We miss you here but hope you are enjoying Princeton!

Thank you, Nicole!

It was wonderful to meet you here, although I wish I’d been able to hear you speak!

NIH R50 funding opportunity to provide salary support for Research Software Engineers who work on developing or disseminating biomedical-related software, tools, or algorithms.

Next deadline is Weds 6/4/2025. Details:
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NIH to prioritize human-based research technologies New initiative aims to reduce use of animals in NIH-funded research.

To people interested in technologies such as organoids, computational models, real-world data (and others):

NIH is announcing a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science in research. Aligns with FDA initiative to reduce testing in animals.

Details: www.nih.gov/news-events/...

Thanks and agree it will be important to consider factors such as quantity, quality, and utility of data.

Graphic on NIH s-index challenge

NIH is sponsoring a $1M Data Sharing Index ("S-Index") Challenge to develop a metric for assessing how effectively researchers share useful data. Can use to build more culture of open/team science.

Webinar coming up (Tues 1/28/25, 12pm ET): bit.ly/4h8vgrs

More info about Challenge: bit.ly/4abRypX

Thank you for drawing attention to this, Atul! Research increasingly requires data sharing, and it will be fantastic to have better ways to measure & incentivize it...

NIH Data Sharing Index (S-index) Challenge Check out this contest and enter now!

Here's a website that describes the NIH "s-index challenge" to promote data sharing by developing a robust metric to identify exemplary data sharers.

National Eye Institute is excited lead a large group of participating NIH institutes (shown on website).

www.freelancer.com/contest/NIH-...

A perspective from the National Eye Institute Extracellular Vesicle Workshop: Gaps, needs, and opportunities for studies of extracellular vesicles in vision research With an evolving understanding and new discoveries in extracellular vesicle (EV) biology and their implications in health and disease, the significant diagnostic and therapeutic potential of EVs for ...

Last year, the National Eye Institute held a workshop on extracellular vesicles for vision research (needs, gaps, opportunities).

Here's a white paper that summarizes key findings from that workshop: isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

There is a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy. This is based on the premise that increasing access to publications resulting from NIH funding offers many benefits to the scientific community as well as the public.

Details: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Led by Dan Huh (Penn Bioengineering) and Jeongyun Seo, with many collaborators including Vivian Lee, Vatinee Bunya, Mina Massaro-Giordano MD (Scheie Eye Institute), Vivek Shenoy (Penn Materials Science and Engineering), Woo Byun, Andrei Georgescu, Yoon-Suk Yi, Farid Alisafei.

A New Device Helps Treat Dry Eye YouTube video by National Eye Institute, NIH

Dry eye disease is very common and can be extremely frustrating for people, yet there are surprisingly few FDA-approved drug options.

Here's a video about an eye-on-a-chip model that creates a potential experimental drug testing platform (NEI-funded): www.youtube.com/watch?si=LfU...

Here's a video about neat work supported by the National Eye Institute about using stem cells to treat corneal injury!

Led by Ula Jurkunas (Harvard/Mass Eye & Ear) and Jerome Ritz (Dana Farber Cancer Institute).

Using stem cells to treat corneal injury YouTube video by National Eye Institute, NIH

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1hp...

There is planning at NIH to inform a potential major Common Fund program called "Precision Medicine with AI: Integrating Imaging with Multimodal Data (PRIMED-AI)".

If interested: virtual strategic planning workshop (3/11-12/2025). Free registration.

Details: commonfund.nih.gov/potential-pr...

Information about a paid year-long internship through the NIH Bridge2AI program (focuses on AI/data science, biomedical & clinical research, mentorship; application deadline 1/17/2025) is here: shileyeye.ucsd.edu/research/ai_...

