Best post ever.

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 🧵

Meet Meghan Mott She’s living proof that policy fellowships are worthy of consideration.

Dr. Mott is very good at her job, amazing work ethic, and thoughtfully protective of Congressional and scientific interests. A real hero, in my view...

For background see www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/...

Committee Releases Conferenced Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bi... United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning.

www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit...

1/5

The Quiet Power of Program Officers How invisible decisions shape what science gets done—and whether it matters

This is an outstanding essay describing some of the important roles and influences of NIH program officers (from an insider perspective).

Read!

elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-quiet-...

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

There is apparently no point in checking out the "preview" to get ahead of the Biosketch game because it warns you that everything you fill in will be lost and you will have to start over when the real thing is rolled out.
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Confirmation of the new triage line at 65-70% of proposals. Introduction of a new “competitive but ND” class to permit exception pay pickups.

U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students

“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”

Gut microbiota protect against hepatic steatosis by degrading sorbitol derived from dietary glucose @gjpattij.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

6/ So what can you do?
✔️ Choose supplements that are third-party tested for heavy metals (USP, NSF, or Informed Sport).
✔️ Prioritize whole-food protein sources when possible.
✔️ Advocate for stronger supplement regulation as the industry has little oversight.

Congratulations — excellent work!

Machine-learning-guided discovery of SLC25A45 as a mediator of mitochondrial methylated amino acid import and carnitine synthesis Khan et al. apply machine learning to identify substrates of UNC93A, SLC45A4, and SLC25A45. Biochemical assays and in vivo metabolite tracing establish SLC25A45 as a key mediator of mitochondrial impo...

Excited to share our work on discovery of SLC25A45 as a mediator of mitochondrial methylated amino acid import and carnitine biosynthesis. @cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

Huge thanks to you and the Skyline team for all that you do to support this amazing platform! It was an honor to showcase some of its capabilities.

Thanks so much. I think there’s a fine line between communicating the potential risks of exposures without causing panic that paralyzes life activities.

1/ RFK Jr.’s promised autism “report” landed this week. Instead of new science, we got headlines, a press conference, and far-reaching claims drawn from decades of existing research. Parents and pregnant people were left with overwhelming anxiety. Here’s what the evidence actually says 👇

The Washington Post did a great job of summarizing a complex topic. There is still so much to learn about the connections between the exposome and cancer. Thanks for including me.

Research in Scientific Reports suggests that blue-throated macaws can learn new actions by watching other macaws interact. The study indicates that this approach to learning is not exclusive to humans. go.nature.com/4g8p43m 🧪

Pretty impressive to be able to see mitochondrial dysfunction with the naked eye.

defunding children's brain cancer research. @endpts.com

a man in a shirt and tie is touching his forehead ALT: a man in a shirt and tie is touching his forehead

I have a first serious attempt to estimate the consequences of multi-year funding for July.

For new R01s, the amount of additional expenditure was

$135 M

The number of additional R01s that could have been funded is

182

1/9

Here are some of the highlights of the appropriations bill that the Senate appropriations committee just approved:

$48.7 billion for NIH, an increase of $400 million

Rejects the proposal to cap
indirect cost rates at 15%

Includes a provision to prevent MYF that would reduce the number of grants

Odds of winning NIH grants plummet as new funding policy and spending delays bite Funding multiyear grants up front will sharply cut number of investigators receiving awards

Even with flat funding for the NIH, under the current FY26 plan, there will be 60% less cancer research and much less research funded overall. We need to make sure Congress understands these tricks and protects against them in their budget plan.

1/ Since January, over 5,500 NIH-funded projects have been paused. That includes cancer trials, Alzheimer’s research, maternal health studies. This is work that directly impacts our lives.
And people aren't talking about it enough.
Let’s fix that 🧵

Or maybe the real goal is to decrease submissions so that they’re commensurate with reduced NIH staffing.

Huge congrats!!

Alan Marshall: A scientist and a Gentleman - MagLab Meet one of the greatest innovators in the history of mass spectrometry, hard at work.

RIP Alan Marshall, one of the greatest mass spectrometrists ever, and a great human to boot.

nationalmaglab.org/careers/meet...

Join ‪‪@drwendieberg.bsky.social‬ for this half hour of discussion of supplemental breast cancer screening for women with dense breast tissue.

"Gold standard science"