Some really nice fundamental biophysics of DNA base stacking 🧬!

Well, it's been a minute but we have a new preprint to share! Final project in our lab by @jibinpunnoose.bsky.social, investigating strand polarity in base stacking. We measured experimentally with centrifuge force microscope and computationally with MD. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New editorial by Madhan Barathraj and me, discussing DNA nanostructures for nucleic acid delivery, is now online at Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Yesterday we bid farewell to Jibin, who has been in the lab for 7 years and is starting as Assistant professor of chemistry at SUNY New Paltz. Congrats and best wishes - we were so fortunate to have you in the lab.

We need a new microscope objective. A $1.6k tariff for something that you can hold in your hand and that is only manufactured in Germany

NEW: In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant funding. NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and told to expect placements by political appointees.

This is so sad...plus I'm all in on science, there is no plan B

Wake up, losers - new giant rat testomcelles have just dissilced, and they have truly got their dck out. If you go to Africa, here are some localities you should avoid: GUTNED CLINE LSOGLE NAOZAWA V GROSGRIVER

Join the 22,339 people who have joined to support our NIH colleagues. Let's get this to 50,000 RT

Announcing an official fundraising campaign to support my lab’s research on APOE4 and Alzheimer’s disease: joinus.cuimc.columbia.edu/participant/.... This campaign is itself an experiment of sorts. But mostly, it's an attempt to save my lab during an unprecedented time of turmoil in academia. 1/9

For non-scientists: the funding rate is somewhere between 7% to ~25% (rare) for NIH or NSF grants, depending on where you are applying. Grants are reviewed by a panel of peers who read the grants, score them, then debate the ratings for 1-2 days to rank them. It is INCREDIBLY competitive already.

🚨 NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya is testifying before the US Senate Appropriations Committee today. The hearing is bound to be spicy, after more than 300 agency staff wrote him a letter decrying his leadership and actions as director. 🔥 I'll be live-posting the hearing, so follow along here.

The NIH has not issued a single new call for proposals since the end of January.

Breaking news: Staff at the National Institutes of Health have issued a declaration calling on their director to depoliticize the agency and reverse spending cuts.

Let's have some fun. In this NYT story, we see a picture of an OpenAI billboard on a college campus, suggesting the following prompt: "Give me a guide for mastering this Calc 101 syllabus. In two weeks. Small steps please." What happens when we actually use ChatGPT to do this? THREAD!

uh-huh, LMK when its working so I can retire

"If the proposal is enacted, Americans today and tomorrow will be sicker, poorer, and die younger” an $18 Billion cut Only 3 NIH Institutes will remain in place, and even they will have their funds markedly reduced www.statnews.com/2025/05/30/n...

A Harvard scientist built a database of 2,100 NIH grant terminations. Then his own funding was cut, via @statnews.com

Good cover @economist.com

7.5 billion in NIH grants terminated. NIGMS leads the list of recently terminated grants (134). grant-watch.us/posts/700-ne...

Not surprised... I had JIT requests for a recent NIH application that seemed not written by program staff. In particular I had to explain how an S10 grant to purchase high-end equipment is not "DEI", and how a single-molecule study pulling an RNA is not "gain of function" research.

Tariff surcharges become reality for doing science --coming to your appliance and grocery stores soon 🧪

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

#NIH is still termination grants, zeroing out budgets, and issuing stop-work orders. But they are hiding more and more of it from the public. More than ever we need people to report so researchers can advocate and organize. Please report at grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...

You feel bad. But do not think you’re lucky it’s not you. It’s not you *yet*. Call your reps and senators. Push back. We need science. Don’t let them break NIH.

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

OK, this is wild. In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*. What the HELL? 1/

What's happening with these grants is much more complicated and mostly unknown. None of the NIH have been officially cancelled. The NIH was just ordered to stop paying. They got the Unis to enforce silence on their own campuses because they thought they were "negotiating" and cld get the funds back.

Excited to share our new preprint! It's a light-guided approach for precise and programmable molecular patterning, enabling multiplexed single-molecule force spectroscopy—no lithography needed. Read more at doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Budget released today: 40% cut to NIH 50% cut to NSF If enacted, this will destroy academic research in the United States. It will also have a major trickle down effect on the entire academic ecosystem

BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

“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...

This feels existential for US science: To get any future medical research funding, an entire university would need to certify that it won't have programs doing DEIA work (e.g. note-takers for blind students, veteran's support, women's resource groups, etc.) No institution could *ever* comply.

I never thought I'd have to justify purchase of scientific equipment as not being DEI, but here I am writing that justification to NIH.

Along with the firings of up to 1300 co-workers this week and the removals of several institute leaders, NIH employees are dealing with another blow from the administration of President Donald Trump: a mandate to eliminate $2.6 billion in contracts. scim.ag/43XU1nd

SCOOP: You've heard about the NIH terminating grants. I've learned of another, less visible way it's disrupting science: It’s removing some applications from peer review. Not rejecting them, but putting them on hold without saying why or if they'll ever be reviewed. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Breaking news: A new lawsuit seeks to challenge the National Institutes of Health’s decisions to abruptly terminate hundreds of grants, totaling more than $2.4 billion, over the past month. scim.ag/3DZnylL

This is where the rubber hits the road--Musk and colleagues could end most biomedical science by year's end using this approach

It’s April 1 and still no news about the noncompetitive renewal of our #NIH #R35 award that should enter year 2 today. It’s Schrödinger’s grant How many others are in the same boat? 🧪

Noticeably silent amid the upheaval at HHS? Big pharma. Every new drug has NIH somewhere in its DNA--and NIH funding supports the training of their workforce. Now they're finding out FDA isn't safe, either. Wrote about how keeping quiet isn't working My latest @opinion.bloomberg.com (gift link):

Tariffs get all the attention, but ask economists what they're really worried about and many will point to the Trump administration's cuts to federal support for the sciences, including canceling grants and revoking student visas. #EconSky www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/b...

>1900 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine issued a statement supporting science for the benefit of all citizens, and ... 1/2 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Ugh, I expected this but kept hoping it wouldn't happen. UAlbany just got a MARC award, and two undergrads in my lab are supported from this award. In my limited experience, it's been a great way to engage undergrads in research who may otherwise not have the opportunity. A shame...

That specifically right there is the sound of science in the US dying

#FDA top vaccines regulator Peter Marks is forced out by HHS Secretary Kennedy. Marks didn't mince words in his resignation letter: "It has become clear ... [Kennedy] wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” www.statnews.com/2025/03/28/f...

Check out these exciting summer camps for high school students offered by UAlbany Biology department!

Working with an interdisciplinary team, we have developed a website to communicate how the White House's proposed cuts to health research would cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs. Find out how your community may be impacted. Explore more at SCIMaP: scienceimpacts.org a 🧵

Try to imagine a situation where you are not allowed to do your job (e.g. working with applicants to formulate successful proposals), you and and your long-time colleagues are fearful of losing their job, ... 1/n

This doesn't look good, folks www.nature.com/articles/d41...

At NIH, new fudging opportunities (NOFO) will need to be approved by DOGE. That should be a NOGO. www.science.org/content/arti...