In a @fens.org article, based on an interview with @tvvde.bsky.social, neuroscientists Michelle Monje and Frank Winkler, the 2025 Brain Prize winners, made clear that animal research remains essential to their work. 🔗 www.eara.eu/news/brain-p... #AnimalResearch #Brain #BrainPrize #neuroscience #mice

Bhattacharya Appropriation Oversight Hearing drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2026/03/17/b...

this is an out-and-out lie multi-year funding doesn’t give ANYONE more money up-front the money simply sits in different account at NIH no one gets money sooner

This Russell Vought, trying to usurp the power of the purse. Congress and the people have made it abundantly clear that they want to fund science. But Vought keeps trying to steal those funds. www.science.org/content/arti...

Oh wow. I know people here have THOUGHTS. Write them up & submit!! I love that all essays have to be public before entering. This is exactly the type of conversation we need more of. (Also cash prizes + philanthropy is listening) Now which on my list should I pick 🤔? astera.org/essay-compet...

This is the work of 2-5 people, full time, for five years. Work that is trying to increase knowledge of the world, of human health and trying to create a healthier population. Which we somehow can’t afford. Because we need to kill hundreds of people in far off lands for reasons that are false.

This is because of Vought's multi year funding mandate, which wastes government money by having it sit dormant for years instead of being used for science. Its the opposite of efficiency. They are using the same amount of money to fund less science.

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIH—the world's largest public biomedical research funder—has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds. New grant awards have slowed to a trickle — exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October. (h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

New and Competitive Renewals Only 803 grants have been made compared to ~2650 in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 through February 20. All institutes and centers (include OD now) have made awards except NIAAA, NLM, NCCIH, and FIC. 3/4

New and competitive renewal awards. The number of awards is 569 compared with more than 2200 through the same date in earlier fiscal years. All ICs have now made awards except for NIAAA, NCCIH, NLM, FIC, and OD. NEI (Eye Institute) made its first award during the new period. 3/4

Excited to share our new findings on how chronic nicotine changes dopaminergic and cholinergic neural activity!

And another institute director... She had only been in place for 1 5-year term but no renewal. The dismantling of the NIH leadership is painful to watch especially with the lack of clear process for replacing them and the history of hiring cronies.

Watching the systematic dismantling of the world's largest funder of biomedical research is heartbreaking and infuriating

Looking forward to it!

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.