Thrilled to share our latest work "Recessive PPTC7 deficiency triggers excessive mitophagy to cause a severe inborn error of metabolism with hypomyelinating leukodystrophy" - a collaborative effort documenting the first cases of PPTC7 mutations in humans. 1/n www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

A big day for the lab! Huge congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Jerry Wei @lianjiejerrywei.bsky.social for successfully defending his thesis! 🎓🥳🎉

Reflections on my 30+ years in mitochondrial research, in @cp-trendsbiochem.bsky.social linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii...

Join us on Monday, February 23 for Biochemistry Colloquium with Traci Hall. Hall leads the Macromolecular Structure Group at the NIH National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and their lab focuses on mRNA stability and translation. More info: today.wisc.edu/events/view/...

Pleased to share the final version of this behemoth of a paper, now finally published. I guess I can retire now? www.nature.com/articles/s41... More functional data, many thousands of words removed, and a few other updates from last year's preprint.

Interesting survey on attitudes toward AI among academics. One thing that struck me: millennials (vs Gen X and boomers) and early-career researchers are *more* likely to distrust AI. fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/...

I feel it quite possible that those relying on AI from the very start may form a different skill set that will accelerate some software, but result in key regressions (without the expertise to address them) in other types. combine-lab.github.io/blog/2026/02... see the caveats section here…

A brief Bluetorial about analyzing federal grant funding. Both NIH and NSF make data available about funded grants, but each has its quirks and the data structures are VERY different. 1/11

🧐 What if metabolic defects are not just a consequence of inflammatory disease - but actively contribute to it? Inflammation and metabolism are deeply intertwined, but the molecular links remain unclear. Our new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation uncovers one. 🧵👇 nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share the first review article from our lab! We discuss the landscape of available high-throughput approaches for profiling RNA–protein interactions in vitro and in vivo. We hope it will be useful when designing your next experiment. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #RNAsky

I’ve written a post about my recent experiences (successes) with AI coding models; the experiences that caused me to re-evaluate my initial judgements, the surprise I had at what can be accomplished, & some fears I have about these tools. Discussion welcome! combine-lab.github.io/blog/2026/02...

So, so, honored by this award—it is daunting to know that my heroes have won this award! Thanks to my heroes and mentors, and my trainees, who are everything!!!!

Trump and his goons pushed out (or didn't replace) more than 10,000 federal government STEM Ph.D.s since he took office, representing 106,636 years of federal work experience. www.science.org/content/arti...

A month behind the times, but I wanted to share an update from @emmajays.bsky.social and other co-authors in @riley-research.bsky.social. Our manuscript "Profiling Glycoproteins Enriched by Multinanoparticle Protein Corona" is now published in Analytical Chemistry: pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...

#scientists, take a second to fully appreciate the @pdbeurope.bsky.social and @rcsbpdb.bsky.social and imagine live without them.

Wise plan.

Why do some scientists say "Bluesky is dead. I have no engagement. I have more engagement on X"? My TL is full of cool science, queer art, weird history facts, politics and whimsy. You're just not doing it right, man. Plus the fascism

Chrysanthi Moschandrea and I have developed a new conceptual framework for understanding the role of metabolism in cancer, which we term metabolic permissiveness. We are eager to hear your thoughts on this topic. genesdev.cshlp.org/content/earl...

I'd watch a muppet show movie where the muppets infiltrate an academic conference.

A pretty stunning attempt at rewriting the last year. While there are exceptions, legal challenges were largely led by faculty, AAUP, and state AGs, while university leadership and scientific societies almost uniformly attempted appeasement and acquiesced in advance.

We are watching in real time who some scientists are willing to sacrifice in favor of access to funding: early career researchers, trainees, scientists from historically excluded groups and immigrants.

This a word cloud from the titles of ~1100 terminated NSF grants. It is hard not to see these grant terminations as an attack on the training of the future United States scientific workforce.

Re: Science Mag editorial celebrating mainly the inside/quiet advocacy done this year, I offer this in lighthearted response. 🧪 This is a Myanmar woman doing her usual, longstanding dance routine while black cars speed by to carry out a coup. 1/4

Mamdani: "I speak of Renee Good, whose final words to the man who murdered her were, 'I'm not mad at you.' I speak of Alex Pretti who died as he lived, caring for the stranger. ICE shot him bc he did something they could never fathom ... let us offer a new path: one of defiance through compassion."

Inclusion of the Forgotten: Structuring a More Accessible Undergraduate Summer Research Experience www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This whole thread is **chef’s kiss** for #millennials 🤣

Students aren’t putting themselves into massive debt so they can learn to use AI or be taught by it. Universities wake the fuck up.

@jeremymberg.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social @drugmonkey.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Join us on February 9 for Biochemistry Colloquium with Sara Nowinski @vai.org. The Nowinski Lab is working to understand mitochondria in detail, focusing on the mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis pathway. More info: today.wisc.edu/events/view/...

Last rant (for the day) about the "Reclaiming Science" MAHA event. Deputy Director Memoli (who was described as running NIH inside whereas Director Bhattacharya handles external issues [Narrator: Normally, the NIH Director does not delegate NIH management] participated in a panel discussion. 1/16

❤️

This is neat... intronic RNA structure involved in a gene regulation feadback loop in plant DEAD box protein genes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

As a someone with a 33 year NIH-funded lab whose grant is supposed to be reviewed this week, shut NIH down if that is what's needed to end ICE terrorism. Innocent lives are more important 🧪

PSA on Competitive, Not Discussed NIH proposal outcomes drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2026/01/23/p...

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

Here’s the deal with the FY26 NIH funding bill: One line in the 1000+ pg bill = significantly less science. The increase to ~40% of grants moving to MYF is estimated to result in a 35% decrease in the NUMBER of NIH grants funded annually—moving the paylines from 10% to around 4%. THIS IS BAD.

"Despite its widespread embrace, one thing is clear—though universally desired, belonging remains an inequitably distributed experience, particularly among marginalized student populations in higher education." link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Led a workshop on science and democracy for ~45 Hotchkiss students today as part of the day-long celebration of Dr. King's life and legacy. Thanks to @gretchentg.bsky.social for joining us via Zoom and sharing her expertise ❤️

NIH budget bill out today. It’s the result of heavy negotiations in Congress over past month+. 🧪 Big pic: NIH budget now is abt more than funding. It’s abt restraining the technical ways NIH is being broken by Proj 2025. And the restraints in the bill are tepid 🤷‍♂️ Also: watch ICE/DHS budget. 🧵1/

From Meghan Mott on LinkedIn 1/2

The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning. www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit... 1/5

The language on multiyear funding (MYF) is ineffective. Final bill anchors MYF to 2025 instead of 2024. This means MYF will likely continue at the same rate we saw last year, where NCI's payline from ~10% to 4%. This is incredibly harmful to the US research workforce - especially early career.

What's been lost, so far. "Program officers steward research portfolios. They don’t just process applications. They understand scientific contexts, see connections across studies, mentor investigators, and help translate broad priorities into fundable research programs." substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Interestingly, my experience was the opposite. The orcid integration worked flawlessly, but i had nothing but problems trying to pull stuff in from my ncbi bibliography. It would never load more than about 1/3rd of my publications. Same conclusion though - lots of time on manual data entry.

Don’t let Russell Vought trick Congress into destroying science by removing multiyear funding limits from the NIH funding bill.

Polyamine-dependent metabolic shielding regulates alternative splicing www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For ~century, we’ve asked: why do proliferating cells ferment glucose even when O2 is around? I’m thrilled to share our latest work @natmetabolism.nature.com, led by @thebiokimist.bsky.social. By leveraging conditional essentiality in HPLM, we propose a provocative new answer to this classic Q. 🧵

The Murphy Lab did our annual retreat this week. This year's theme was using AI (what it's good and bad for). I wanted to be open-minded to make sure we are not missing something we should be using it for, so we did a few exercises to test, and had presentations.

“adoption of AI in science presents what seems to be a paradox: an expansion of individual scientists’ impact but a contraction in collective science’s reach, as AI-augmented work moves collectively towards areas richest in data...

The new NIH multi-year funding policy is a scheme to undercut the NIH budget and fund less science. And it’s working (see below). The Senate approps bill has language to limit MYF use, but the House version does not. Call your reps (House and Senate) and insist it’s included in the final bill! 🧪