Artificial Intelligence Ready and Equitable Atlas for Diabetes Insights Generating a flagship AI-ready and ethically-sourced dataset to support future AI-driven discoveries in diabetes

Information about accessing the dataset (currently 1000 people, 2TB, and growing) is here: aireadi.org

AI-READI: rethinking AI data collection, preparation and sharing in diabetes research and beyond - Nature Metabolism Here, we introduce Artificial Intelligence Ready and Equitable Atlas for Diabetes Insights (AI-READI), a multidisciplinary data-generation project designed to create and share a multimodal dataset opt...

Here's an amazing multimodal dataset optimized for #AI research in type 2 #diabetes (clinical/EHR, imaging, blood, urine, questionnaires, activity & continuous glucose monitoring, environmental data, more...).

@natureportfolio.bsky.social, funded by NIH Bridge2AI: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

What Does a Career in Science Policy Entail? Science policy plays a crucial role in shaping research and funding, but its science policy analysts who evaluate and refine these policies to ensure that they effectively support scientific progress ...

Interesting article from The Scientist about careers in science policy. I've loved working with so many people like this at NIH!

www.the-scientist.com/what-does-a-...

Dr. Marla Feller

Hendrikje Nienborg, Richard Lee, Santa Tumminia, Michael Chiang, Marla Feller, Joe Menetski, Kapil Bharti

Additional photos during and after...

Thanks - I would have loved to see *your* talk at NIH, but was away at the time!

He is very much around…

Photo of Dr. Marla Feller speaking at NIH.

Today, Marla Feller (@mfeller.bsky.social) from UC-Berkeley delivered the Sayer Vision Research Lecture at NIH.

Beautiful talk about visual neuroscience & development entitled "Riding the retinal wave through visual system development".

Exclusive | Traffic light installed upside-down in NYC — and it’s stayed that way for months The city installed an upside-down traffic light outside a Tribeca bar — and it’s been blinking away for months, The Post has learned.

Quick story from @nypost.com.web.brid.gy a NYC traffic light that was installed upside-down. Quotes Bevil Conway from National Eye Institute about potential confusion for people with red-green color blindness...

nypost.com/2024/12/07/u...

Photo from National Eye Institute Director's Awards ceremony.

Photo from National Eye Institute Director's Awards ceremony.

Photo from National Eye Institute Director's Awards ceremony.

Photo from National Eye Institute Director's Awards ceremony (Tiarnan Keenan, Emily Chew)

Here are some photos of National Eye Institute staff from our recent Director's Awards Ceremony. Truly privileged to work with this amazing group of people!

Jenny Luray, Tina Zdawczyk, Heather Richter, Charles Isbell, Angela Bednarek.

Charles Johnson-Bey, Pramod Khargonekar, Susan Martinis, Grace Yuan, Ann Gabriel

Superb meeting hosted by @elsevierconnect.bsky.social on "Tomorrow Today in Research: Perspectives from Government, Industry, Academia"

Fascinating discussions with extremely thoughtful & accomplished speakers about how we can create better research culture for societal impact of work.

ARPA-H announces pioneering investments to restore vision to people who are blind The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) supports transformative research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs ranging from molecular to societal to provide transformative hea...

If you haven't heard: @arpa-h.bsky.social has announced teams that will be working to enable whole-eye transplantation to restore vision for the blind & visually impaired. A bold goal!

Details: arpa-h.gov/news-and-eve...

Hannah Fry, Sir Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, Dennifer Doudna, Sir Paul Nurse

Eric Topol, Pushmeet Kohli, Fiona Marshall, Alison Noble

Thomas Friedman

Incredible AI for Science meeting hosted by @deep-mind.bsky.social and @royalsociety.bsky.social:

Great talks on impact & future directions in health, science, sustainability by Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, Jennifer Doudna, Tom Friedman, @erictopol.bsky.social, Hannah Fry, more.

Many ideas...!

Data sharing is a key feature of 21st-century science, yet researchers often feel disincentivized to share with others.

There is a new NIH "s-index challenge" to address this gap. Here's an article from @thetransmitter.bsky.social about it:

www.thetransmitter.org/open-neurosc...