And now it’s not just running into cranky reviewers but whether the institutes have enough money. Oof!

Nothing like waiting to get a score on a grant that I count as among the best and most creative work we’ve ever done to question all my life decisions.

And an absolutely spectacular splashdown to end the day! We all needed this win!

Agreed.

Today I was reminded again of challenges for women in professional settings. In a meeting, a male colleague alone was acknowledged for work that we both perform. The few women in the room immediately noticed and exchanged glances. I wish for a time when everyone would notice (and speak up).

It’s brutal in academia right now. A lot is out of our control, but it doesn’t cost anything to remember that there are humans behind papers and grants…reviewers, program officials and funders can be more empathetic in the face of unprecedented chaos in the US scientific enterprise.

Well some of us are. Many top neuro journals straight up desk reject model organism papers nowadays. And if you want to get fast, detailed and precise mechanistic answers - some of these are still the best systems.

It is impossible to avoid the realization of where we are as a country today, no matter how much we’d like to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the violence is not directly impacting our lives. Until it does.

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.

If you / your lab / your institution rely on NIH funding, you need to read this and understand how this is one of many changes affecting you. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🧪 An EMBO Meeting on Axon Biology in Okinawa, Japan

Iconic science at an amazing venue. Please join us!

EMBO | COB Workshop on Axonal degeneration and regeneration

meetings.embo.org/event/26-axo...

The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left “We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.

Powerful piece in STAT this morning from some NIH staff members who have resigned

www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n...

1/3

Congratulations, Lori!

A superb summary of why our investment in fundamental science fuels stunning advances in medical treatments 🧪

Having these two headlines juxtaposed only underscores the awfulness of this year

before I started my lab, I asked several senior PIs what their one piece of advice would be and PI pointedly said: “Know when to drop a project.” And that advice has been invaluable in my lab. There are always other projects to follow up on, dropping one isn’t a failure in and of itself.

An essential development over the past decade-plus is that the ignorant went from feeling chastened when their ignorance was revealed to banding together and deciding that, actually, they were right. They might disagree at times, but they agreed that ignorance itself was an indicator of trust.

Thanks, Mike. Wishing you all the best for 2026! May it be kinder to all of us!

What a year! But grateful for the good things in life, which includes good people in my life, work that is fulfilling, warmth of a fireplace, some downtime over the holidays, waking up without an alarm, and furry companions.

In a year beset by funding and visa uncertainties, sheer chaos, where some still don’t know whether they have a future here-this group keeps surging ahead driven by curiosity. Grateful to work with a talented & wonderful group! Our annual tri-lab party with @samerhattar.bsky.social and Haiqing Zhao

🚨Job Alert plz RT!

Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition!

We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals

Open-rank

apply.interfolio.com/178146

“and a population resigned to a public health emergency as its everyday reality.” Truly horrific.

PSA: "calm down" is not a productive way to start a discussion, esp with people who have been traumatized by chaos and bad faith actions in a system they must keep navigating. information good, condescension not so much

“THIS is what we should be monitoring and protecting. The who and the how and the why of applying priorities beyond the study section evaluation.”

I agree what matters is how funding priorities are set, and by whom. Institute directors must be hired based on expertise/ experience, not partisan politics, or funding priorities AND DECISIONS will reflect ideology. The system already allows this, but one can read intention into making this easier

No more paylines at the NIH
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

And I’m a big fan of Turing, von Neumann, Shannon, Metcalfe, Hinton, Sejnowski, and all the other algorithmic and computation people. No shade.

But data limits still limit understanding of the brain. That’s why the #NIH US BRAIN Init was so important: public investment made new tools.

Anshul Kundaje @anshulkundaje Francois usually has good takes. But this suggests a bit of cluelessness about what the key barrier to progress in biology is. It's not algorithms or Al. It's still a lack of the ability to measure many important things in cells ie. assay techdev. Perturb-seq is not all u need. @ François Chollet & @fchollet • 2d The most powerful scientific instrument of the 21st century isn't the electron microscope or the particle collider. It's the algorithm. Today, a scientist in biology, physics... Show more

Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain.

The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.

🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky

It is a good night for democracy…

Submitted two NIH grants this month-floated off like messages in the bottle in the ocean. No idea if anyone would read them one day….

I am sorry, Wei. Made me really sad to read this, but understandable. It’s a loss for US science and a gain for your next destination. Wishing you well.