Opinion | When Your Child Dies of Measles

Heartbreaking. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/o...

WATCH: Researchers at Stanford University modeled how many people could die or be disabled in 25 years if vaccines for polio, measles, rubella or diphtheria were no longer available.

mRNA technology may be THE most underrated and unfairly scrutinized (fuck you COVID antivax crew) medical breakthrough in my lifetime.

Like... The things this is already showing it can do in the last 5-7 years is incredible.

This is a handy little website if you want to keep track of how things are going with science funding.

sciencespending.org#overview

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds over 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 institutions across all 50 U.S. states, supporting roughly 390,863 jobs and driving $94
billion in economic activity. I am one of them and am thankful to all who pay the taxes that support this enterprise 🧪

As for me, I am ready to work with anyone on any side of the aisle who wants to ensure science is practiced with integrity and without censorship.

But I am not going to sit in a room and pretend to work with people who left.

As a recipient of federal grants from #NIH (for now! 😭) that funds research in my lab, I'd like to sincerely thank American taxpayers on #TaxDay for investing in scientific research that lays the foundation for medical and technological innovation in this country and keeps us ALL safe and healthy

2) Being apolitical IS political. Staying out of politics doesn’t keep you “above the fray” but instead endorses the status quo. (Which right now, is bad for both science and democracy.)

I’ve been warned that by engaging in politics, I might undermine myself as a scientist. Or worse, reduce the trust that people have in me or scientists as a whole.

This latter point is the thesis of a recent article by Byron Hyde: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I disagree for multiple reasons.

FULL SPEECH: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Addresses CPAC 2026 - 03/28/26 YouTube video by Right Side Broadcasting Network

🧵 Jay Bhattacharya, the "apolitical" NIH director spoke, apolitically, at CPAC. Here are some...ummm... errr... ummm... highlights.
h/t @gregfolkers.bsky.social for the link 1/10

youtu.be/AZvSOXLnRnE?...

HHS and OMB have stopped them.
They have mandated the new NOFOs also be written in “simple” text.
While NOFOs are being reduced, IC staff are working to get topics in place for parents.

NOFOs are being written but they’re being rejected or just sitting in HHS & now OMB offices….

New to Plasmidsaurus? They're offering the Addgene community their first three sequences free with code ADDGENE. https://twp.ai/4iwdRq

New vaccines could help us consign tuberculosis to history: here’s how we can do it This year’s World TB Day theme, “Yes! We can End TB!”, sends a welcome note of optimism that the tide may finally be turning when it comes to tackling the world’s deadliest infectious disease. With ne...

Amid the bad news, some good news on tuberculosis - the world's biggest infectious disease killer. 10m cases, 1.2m deaths

Two new vaccines are now in the final stage of clinical trials. We currently only have one vaccine, it's 100 years old, and only works in children
www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...

Bacterial 2′,3′-cGAMP activates a SAVED effector to form membrane-disrupting filaments and restrict phage replication Tak et al. discover that bacteria use 2′,3′-cGAMP, the same signaling molecule employed by mammalian cGAS-STING, for phage defense. In response to phage, 2′,3′-cGAMP activates filament formation of Ca...

Happy to share the final version of my postdoc work on bacterial CBASS immunity with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Some real talk, on a Friday evening before #NoKings:

This is a proposal designed to re-anchor our expectations. No Republican in Congress wants to walk the plank and vote for cuts to cancer research!

We shld not fall for it.
Our counter-proposal should be a 25% incr in govt support for research.

Sources: White House to propose 20 percent cut to NIH funding The White House is expected to ask Congress to cut National Institutes of Health spending by 20 percent in the president’s fiscal 2027 budget request, according to multiple sources with knowledge of t...

In case you were wondering—yes, we do still have to keep fighting.

rollcall.com/2026/03/27/s...

"If you help someone, you yourself begin to feel much better. And do not change your convictions, your values. That is the bare minimum. Not many people can be heroes… But this is the minimum that my generation learned back in the Soviet Union.”

Call for Letters of Inquiry: Exemplary Pathways to STEM Graduate Education | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Our mission is to make the world a better place through the advancement of scientific knowledge.

New @sloanfoundation.bsky.social grants: Exemplary Pathways to STEM Graduate Education.

Up to $500,000 for orgs focused on helping remove obstacles for undergraduates who want to pursue advanced STEM degrees.

Deadline is June 1. Please share & apply if this is you! sloan.org/programs/hig...

‘Brain drain’ at NIH sparks fears about the long-term impacts on public health Thousands of scientists have left the NIH, raising concerns about the future of medical research and the nation’s ability to respond to public health crises.

‘Brain drain’ at NIH sparks fears about the long-term impacts on public health

Every day I talk to other cancer researchers, committed to soldiering on as long as poss, but many of us see the writing on the wall & cannot help but be despondent. Pharma co.s otoh are happy to tell us that if we cannot make breakthroughs, they'll take ones from China. So there's that, I suppose.🧪

Cofilin-1 is a redox-sensitive guard of the NLRP3 inflammasome @natimmunol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Clever. These are popping up all across the USA.

Preprint: a direct mechanistic link between pathogen immune evasion, Aβ dynamics, and neuroinflammatory cascades
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

A Secret Weapon from Salmonella Could Help Us Maintain Healthier Microbiomes The discovery could also lend itself to the development of future antibacterial therapies.

The Bayer-Santos Lab, along with researchers at the University of São Paulo, have discovered salmonella toxins that could lead to healthier microbiomes and new targetted antibacterial therapies. See: cns.utexas.edu/news/researc...

An Immense World (Young Readers Edition): How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets

My 7 year old, while reading the adapted-for-kids version of "An Immense World" - "Do you really think one person could write this whole book? Where does @edyong209.bsky.social get all of his ideas from?!?"

I told him I would ask 😉

bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...

Action Item...Action Item...Action Item

Time to comment on the Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Comments due by May 16, 2026

Bhattacharya on multi-year funding:

“Sometimes for early-career scientists what you need is a front-loaded grant because they’re building their lab and so they can’t wait until year two or three to get the money, so it’s scientifically justified,”

When you apply you don’t get to request MYF…

Afghan asylum-seeker dies in ICE custody, US advocacy group says Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal is at least the 12th person to die ​in ICE detention this year.

This man did far more fighting for the US than anyone in the cabinet or the White House. And he died one day after being taken to an American concentration camp. One day.
www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies

@aai.org is working to protect you from preventable diseases…AAI contributed to the brief that helped the court in this ruling:

Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...

Host innate immune response profiling reveals hidden viral infections across diverse animal species www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...