Inspired by Fred Rogers, @nature.com asked readers to help us 'find the helpers' amid the crisis in American science. What emerged were inspiring stories of researchers, legal experts, data hounds and government scientists who are fighting the dismantling of the US research enterprise. 🧪🧵1/6

Often the news happens so quickly that there's little time for it, so we took a step back to talk about the stories of the researchers who have been fighting back against the Trump administration's assault on science. w/ @maxkozlov.bsky.social and @heidiledford.bsky.social

YES!!!! So happy to see @maxkozlov.bsky.social recognized for the total rockstar he is: casw.org/news/max-koz... So many more schmancy journalism awards in this guy's future.

Scientists are closing in on the ability to apply genome editing to a formidable new target: the human brain go.nature.com/45uKWT1

The claim that aluminium in vaccines causes autism has been debunked “again and again” go.nature.com/4mY7OQQ

In which @stephaniemlee.bsky.social reports for @theopennotebook.bsky.social on using public documents for investigative science journalism. With @laurenweberhp.bsky.social @naveenasadasivam.bsky.social @primateyell.bsky.social @dangaristo.bsky.social & more: www.theopennotebook.com/2025/08/12/h...

Ageing accelerates around age 50 ― some organs faster than others, suggesting that ageing does not march to a steady beat @nature.com @heidiledford.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Turbocharged ‘killer’ cells show promise for autoimmune disease @nature.com @heidiledford.bsky.social nature.com/articles/d41... on @cellcellpress.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya posted on X: "No clinical trial has been delayed, nor has any participant been dropped from clinical trial. These are the facts." Malaria, tuberculosis, cancer trials abroad have all been on the chopping block, leaving participants stranded, I reported in this story.

After ruling the NIH grant cuts were illegal yesterday, Judge Young, a Reagan appointee on the bench since 1985, ended the hearing with a blistering 15-minute speech. I've cleaned up my notes — here are his remarks in full. 🧵

An NIH staffer reacts to today's ruling: "I'm looking forward to the day that we are so slammed with work trying to reinstate everything that we had to terminate illegally — I'll work 24/7 to make that happen if I can."

Barbara McClintock was born OTD in 1902. “I start with the seedling, and I don't want to leave it. I don't feel I really know the story if I don't watch the plant all the way along. So I know every plant in the field. I know them intimately, and I find it a real pleasure.” 🌱🐋🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci

A lightning-fast, in-depth look into who RFK Jr selected for the vaccine advisory committee. One of whom was an expert witness against Merck's vaccine, despite RFK's stated reason of reducing conflicts of interest, per @reuters.com. Well done @heidiledford.bsky.social and @rfieldmouse.bsky.social

"US scientists who find themselves abruptly unemployed are turning desperation and defiance into fresh coping strategies and advice. But one thing is clear: whether they move abroad, pivot to other research areas or leave science altogether, their deep expertise is likely to be lost." 🧪

Check out this news story that @nature.com wrote describing our recent preprint where we tested our H5 mRNA vaccine in calves. The data look good and we are currently testing the vaccine in lactating cattle...more to come!

The CRISPR family’s most versatile member has made its medical debut: a cutting-edge gene-editing technique known as prime editing has been used to treat a person for the first time https://go.nature.com/3YNta9V

Today the 1st case of CRISPR 3.0 (Prime genome editing) announced for a teenager with chronic granulomatous disease www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Plenty of cool science behind this CRISPR news, but it’s that cute baby and the personal story his parents shared that keeps me up at night 🧵🧪https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01496-z

A US judge to govt lawyers defending the NIH's grant terminations: "I understand the administration is against DEI. Respectfully, I just don't know what you mean. This isn't a teasing question. There has to be some working definition. This is research to advance healthcare for all our citizens."

A study in Nature Immunology explores soluble biomarkers, immune cell subsets, viral antibody responses and plasma proteomics to better define and understand long COVID in two independent cohorts. go.nature.com/3GVktnC #medsky 🧪

There are a lot of questions being asked about the awarding of a $500M grant to an #NIH team to develop a new (old) vaccine platform that could be used for a "universal" #flu vaccine. www.statnews.com/2025/05/03/n...

𝐴𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑎 𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑧𝑎𝑒 shows us that some flowers shy away from those cute stories about plants and pollinators, and that they have evolved extreme techniques to ensure pollination. This plant's technique? A hairy prison. @botany.one #Scicomm #PlantScience #Botany 🧪 botany.one/2025/04/that...

