My (now) weekly update on 2026 NIH funding. New and competitive renewal awards. 3 new awards (compared to ~100 expected based on recent years). No new ICs... still just NIA, NINDS, NIDCD, and NIDCR. 1/2

🧪IMPORTANT! This graphic explains how science all over the US is funded. Congress approved a 2% increase in the #NIH budget for FY 26. Buried in the bill- Shift of ~40% of grants to MYF. This will still result in a 35% DECREASE in the NUMBER of grants funded per yr. Russel Vought is behind this.

Dear Congresswoman @foushee.house.gov, the multi year funding (MYF) in the HHS/NIH bill is normed to 2025 - please propose an amendment to norm to 2024, like the Senate version. As it stands, ~1/4-1/3 of NIH $ will be sequestered by MYF, a big cut to the Triangle's STEM economy!

Multi-year funding is a dirty trick by #RussellVought. This way the #Trump administration can say they're spending what Congress appropriated for research, BUT they'll only fund 1/5 the number of grants. Call your Senators/Reps now. Science hangs in the balance. H/T @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social

A reminder as Congress finalizes NIH appropriations: the bill must limit multiyear funding (MYF), Vought's way of cutting the NIH budget without cutting the budget. MYF will devastate the research workforce. @safa-science.bsky.social wrote this in July. Still relevant: substack.com/@scienceandf...

Likewise, Congressman Cole from Oklahoma is the chair of the overall House Appropriations committee. If you can, reach out to his office as well. It is noteworthy that OMB is willing to veto a bill over a minor-seeming NIH operational issue. This makes me think this is part of a bigger plan...

Congressman Aderholt from Alabama is the chair and he is apparently willing to help OMB here, adding report language (which is toothless) rather than including this in the law. If you are from Alabama, please contact his office and your Senators and share your thoughts. 2/3

The appropriations bill that includes NIH is being finalized. The Senate bill includes a bipartisan amendment from Senators Capito (WV) and Baldwin (WI) limiting multi-year funding of grants. The House version does not and OMB has issued a veto threat if the House includes such language. 1/3

ScienceInsider: Firing of neuroscience institute chief Walter Koroshetz adds to NIH’s leadership vacuum by @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social bit.ly/490XPWR @science.org

More news (not good) from NIH The renewal request from National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Director Walter Koroshetz has been denied. I guess the NIH_leadership™ needed another position to fill with their time-tested recruitment process.

My first funding curve post for Fiscal Year 2026 FY2026 is off to a slow start. Some of this is due to the government shut down, but some of it is likely due to the new process for "remediating" applications that are deemed not to align with "agency priorities".

These are ALL renewal awards (with a few supplements). No new or competitive renewal awards!

Lindsey Russ and Briana Bernstein ready for the TPDA poster session this evening. #SfN25

Interested in doing you PhD at Georgetown? Come chat with students and faculty at grad fair booth 48A. #SFN25

We are definitely going to sell out of laser cut brain earrings early in the conference!!! Warning! #SfN25

Our lab has 2 great posters this year at #SfN25 and a collaborative poster making a computational modeling of the PPN. Come see us on Wednesday afternoon!

Sigh. NIH normally sends several hundred scientists to the SFN annual meeting to learn, exchange info, come up with new ideas, and advance science. (The exchange of ideas is the very core of the scientific enterprise.) This year, no one from NIH will attend due to the gov't implosion.

#nokings protest yesterday. Woodbridge, VA. Peaceful, positive. Chants of "we love america"

Seeing a lot of celebration of this as a win. But at NIH we have seen this exact play before. It looks like it is the Vought strategy -and to stop the lawless firings we have to see the bigger picture. A 🧵:

But it took weeks or months of confusion before some had their (lawless) RIF notices revoked. As was widely reported, several NIH scientists, including a major-award-winning Parkinson’s researcher, weren't fully de-RIF’d until @durbin.senate.gov caught out RFK Jr at a Senate hearing about them.

