Personal good news alert: I’ve been promoted to associate professor and it’s time to update the ol’ bio! Launching my lab at UCSF has been a privilege + I’m so grateful to my team and community here. More exciting science ahead! 🚀

Apple picking with the crew

Thrilled to announce the launch of my lab @cri-utsw.bsky.social at UTSW this January! We will explore how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, focusing on membrane mechanics to reveal how tension and signaling work together to shape cell behavior.

OK, an NIH grant question that I would normally ask my PO but can't because of shutdown 🫠... Interested in applying for NIGMS RM1 team grant with colleagues. Several of us are NIGMS-funded. Are we eligible? Funds for lab but not our salary, or no more GM funds for us, full stop? (see screenshot)

We're still accepting submissions for our next special issue: Cell Biology of the Nucleus Guest edited by @abbybuch.bsky.social and Megan King @luskinglab.bsky.social. Submission deadline: 3 November journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/nu... #cellbiology #nucleus #notforprofit #freetopublish

Back-to-school vibes with new PhD class arriving at UCSF… @devjanee.bsky.social rocked my world the other day with “happy 20th anniversary of being friends” text! We were those incoming PhD students at WUSTL 20 years ago. Yikes. Looking at you too @rolyanharas.bsky.social @thelucalab.bsky.social!

Last day to submit abstracts! Nuclear cell biologists, mechanobiologists, et al. don’t miss out - amazing interdisciplinary line up: computational biology, biophysics, development, genomics - we will have it all!

I am delighted to announce that the UW Department of Biochemistry has opened searches for TWO tenure-track positions. Descriptions and links in the following two posts.

Truth.

New preprint with @gfudenberg.bsky.social We find the rate of cohesin loop extrusion in cells is set by NIPBL dosage and tunes many aspects of chromosome folding. This provides a molecular basis for NIPBL haploinsufficiency in humans. 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The basic sciences are HIRING at UCSF: open recruitment in the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics. Please share and please apply! aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05702

Just catching up to this - so many inspiring scientists among this year's ASCB awardees! Congrats, all. www.ascb.org/society-news...

Good news for NIH MIRA applicants. Grants.gov recently published the forecast notice for the reissuance of the EI/NI MIRA notice of funding opportunity. As indicated at the link, the estimated post date for the NOFO is Nov 3. www.grants.gov/search-resul...

Big congrats to UNC's @cohenlaboratory.bsky.social , winner of the @ascbiology.bsky.social's WICB Junior Award for Excellence in Research. Sarah's work on organelle contact sites has helped revolutionize the field. 🧪 www.ascb.org/society-news...

1/3 It's official, our grants from the NIH/NIEHS have all been suspended. We were aiming to understand how arsenic, a chemical that millions of Americans are exposed to at high levels, is disrupting the epigenetic machinery.

Weekend reset in the Sierras - Lake Schmidell, Desolation Wilderness.

1 month to abstract deadline for the first cell biology of the nucleus meeting at @embl.org in many years - organised by the stellar @luskinglab.bsky.social @sarawickstrom.bsky.social Tom Quail & Simone Koehler Tons of open slots, invited and selected speakers all get 20 mins ❤️ #EESNucleus

Another paper bluetorial! Today: how does the spatial location of genes influence their function? (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The nuclear lamina strengthens the nucleus and organizes the genome. So what happens when you acutely degrade it in living cells? Not what we thought! (1/n) www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/...

San Francisco summer is in full effect: a soggy bike ride through the fog this AM.

Obviously, the nucleus is the best organelle. If you agree and have a story to share in the realm of nuclear cell biology, it may need a home in this upcoming special issue at @jcellsci.bsky.social. More details at the link below.

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding. Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24. See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it. 🧵 1/3

An actual good thing coming from this NIH nightmare? www.nih.gov/news-events/...

BREAKING: A federal judge in Massachusetts (the Reagan-appointed William Young) has declared the Trump administration's cuts to NIH grants — ostensibly over Trump's EOs on gender ideology and DEI — are "illegal" and "void." He's ordering many grants restored.

In case you need to see a silly thing

Signed!

Dear lord: "On Capitol Hill, at least one committee was told recently by a whistleblower that all research grants to the state were going to be cancelled." The U of Cali system alone accounts for $4B+ per year in federal R&D. If true, let's hope for another all-or-nothing fight like Harvard's.

I'm thrilled to announce that my lab is opening this August in the Department of Cell & Tissue Biology @ UCSF! We will study airway stem cells and explore how they generate multiciliated cells (my favorite!) to keep pathogens and debris out of the lung. Check out choksilab.org for more!

Talked to @KateZernike at @nytimes about my journey and the current moment for scientists in the U.S. “Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science.” Read the article here. No subscription required: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/u...

Mechanisms and timing of programmed DNA elimination in songbirds www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

my proudest moment of the week: wrote an email to (I thought) the editorial office of @jcb.org. Turns out I instead emailed the editors at the Journal of Crustacean Biology, who kindly corrected my mistake and redirected me from 🦀 🍤 🦞 to 🔬 🧫 🧬.

Congrats to Dr. Yewande Alabi, Ph.D.!

The Trump administration has so far frozen about $11 billion in research funding. University leaders say no other source can fill the void.

Lux Capital & @wolfejosh.bsky.social are launching the Lux Science Helpline - a $100M commitment to support American scientists whose research is threatened by funding cuts, bureaucratic hurdles, and career roadblocks - that expands our Lux Labs program. www.luxcapital.com/news/our-hel...

"The core strategy is to slow NIH spending to generate surpluses...then use surpluses as justification for slashing the budget...unspent [$] won’t be because NIH doesn’t have good science to spend on [but] because the administration has blocked spending" donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...

💥🥳 At long last, our latest paper is out! Gag proteins of endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Led heroically by Sylvia Chang & @jonowells.bsky.social A study which has changed the way I think of #transposons! No less! 🧵 1/n

New at Can We Still Govern: An anonymous NIH employee maps out the GOP budget gameplan to permanently gut our most important science agency. Impoundment, delay and red tape will create artificial "savings" that become the new benchmark for NIH budgets. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...

Friday office flowers to brighten your timeline

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

A tool the intermediate filament field so sorely needs!

I received this letter, sent to 11 Republican members of Congress this weekend from anonymous NIHers. 1/n .

I’m giving lab meeting next week! 😅

I have learned that the directors of ALL: PREP, IMSD, and IRACDA programs across the country have received similar cancelation notices. This follows previous cancellations of MARC and URISE programs. This further dismantles the mechanisms that enable scientific training opportunities for SO MANY.

Presented in UCSF’s Friday faculty lunch seminar series today. Way more nerve-wracking than any conference talk IMO, but the intense discussion and creative ideas that result are one of the things I love most about being a scientist here. 🧬🧪📈

Bonkers. French researcher on its way to a conference was denied US entry and his electronic equipment seized after computer searched and anti-Trmp *messages* found. Even if CNRS doesn't put the US on the travel black list (which they likely will do), it's clearly not safe to go there 😨

Year 2 of an NIH R01 coming in 👍 Budget cut by 10% 👎 It is silly to complain about this right now given the funding churn so many are experiencing. Still, bah humbug.

"Funding from the NIH was contributed to 354 of 356 drugs (99.4%) approved from 2010 to 2019 totaling $187 billion" Reference: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Fuel for lab cleanup day 💪 💪