If you're a scientist our journalist writing a piece about Watson and his "complex and nuanced character", you're deliberately ignoring the fact that his views made him one of the most extreme racist and sexist scientific "leaders" of his time.
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
A final fuck off to James Watson and to every news source who’s naming him as one of two co-discoverers of DNA structure without mentioning Rosalind Franklin. 🖕
the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist
Five federal agents with guns on roof of museum watching No Kings demonstration in Washington DC
This is what autocracy looks like. Federal “agents” and their rifles at the ready while we exercise our rights to free speech. #Nokings in Washington, DC
According to news reports, NIH is on track to award nearly all of its FY25 budget. Program officers—working long hours despite staff losses—made it possible. Take a moment to thank your PO for their dedication.
ICE and DHS have proposed capping F and J visas at 4 years, threatening international students and postdocs who drive U.S. research. Share your comments to oppose this harmful policy: www.ascb.org/science-poli...
Met with my NIH program officer last week to discuss my A0 grant summary statement (good impact score but not good enough, I am certain) - it was a very helpful conversation as I prepare for the resubmission, I told him that academic scientists appreciate NIH career staff more than ever before. 💛💫
“I keep coming back to Cell Bio because I’ve always felt that the cell biologists were a very welcoming and supportive community.” — Martin Chalfie, Columbia University professor & 2008 Nobel Laureate
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWJV... #ASCB #CellBiology
🏅 Congratulations to Sandra Schmid (@czbiohub) on receiving ASCB’s 2025 E.B. Wilson Medal! This award honors distinguished researchers for far-reaching contributions to cell biology over a lifetime in science—an achievement Sandra exemplifies. #ASCB #CellBiology
Students & early-career scientists—don’t miss out! ✈️ #ASCB Travel Grants can help you get to #CellBio2025. Apply today: 👉 www.ascb.org/grants/ascb-... #CellBiology
ASM, ASBMB, ASCB & FASEB are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling allowing cancellation of $800M in NIH grants, threatening labs, jobs, and early-career scientists. Stable funding is vital for U.S. science.
Read more: www.ascb.org/society-news...
"Sec. 239. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to increase the proportion of multi-year grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health in fiscal year 2026 that are fully funded in the first year of the award, relative to the comparable proportion in fiscal year 2024, unless the National Institutes of Health awards at least the same number of total grants in fiscal year 2026 as in fiscal year 2024."
Here's the provision to block multi-year funding:
(the bill text PDF will later be updated with this as an adopted amendment: www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do...)
Lawmakers to NIH: Use it or lose it.
14 Republican Senators—including key appropriators—are urging the White House to release NIH FY25 funds without delay, warning that stalled spending could harm future research budgets.
Read more: www.ascb.org/science-poli...
In June, CLS predicted that success rates would PLUMMET if NIH implemented multiyear funding.
NCI just confirmed.
9% down to 4%!!!!
#MathIsntHard
Today CLS brings attention to a sleeper cell proposal in the President's NIH Budget for FY26: Multi-Year Awards.
Read our statement to learn why this "nothing to see here" boring-sounding proposal would actually be DEVASTATING to research.
www.coalitionforlifesciences.org/cls-objects-...
Nope
We can’t depend on a filibuster to “solve” a bad budget for either the NIH or NSF. You need to follow this advocacy alert and make sure those budgets are better than the huge cuts proposed. www.ascb.org/society-news...
We can’t depend on a filibuster to “solve” a bad budget for either the NIH or NSF. You need to follow this advocacy alert and make sure those budgets are better than the huge cuts proposed. www.ascb.org/society-news...
If you missed the brave and articulate Jenna Norton - one of the hero researchers at #NIH who signed the Bethesda Declaration - on #NPR yesterday, check her extraordinary interview here.
one.npr.org?sharedMediaI...
#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration
#SaveNIH
#StopTrump
#KillTheBill
Today, @nihfellowsunited.bsky.social staff sent a powerful letter to the NIH Director outlining serious concerns about the agency’s direction. Thousands have already signed in support—add your name. – Mary Munson, ASCB President www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...
So wrong 👩🔬#HigherEd
Science is under attack. Proposed 40% NIH cut threatens jobs, research, and medical progress. Call your reps, governor, and mayor now—urge them to stand up for science.
www.ascb.org/science-poli...
Four scientific societies file amicus brief in APHA vs NIH (ACLU and others) lawsuit. These are some of the organizations involved in the MOSAIC program.
asm.org/press-releas...
NIH has rescinded its scientific integrity policy. Hard to see this as anything other than clearing the way for shoddy research on things like vaccines. Regardless of the rationale, it's bad news for public health.
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
Peter Marks, MD, PhD Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903 March 28, 2025 Sara Brenner, MD, MPH Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903 Dear Dr. Brenner: It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from FDA and retire from federal service as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research effective April 5, 2025. I leave behind a staff of professionals who are undoubtedly the most devoted to protecting and promoting the public health of any group of people that I have encountered during my four decades working in the public and private sectors. I have always done my best to advocate for their well-being and I would ask that you do the same during this very difficult time during which their critical importance to the safety and security of our nation may be underappreciated. Over the past years I have been involved in enhancing the safety of our nation's blood supply, in advancing the field of cell and gene therapy, and in responding to public health emergencies. In the last of these, during the COVID-19 pandemic I had the privilege of watching the vision that I conceived for Operation Warp Speed in March 2020 in collaboration with Dr. Robert Kadlec become a reality under the leadership of HHS Secretary Azar and President Trump due to the unwavering commitment of public servants at FDA and elsewhere across the government. At FDA, the tireless efforts of staff across the agency resulted in remarkably expediting the development of vaccines against the virus, meeting the standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness expected by the American public. The vaccines undoubtedly markedly reduced morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in the United States and elsewhere. Many of these same individuals applied learnings from the pandemic during a flawless response helping…
ongoing multistate measles outbreak that is particularly severe in Texas reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined. Measles, which killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children last year in Africa and Asia owing to pneumonitis and encephalitis caused by the virus, had been eliminated from our shores. The two-dose measles, mumps, rubella vaccine regimen (MMR) using over the past decades has a remarkably favorable benefit-risk profile. The MMR vaccine is 97% or more effective in preventing measles following the two-dose series, and its safety has been remarkably well studied. Though rarely followed by a single fever-related seizure, or very rarely by allergic reactions or blood clotting disorders, the vaccine very simply does not cause autism, nor is it associated with encephalitis or death. It does, however, protect against a potential devasting consequence of prior measles infection, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), which is an untreatable, relentlessly progressive neurologic disorder leading to death in about 1 in 10,000 individuals infected with measles. Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation's health, safety. and security. In the years following the pandemic, at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research we have applied the same unwavering commitment to public health priorities to the development of cell and gene therapies to address both hereditary and acquired rare diseases. During my tenure as Center Director we have approved 22 gene therapies, including the first gene therapy ever to be approved in the United States. However, we know that we must do better to expedite the development of treatments for those individual suffering from any one of the thousan…
Peter Marks’s resignation letter. Everyone should read this.
Hey @altnih4science.bsky.social share your story about how the Trump administration is hurting science. democraticleader.house.gov/shareyourstory
That’s because he’s stupid.
If you are represented by a Democratic Senator, you need to call them and ask them to start objecting to unanimous consent requests. A little inconvenience is the least our leaders should have to deal with. Call the main switchboard at 202-224-3121.
/4
As they watch this country slowly fall apart, Senate Democrats need to realize their convenience is not important.
Fired federal employees don’t know how they are going to pay next month’s mortgage bill and LGBTQ+ kids are being told they don’t exist, to name just two things that are happening. /3