“CDC will have lost its ability to detect outbreaks and respond to them. It will no longer be able to track diseases, in America and around the globe. That includes infectious threats like flu, foodborne illnesses, and Ebola, as well as chronic diseases and injuries.” time.com/7325192/cdc-...

Excited to share our Version of Record in eLife! We find that two ways of inhibiting a brainstem structure (PPN) actually result in completely different and even opposite behaviors. One inhibitory connection is rewarding and one is aversive.

I have a first serious attempt to estimate the consequences of multi-year funding for July. For new R01s, the amount of additional expenditure was $135 M The number of additional R01s that could have been funded is 182 1/9

I just got the notice that all the FlyBase people at Harvard, including me, will be laid off on October 12. I'm devastated.

"It’s like taking over a hospital and making the surgeons break bones instead of fix them, like suddenly requiring your engineering firm to use 'three' in place of pi, like telling a three-star chef her new goal is to make all the patrons puke."

My quote of the day A Video Quote Medical miracles don't happen overnight. You have to invest in them. Our investments are in trouble. (From Francis Collins on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, July 16, 2025)

Happy 107th Birthday, Brenda Milner! Her contributions to neuropsychology shaped the way we understand the human brain. From surviving two world wars and two pandemics, to paving the way for future generations of researchers, Milner’s legacy continues. @mcgill.ca @cusm-muhc.bsky.social

We were honored to attend the 2025 Parkinson’s Disease Gordon Conference in Waterville Valley, NH. It was wonderful to bring together some of the best and brightest scientists to discuss the most exciting developments in PD research, including many of our own awardees and SAB members!

This is worse than many appreciate because it is not merely a delay. Many institutions such as mine are TERMINATING these otherwise active grants if the NoA is delayed by more than a month because they cannot afford to keep the grant supported personnel on payroll

NYT, Page One: “Within hours, he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to ‘any city, any university I want,’ he said, with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years.” @nytimes.com

Senate hearing on the FY26 NIH budget with Jay Bhattacharya June 10, 10am ET www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/a-r...

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow. The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

Trump’s cuts to research programs directly harms scientists from working class backgrounds. Bridges built between the blue collar and ivory tower are collapsing in front of us.

I appreciate the offers from other scientists to help Harvard (students, labs, etc) through this attack, but what would be most helpful is for you to use your position to contact your elected representatives and make it clear this fight isn't just Harvard, it will affect you, and their districts too

Am I crazy or did we just have a convo about how we can't fund cancer research?

REMINDER.....REMINDER......REMINDER 3 DAYS LEFT TO COMMENT ON SCHEDULE F 1/n

That’s a plan to reclassify tens of thousands of government jobs as “policymaking positions” and therefore subject to presidential appointment and removal of those who occupy these positions. 2/n

Donald Trump cut funding for cancer research by 31% in the first three months of his term. This is an attack on every American family who has loved someone with cancer.

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

As we point out in Science, the Trump proposal to convert NIH program officer jobs into political appointments (Schedule F) will mean, that instead of actual scientific experts, people like "Big Balls" will choose how to direct NIH funds. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

From the @sltrib.com, @bagleycartoons.bsky.social

Today it was seeing a major microscope manufacturer say they had the hardest day of their 35+ year career because they had to lay off a ton of staff due to not enough orders coming in because of all the science grants being rescinded in the U.S. 🧪🦠

Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH. Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH. HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH. 99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH. Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.

“However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.” Read, share, respond. Call your representatives. The health and well-being of Americans & America's innovation economy are at stake. www.science.org/content/arti...

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM Implementation of Schedule F This is what a lot of us have been worried about. This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs. BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD... 1/n

My first author paper is officially out!! Thank you to all of my co-authors for their help & support. So proud of the final product 😄😄

The dismantling of the NIH continues (gift article) wapo.st/44uaqzG

Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu