For U.S. medical researchers, shrinking labs and bare budgets are the new reality The Trump administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health.

Very good (if tragic) story from the Washington Post

[GIft Link]

wapo.st/3OONwh6

1/8

This is figure 1, which shows the changes in large-scale network functional coupling induced by psychedelic drugs, averaged across 4 drugs and 11 datasets.

A paper in Nature Medicine reports insights into how the human brain reacts to different types of psychedelic drugs. These psychedelics appear to change how key networks in the brain connect, including those involved in higher-level thinking, sight and movement. go.nature.com/4mhgse6 #medsky 🧪

Upshot:

🟢 JB says scientist training is his #1 priority.

🔴 Yet, this fiscal year so far, training-related grants are down over 80% from expected levels.

Guys, you can’t do science without scientists. JB gets an F (but not an F grant... ba-dum-tss)

More funding curves at Grant Witness:

And finally: K grants

These support post-docs and early career researchers. Landing one of these can be your ticket to a tenure track gig. They're career-makers.

# of new grants issued through April 15 in

FY2024 (the last “normal” year): 374
FY2025: 252
FY2026: 140

Next up: T grants

These support grad student and post doc training programs at certain institutions.

# of new grants issued through April 15 in

FY2024 (the last “normal” year): 70
FY2025: 23
FY2026: 2

First up: F grants

These support individual grad students and post-docs (and some college students).

# of new grants issued through April 15 in

FY2024 (the last “normal” year): 652
FY2025: 402
FY2026: 74

In August, Jay Bhattacharya said “Training future biomedical scientists” was the 1st priority for his version of NIH.

But talk is cheap. Let’s see how JB’s doing. 🤔

NIH supports trainees mostly via fellowship (F), training (T), and career development (K) awards.

Here are funding curves for each.🧵

Looking forward to our 2026 Down Syndrome Research + Caregiver symposium tomorrow! w/ Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta med.emory.edu/departments/...

Neurodevelopment is such a fun field because so much is new to explore and define. But also that means it can be unclear. In our new review out this week @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social, we try to synthesize the confusing field of neural intermediate progenitors authors.elsevier.com/a/1msKvbotqB...

Taking a closer look at astrocytes and autism These glial cells are increasingly linked to neurodevelopmental conditions and the regulation of social behaviors and anxiety.

Astrocytes are the most abundant non-neuronal cell in the brain and a subject of fascination in autism research.

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/tak...

From fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics - the Node Where molecules meet form I have long been interested in understanding how development emerges at the intersection of molecular and spatial organization.

From fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics

In this 'Behind the paper' feature, @yinanwan.bsky.social shares the inside story of an ambitious journey with @schierlab.bsky.social & co.

thenode.biologists.com/from-fate-to...

Several staff scientist positions available in our lab at Stanford University!

More details and application at the link below

The nontraditional model organism renaissance Each month, The Transmitter explores creative approaches neuroscientists are taking to solve problems that arise in their research. In this installment, we see how researchers work backward from speci...

Explore “Brainstorming,” @thetransmitter.bsky.social’s new LinkedIn newsletter that looks at how neuroscientists are solving research challenges. The first edition features nontraditional model organisms that are well suited for studying certain behaviors or neurological conditions.

bit.ly/4v6x506

Nature has already run billions of biological experiments.

Stowers scientist @batevodevo.bsky.social, Ph.D. joined @npr.org's All Things Considered to discuss how researchers study unusual species—like bats and pythons—to uncover clues about #metabolism, disease, and human health. 🦇

🎧 n.pr/4c2mlbj

Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA, Citing Trump’s Attack on Science

Not so marvelous news.

~95,000 scientists have left the federal government since the Trump regime took over.

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.

The US slashed medical research grants in nearly every field, Pratik Pawar/Vox - https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/482363/nih-medical-research-grants-cut-2025?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImJsVWFZMk1PSzEiLCJwIjoiL2Z1dHVyZS1wZXJmZWN0LzQ4MjM2My9uaWgtbWVkaWNhbC1yZXNlYXJjaC1ncmFudHMtY3V0LTIwMjUiLCJleHAiOjE3NzQ2MTkyOTIsImlhdCI6MTc3MzQwOTY5Mn0.DntsxOVbCb9ha3Xw0ZBEvzobSo4z6K2EWfc1qfJk728&utm_medium=gift-link

New reporting on what has happened to science under the Trump administration and HHS leadership, building on publicly available NIH grants data.

Take-away: across-the-board cuts are reducing our capacity to discover & serve.

Out today, via @pratik-p.bsky.social

🎁
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The NINDS Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship Recognizing NINDS-funded investigators for their dedication to mentorship and training.

#neuroscience #trainees

Call for Nominations for the NINDS Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship!

This year, NINDS is seeking nominations for established faculty mentors who are more than 20 years from the start of their first TT position.

Nominations are due 4/24!

www.nih.gov/challenges/n...

Florida Is Trying to Ignore Measles Until It Can’t The state is in the midst of an outbreak, but its health department has been mostly silent.

Florida isn’t the only entity that is ignoring measles outbreaks.

Under RFK Jr., HHS and the CDC have only been permitted to make halfhearted bleats about vaccinations.

This is the result of putting anti-vax, anti-public health people in charge of public health.

This is the mouse brain on psilocybin. One dose rewires the brain, and it's not random.

Researchers mapped exactly which neural circuits change with the help of #OpenScience & #OpenSource tools.

🧠📈 Dive into why it matters for mental health treatment: https://bit.ly/4cEsaN4

On March 16th - 22nd, Celebrate 🎉 #BrainAwarenessWeek with Bright Light Neuro at Books Of Wonder! NEXT WEEK, @booksofwonder.bsky.social is hosting a display with Bright Light Neuro free resources that pair brain 🧠 science with children’s books 📚. You are invited to STOP BY and CHECK IT OUT!

A devastating indictment of current NIH leadership.

The NIH budget was basically the same in 2025 vs. 2024. This massive decline in health research funding was driven by *administrative* choices.

Preprint Editors – Development's next step into the preprint landscape - the Node Development announce an open call for experienced, research-active Preprint Editors. Read the Editorial and apply by 30 March 2026.

Preprint Editors – Development's next step into the preprint landscape

@dev-journal.bsky.social announce an open call for experienced, research-active Preprint Editors. Read the Editorial and apply by 30 March 2026.

#Preprints #Publishing #DevBio #StemCells

thenode.biologists.com/preprint-edi...

What the Developing Brain Could Reveal About Autism In this episode of Neuroscience Perspectives, we speak with Dr. Shafali Jeste, an internationally recognized child neurologist whose research has advanced the identification of early biomarkers that…

In this episode of Neuroscience Perspectives, learn how brain imaging and EEG are advancing our understanding of infant brain development
Be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts

And read the Research Briefing highlighting this work, here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How bioRxiv changed the way biologists share ideas – in numbers Four million articles are now downloaded from bioRxiv every month, according to an analysis of the life-science preprint server’s first 13 years of existence.

"bioRxiv is exactly the type of living experiment we all should be striving for, to achieve our shared goals of optimizing how research evidence is shared and used.”
via @chrisnsimms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Q: “Why did you call this one of the ‘craziest’ grants?”

A: “Because it says LGBTQ”

Lawyer: You don't regret that people might have lost income?

Cavanaugh (DOGE): No, I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from two trillion dollars to close to zero.

Lawyer: Did you reduce the federal deficit?

Cavanaugh: No, we didn't.