New preprint on conserved BCG in myxobacteria from Cole Steven's lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Extraordinary Benefit of Nature’s Chemistry to Health, Society, and the Economy | Journal of Natural Products pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

NIH is freezing funds for research abroad, threatening thousands of projects. 9/10 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Important story of NSF cuts by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social, & important perspective from @alondra.bsky.social: ‘These accounts of how we are decimating with a thousand cuts the science & research ecosystem are devastating… It’s sort of cutting off the future.’ www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

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.

There's an open call for editors (5-year terms) at Applied and Environmental Microbiology, for those of you who might be interested: journals.asm.org/journal/aem/...

I know conservation biologists have ethical concerns about Colossal Biosciences, etc., but one thing is for sure: DAFT and the OGTR are never ever going to let a GMO thylacine-like animal that is actually a GMO numbat or whatever wander the bush in Tassie.

This is chilling www.fda.gov/news-events/...

I injured my thumb tripping on a run this morning, and it is kinda annoying typing, but I am really glad that I am not a PhD student/postdoc anymore because pipetting would be literally impossible.

Great news: NIH postbac program is recruiting again! If your grad school plans were affected by program cutbacks or admissions freezes this year I highly encourage you to apply, this could be a perfect opportunity. Please repost. www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...

NSF will award ~1,000 instead of their usual ~2,000 Graduate Research Fellowships this year. NSF slashes prestigious PhD fellowship awards by half www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Not to throw rocks at glass houses (because I definitely am guilty of this) but sometimes synthetic biology is so vibey. Sometimes people are just doing a pretty basic genetic experiment and dressing it up in technical futuristic jargon.

General vibes right now

🧪 #ScienceSky and #AcademicSky: We’re trying to learn more about the real-life scope and impact of the Trump administration terminating NIH grants. Here's how you can help our reporting 👇

I worry about all the focus on commercialision from the ARC here in Oz for the same reason

This came to mind after hearing recent discussions on podcasts etc. about the rise of Chinese innovation with companies like Byd and Xaomi, Byd's accession while Tesla flounders and Elon Musk is DODGE-ing, etc. China has won biotech: thehill.com/opinion/tech....

Big ups to ACS for providing complimentary childcare at #ACSFall2025. Attending conferences is enough logistical work as-is. Not having worry about week-long arrangements for kiddos makes a huge difference, especially to early-career folks who are more likely to have young kids.

Nobel Prizes by country and year. The dominance of Germany is striking every time. Before 1933, that is. And the utter dominance of America (and the UK) after 1945.

See this chart for one stark example: NIH funding has dramatically slowed down. Grant awards are down *$3 billion* so far, compared to same time period last year I asked the White House to explain. “This is not a researcher entitlement program,” said an official, defending their new approach.

Countries that have issued a travel advisory this year warning their citizens about visiting the United States: Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Ireland Netherlands New Zealand United Kingdom

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

Imagine if those funds went to paying students, technicians, or postdocs to do more research. 🧪

biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Here’s a paper that was many years in the making. The idea that the climate can affect the thermodynamic mechanism of binding due to the temperature dependence of the entropy term is interesting- we see gradual shift in binding mode along evo trajectory…

Studies terminated at NIH: -On reducing asthma from mold -On prenatal risks & screening -On statins influence on dementia -On the safety/risk of gender-affirming care -On how Covid vax outcomes & disparities -On improving HIV care -Training programs for the next generation of scientists

Heterologous expression of complex BCGs has a lot of analogies to total synthesis. Easy to get "so what, why did you spend time doing this" if it's a target that is not exciting enough from a biological activity standpoint.

Excited to speak at the Cell Free Systems conference this year. Even better, I can stay with my parents in my childhood home who live minutes away from Northwestern! www.aiche.org/sbe/conferen...

Cell free people--anyone notice that E. coli tRNA is no longer being sold by Sigma: sigmaaldrich.com/AU/en/produc... Any advice for alternative suppliers?

I've been noticing that despite having a larger follower count here (probably due to starter packs) and being followed by many of the same people here as Twitter/X, I still have more engagement over there. What do we need to do to boost the algo here?

Also: how will there be a training set if all we do is reorganize collected knowledge than create new experimental knowledge?

So uh... how exactly is America going to host the World Cup next year with all these travel and immigration restrictions?

From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA

It was only a matter of time, I suppose. As ARC/NHMRC funding gets more and more inadequate, we have been encouraged to look for international collaborative schemes in addition to domestic ones. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Excited to share our review on applications of cell free expression towards natural products research, in collaboration with @nigelmouncey.bsky.social, Simon Moore, and Doug Mitchell! pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A...

I'm not opposed to a move away from as many large individual fellowships and having more money go into project grants. But I really dislike how chaotic all the rollout is and how challenging it makes it to plan going forward.

The NIH powers research globally--the reverberations will be felt all over the research community

Problems with having my lab split across 2 buildings a 20 minute walk apart (among many)...wondering where my Hopwood Streptomyces book went and realizing my student took it with him to the other building.

Telomeric transposons are pervasive in linear bacterial genomes | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is pretty much where I am at

What's everyone's favorite tools for designing gRNAs for Cas12a? Interested in doing so with genes from actinos

What is wild to think about is when my grandparents were children (born in 1919, 1921, 1929, and 1930) there were NO antibiotics. Even when my parents were born (1954 and 1955) there were limited numbers of antibiotics.

Just heard this paper presented by Diego at #NGSB24 about an hour ago. Really cool work.

Check out this bombshell publication by Michael Fischbach @mfgrp.bsky.social and coworkers @stanford-chemh.bsky.social @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social, imagine a cancer immune therapy/vaccine where treatment begins and ends with a painless topical skin treatment! 🤯 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Three more days left for Early Bird Registration for the Lorne Protein Conference 2025! www.lorneproteins.org

My department is hiring a fungal biologist! aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF01990

MiBIG 4.0 is online! #secmet #BGC #mibig #microsky academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

t.co/ysDjvNHxkY Really excited and impressed by Mitja @marnixmedema.bsky.social and everyone for their efforts to coordinate us globally for the latest iteration of MIBiG, and grateful to have had a role in this rollout!

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Talk about a power couple: This dynamic photocatalyst + enzyme duo wrangles 3 starting materials into one chiral product! 😍 my latest for @cenmag.bsky.social : cen.acs.org/synthesis/bi...