemic preparedness or bio defense😨

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

“Staff members at the United States’s premier infectious-disease research institute have been instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s web pages, according to e-mails Nature has obtained.”

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Moderna Won’t Run Phase III Vaccine Trials as Skepticism Grows in US: Bloomberg Growing opposition to vaccines in the U.S., driven by recent government policy changes, makes it difficult to see a return on investment in vaccine development, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said this w...

Moderna have announced that they won't run new phase three trials now with massive impacts for new vaccine development- why- its because of RFK Jr and his anti-vaccine campaigns and cancelling mRNA vaccine research which affect the sales the company can then make 🧪🧵 #PublicHealth

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine (Gift Article) A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.

New York Times article on science funding with some depressing but familiar curves with interactive graphics.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

NIH extends the Oct-Nov deadlines to Dec 8, 2025 The NIH has issued a Notice (NOT-OD-26-012) which expands upon the prior warning (NOT-OD-26-005) about extending the current submission deadlines. It seems to be quite comprehensive. All grant appl…

NIH extends the Oct-Nov deadlines to Dec 8, 2025 drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/n...

Last call! Applications for the @crg.eu International PhD Programme 2025 in beautiful Barcelona close next week! Join us and our inspiring colleagues at the CRG - an exceptional environment for discovery, creativity, and scientific growth.
Apply here: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...

BREAKING: Man from Washington state dies after being infected with H5N5 bird flu

How does MDPI keep stuffing their journals?

By cold emailing random scientists about “special issues” in fields they’ve never worked in, but hey, who needs expertise when the business model is volume?
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Ahhhh you thought of us first this year ☺️

A flurry of snowflakes with text reading 'Virus Snowflakes: a collection of paper art viruses by Ed Hutchinson - Download now!' along with the logo of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research

If you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs.
Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them!
cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...

Are you looking for female speakers in CryoEM for seminars and conferences? Are you a woman in CryoEM and not yet on the ‚woman in CryoEM‘ list? Find your speakers and add/update name and affiliation! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I’m also frustrated by the lack of clarity in the wording of this. I submitted several grants in the recent cycle and am already struggling with delays to study section, council and now they want to retroactively change due dates? What an awful chaotic inefficient mess for all of us

Notes on NIH matters as the government opens up again A tweet from someone apparently positioned to know claimed the damage totals from the government shutdown amounted to 379 study sections postponed, within which 24,380 NIH grant applications were s…

Notes on NIH matters as the government opens up again drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/n...