🧪I used to be the assigning editor of a profiles column, and I've missed those deep dives into people's experiences. It was a treat to speak with Michael Running Wolf, his wife Caroline, and their professional colleagues about their work using AI to revitalize Indigenous languages for @nature.com.

How scientists are fighting back after Trump gutted two landmark environmental reports. 🧪 Words by me, photo selection by Nature's ace photo team: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Affected by the foreign subawards policy? Help run clinical trials abroad on a project with a subaward? I want to hear how this policy impacts you. Send me a message on Signal at mkozlov .01 or email me at maxkozlov [at] protonmail [dot] com. You can stay anonymous.

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...

NEW: An NIH policy coming in the next week will target — and at least temporarily stop — funding outside the US, threatening thousands of projects and collaborations on topics like infectious diseases and cancer. Some NIH staff have already been told to hold all subaward funds for foreign labs.

"Absent any official word, the contracts officer said, federal funders planned to act on the first decision to cut off support for the research."

Under this administration, it's difficult to know what will happen tomorrow. But these cuts to science will have long-term effects, so we tried to take a step back and consider the impacts in 5, 10 years. Reported with @heidiledford.bsky.social & Jeff Tollefson: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Deep dive into 800 cancelled NIH grants. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

After our story about the impact of funding cuts on early-career researchers, a reader contacted me: ‘Ahem. What about us soft-money PIs?’ Fair point. So here -- with special thanks to that reader and to all the researchers who've shared their personal stories with us -- is that story:

NIH, which began this week terminating projects studying long COVID, has reinstated the grants, after pressure from Sen. Todd Young's (R-IN) office, an HHS source tells me. Young had secured a commitment from RFK Jr that he'd continue funding long COVID research. Story by @thesicktimes.bsky.social

🚨 NIH sent out another data call, this time for projects "related to any form of censorship at all or directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes… e,g., any contracts to promote COVID vaccine uptake," I'm told. These data calls have recently preceded terminations.

Even in 2025, some things still shock. Like the apparent selection of a long-time vaccine opponent who was disciplined & fined for practicing medicine without a license to conduct a new HHS study into whether there's a link between vaccines and autism. www.statnews.com/2025/03/26/r...

“Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage. Some of them had received unsafe doses of supplements for several weeks in an attempt to prevent a measles infection”

—What are these 12 companies that purport to promote longevity and healthspan missing? —Evidence. erictopol.substack.com/p/the-busine...

Travelling to the US as a scholar who studies disinformation, elections, and press freedom and who is on record speaking out in favor of science, facts, journalism and democracy is a dilemma. I spoke to @heidiledford.bsky.social @nature.com about this.

There were quite a few things that people told me that we just didn’t have room for in this story about how the US immigration crackdown is worrying scientists: www.nature.com/articles/d41... Here's a thread with a few of them:

Heard about that French scientist who got turned away at the border? @heidiledford.bsky.social & I report on researchers' increasing anxiety about traveling in or out of the US: 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How can B cells rapidly proliferate and have mutations suppressed? A longstanding mystery solved involving transient mutation suppression capability of germinal centers nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"It is often said that the first responsibility of any government is the safety and protection of its people. That alone should be reason enough for policymakers to encourage people to get themselves and their children vaccinated." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If you've ever caught sight of a Starlink launch and wondered:

Yay: Most postponed study sections have been rescheduled at this point. Yikes: To do this, CSR has scheduled *289* study sections from 03/24-05/16/2025. For comparison, there were only 96 study sections from 3/24-5/17/2024. And NIH still plans to RIF more staff. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

Exclusive: NIH officials have advised scientists to remove reference to mRNA vaccines from their grant applications, in expectation the Trump administration intends to abandon most research in the field. By @arthurallen202.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

These frustrated scientists want to leave the US. Do you? Take @nature.com's poll: 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

PSA: if you're trying to read a recently posted news story from Nature, and you run into what looks like a paywall, it's almost always a "register with your email for free and you can read the story for free" thing. Even though it looks like a paywall.

“More trouble might be coming in the appropriations process: Vought’s 2023 proposal called for slashing the NIH’s budget…by more than 20%” Every $1 of NIH funding generates $2.46 in economic activity and contributed to 99.4% of approved drugs. Insane to indiscriminately slash the budget 🧪🩺

Thinking ahead: Seattle #standupforscience rally provided suggestions for next steps

If you were relieved when courts blocked cuts to NIH indirect costs, don’t be, says Seattle paediatric cancer doc Jim Olson at #standupforscience “The cuts are coming, one way or another.”