A new PI level unlocked! The first PhD student in my lab defended today. Congratulations Dr. Natasha Roman Ortiz!

This has been such an exciting collaborative project with the lab of @mjsikora.bsky.social! Stay tuned… more to come!

Congrats to Dr. Maggie Musick on her 1st lead-author study in the lab! This #lobular project with @jostrander.bsky.social has been so much fun over the last few years. Blue-torial soon, after a grant gets out the door this week 🫠

Cool stuff 🎉👏 @mjsikora.bsky.social @jostrander.bsky.social #bcsm #lobular 🧪🧬

ASSIGNMENT: COMMENT ON SCHEDULE F 1 week left to comment about Schedule F, potentially making NIH institute and center director essentially political appointees. www.regulations.gov/commenton/OP... 1/n

NIH has terminated at least 565 previously awarded training grants, fellowships, and early career awards so far this year, and they've awarded 1,100 fewer new ones. That's ~1,600 fewer grants supporting new scientists than we'd have had if just a few thousand more folks voted for Harris over Trump.

My daughter’s speech therapist went out of business because Medicaid reimbursement rates were too low. We do not have Medicaid. I’m going to keep posting this until people understand that when Medicaid gets cut *everyone* loses services.

please tell your letter-writers if you get the job/award!

My new piece in @rollingstone.com : “Our democracy is made up of reciprocal ties between and among all of us, and AmeriCorps strengthens these ties. We will all feel the loss of AmeriCorps...and our democracy will pay the price.” www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

The notice and COMMENT PERIOD OPENED TODAY AND CLOSES MAY 23. Anyone who would like to register an objection or comment should go to this page and click on the green “public comment” button at the top: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... 6/n

Please take a moment to read and sign this excellent letter. Over 3,500 signature so far!

Analysis of Terminated NIH Grants with Word Clouds First, using the titles of grants not to Columbia... Gender and DEI predominate

Trump has cut the NIH budget by more than half in defiance of Congressionally mandated appropriations for the agency. No comparison historically, not even the Great Recession. This is clearly not legal and Congress needs to address it.

Review quality also maintained because rejection rate was similar among Fast & Fair vs conventional peer review...and Biology Open now publish all reviews, so readers can see for themselves

We are excited to be launching the next phase of our Fast & Fair peer review initiative: offering high-quality peer review within 7 working days. #fastandfairpeerreview Read the Editorial by EiC Daniel Gorelick @danielgorelick.bsky.social at: bit.ly/4kYD1mL

Providing every child access to a high quality education is the most important thing we can do to protect our future. An educated workforce drives the economy, scientific innovation and secures our countries place as a world leader. Eliminating the #doe will hurt all of us. #departmentofeducation

The general vibe we are getting across #NIH institutes is deeply bleak — that the agency is nearly, if not already dead. Top people are leaving or have left. Nearly everyone's looking for other jobs. People still care about what NIH was, but are growing resigned to its death. 1/

Still wrapping my head around 57% cut to CDMRP (cdmrp.health.mil) funding in CR. CDMRP funds some of the most innovative high-risk/high-reward research in biomedical science, and in it all, includes patient advocates. BEFORE the cut, the breast cancer program funded 3-5% of proposals. What now?

@amyklobuchar.com please don't vote for this CR as it is!!

If anyone is wondering why the republican's CR is worse than a government shutdown... The illegal spending cuts they have instituted in the last 2 months will become legal. There will be no recourse in the courts. Dems need to at least TRY and fight and negotiate! Call your SENATORS!

The House Continuing Resolution budget “adjustments” for NIH are drastic. Here are some examples:

Please call your Congressmen today to tell them that you support children's cancer research and not to cut Dept of Defense CDMRP funding for cancer research. Vote No on the job-killing, kid-killing Continuing Resolution (CR) tomorrow. Also breast cancer, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s research, etc.

Because one of the hats I wear is 'researcher with expertise in milk, lactation, & breastfeeding' I encounter folks who think breastfeeding is more important than vaccination... Yes, I am about to launch a

Stand up for Science at the MN Capital. Lots of great speakers talking about the impact of the current administration on scientific and medical research, public health, the environment, and DEI. @drnegillis.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social

@docfanning.bsky.social at UMN today telling us about his work on ER structure and Dickkopf-1. My personal favorite was the cameo appearance of PELP1. Great talk Sean!

About $74 million in US govt funding (including NIH) went into developing enzalutamide - a multibillion dollar drug that prolonged life for countless men with prostate cancer. Why would anyone cut this support? We need more, not less! @ascocancer.bsky.social @theaacr.bsky.social

New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s... 1/n

Current status: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If anyone has been in touch with press covering the NIH situation broadly (firings, funding freeze etc), please encourage them to cover the sinister way in which HHS is preventing grant review and funding from happening, by blocking posting to the Federal Register.

@amyklobuchar.com and @smith.senate.gov were at the Masonic Cancer Center, University of MN today raising awareness about terrible NIH policies that are trying to be implemented by the current administration.

Tiny victory in the chaos: Submitted an R21 today w @docfanning.bsky.social & @jostrander.bsky.social to NCI Clinical & Translational Exploratory/Dev. program, to develop new anti-estrogens tailored for #lobular breast cancer. Project all via @nrimpact.bsky.social collab. Onward, dauntless 💪

If you are a NIH funded researcher and your state is not on this list, you need to be calling your AG office

this is a good time to note that the proposed candidate for NIH director has never run a lab, cared for patients, led a major research and healthcare institution, or been a principal investigator on an NIH grant

Look up the impact of NIH funding in your state: www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...

NIH doesn’t just support infectious disease research—it drives breakthroughs in cancer, childhood diseases, heart disease, diabetes & more. Thanks to NIH, we have: 💉 Cancer immunotherapy ❤️ Cholesterol-lowering statins 🩸 Insulin for diabetes Investing in NIH = investing in life-saving discoveries.

@jostrander.bsky.social and I had the opportunity to write a commentary on @profriggins.bsky.social latest work in JES - @zmadake2.bsky.social - looking toward really cool implications for understanding and leveraging the unique metabolism of lobular breast cancer. academic.oup.com/jes/advance-...

Co-regulator activity of Mediator of DNA Damage Checkpoint 1 (MDC1) is associated with DNA repair dysfunction and PARP inhibitor sensitivity in lobular carcinoma of the breast https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.29.564555v1

New #lobular breast cancer study from Sikora Lab is up, after buzz re: PARP inhibitors at #ILCSymposium! We think ILC-specific co-reg fxn of MDC1 allows ER:MDC1 to control endo response/resistance in ILC, at the cost of a DNA repair dysfunction that can be hit with PARPi. Thread: 1/8