Those of us doing research related to women’s health have been hit particularly hard by the govt’s sabotage of the NIH. I spoke to WaPo for this piece, as painful as it was to discuss the reality my lab is facing. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026...
Our group just received a new R01 that was delayed by many months- it should have been awarded ‘25, like the curve below. This grant had the highest score we’d ever received (2%-ile), yet funding was uncertain. With the delay we had to lay people off. Very inefficient. And we are the lucky ones.
“Amid the search for a new CDC director, some well-qualified candidates sought promises of autonomy to be able to fire and hire staff and to keep science insulated from political influence.
Those candidates were not selected, sources told the Post.”
arstechnica.com/health/2026/...
Second-favorite part: From 16:30 when the soloist plays her own accompaniment
If you rarely listen to classical music, this is a good way to get (re)introduced. Shows how interesting classical music can be when you can both see and hear it.
My favorite part: minutes 11-13. Based on the activity map, seems to be the favorite of many others as well.
Just came across this wonderful recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Soloist Julia Fischer is absolutely amazing. The videography brings out every note and every instrument, better than having a front-row seat.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SshD...
Plot showing GRFP awards by directorate shows a big dip last year and major increases for engineering and biology (though this only brings it back to parity with 2024).
The NSF GRFP is now out! There are 2,599 awardees, which is the most ever—and a big shift from last year which initially halved awardees (1,000 awardees + an additional 500).
I've thrown together a plot to break down the changes by field.
www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...
At a glance, 2599 recipients - I think the highest total ever? And quite a few in the Life Sciences, which I know was a concern for many - Evolutionary Biology had twice as many recipients (38) as last year (19).
Tides do turn
Thanks!
We're gearing up to generate iPSCs stably expressing ASAPs, and are compiling a list of potential users who might want these to study cell fate pathways for neurons or cardiomyocytes, or to perform drug screening.
If these would be useful to you, please message me in the chat
Below are examples of the multiple voltage recordings we performed in hIPSC-derived neurons (thanks to the Wernig and Sudhof labs), showing similar information as patch-clamp but in high throughput. And the subthreshold voltages would not be seen with MEAs or calcium imaging.
Methods for high-resolution voltage imaging of hIPSC-derived neurons was reported in our 2024 Neuron paper on ASAP5 (which has the highest SNR in 1p or 2p imaging, in vitro and in vivo, among published GEVIs)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Fellow X-scientists! Curious who among you might want human iPSCs stably expressing ASAP-family green fluorescent voltage indicators.
Cardiomyocytes and neurons differentiated from these iPSCs can self-report voltage with <1-ms and <1-mV resolution by standard widefield imaging.
"The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Jay Bhattacharya) has delayed publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half."
!!!
🎁
Stephen Miller allegedly urged Department of Homeland Security agents to “force confrontations” with protesters in Minneapolis in order to win a “PR battle." trib.al/NcbpdiX
CAN THE GOVERNMENT, JUST ONCE, STOP PUTTING THE WAR MACHINE ABOVE HUMAN NEEDS??? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR???
Reposting for the sine
Somewhere in the Bay Area not yet ruined by AI
A reminder to take a little time to look around you and enjoy the beauty of nature
This made me smile
Thanks to AtomicAerials of reddit — I really needed that
Very excited to share that I’m starting my lab at the Krembil Brain Institute @kbi-uhn.bsky.social at UHN and the University of Toronto!
If you’re interested in motor learning and circuit plasticity, please reach out - we are hiring!
www.motor-plasticity.org
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Excited to introduce ScaRCaMP — a highly blue-light resistant red GECI. 🔴
Now live on bioRxiv and marking my first PhD preprint (2nd for the Marko lab).
Would love feedback from the community!!
We never got the press coverage of the drop in FY2024 because by the time it was known there were bigger stories to cover. But we went from a declining situation (at least when it comes to time-efficiency of grant-writing) to a disaster.
Note there was already a drop in FY2024 which ended 9/2024 under Biden
Don't know why exactly but it's consistent with anecdotal experience of tightening paylines even before the election, and the ever-decreasing appetite for risk and need for abundant "preliminary data" (more like definitive data)
That's per applicant, not application, and only for R01s or equivalent. Per-app rates were below 8% in most institutes, so the average applicant applied ~2x
The % drop was fairly uniform by career stage:
New 10.0% = 44% less
At Risk 16.9% = 37% less
Established 19.6% = 40% less
ESI 18.9% = 37% less
NIH funding rate per applicant dropped 38% in FY2025 vs 2022, from 27.1% to 16.7%
Here's a breakdown by career stage. Why FY2022 vs FY2025?
• FY2022 was first FY with budget passed and administered by Biden
• FY2025 budget was in CR until 3/15/2025, so budget and most grants were under the Trump WH
Roger's passing 10y ago was a loss not just for science but for society at large. Some of what plagues some fields today (the constant overselling and jockeying for attention) would likely be curtailed with just a few frank comments from him.
Roger, you are very much missed.
