Amid the bad news, some good news on tuberculosis - the world's biggest infectious disease killer. 10m cases, 1.2m deaths Two new vaccines are now in the final stage of clinical trials. We currently only have one vaccine, it's 100 years old, and only works in children www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...

Happy to share the final version of my postdoc work on bacterial CBASS immunity with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Some real talk, on a Friday evening before #NoKings: This is a proposal designed to re-anchor our expectations. No Republican in Congress wants to walk the plank and vote for cuts to cancer research! We shld not fall for it. Our counter-proposal should be a 25% incr in govt support for research.

In case you were wondering—yes, we do still have to keep fighting. rollcall.com/2026/03/27/s...

"If you help someone, you yourself begin to feel much better. And do not change your convictions, your values. That is the bare minimum. Not many people can be heroes… But this is the minimum that my generation learned back in the Soviet Union.”

New @sloanfoundation.bsky.social grants: Exemplary Pathways to STEM Graduate Education. Up to $500,000 for orgs focused on helping remove obstacles for undergraduates who want to pursue advanced STEM degrees. Deadline is June 1. Please share & apply if this is you! sloan.org/programs/hig...

‘Brain drain’ at NIH sparks fears about the long-term impacts on public health

Every day I talk to other cancer researchers, committed to soldiering on as long as poss, but many of us see the writing on the wall & cannot help but be despondent. Pharma co.s otoh are happy to tell us that if we cannot make breakthroughs, they'll take ones from China. So there's that, I suppose.🧪

Cofilin-1 is a redox-sensitive guard of the NLRP3 inflammasome @natimmunol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Clever. These are popping up all across the USA.

Preprint: a direct mechanistic link between pathogen immune evasion, Aβ dynamics, and neuroinflammatory cascades www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

The Bayer-Santos Lab, along with researchers at the University of São Paulo, have discovered salmonella toxins that could lead to healthier microbiomes and new targetted antibacterial therapies. See: cns.utexas.edu/news/researc...

My 7 year old, while reading the adapted-for-kids version of "An Immense World" - "Do you really think one person could write this whole book? Where does @edyong209.bsky.social get all of his ideas from?!?" I told him I would ask 😉 bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...

Action Item...Action Item...Action Item Time to comment on the Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... Comments due by May 16, 2026

Bhattacharya on multi-year funding: “Sometimes for early-career scientists what you need is a front-loaded grant because they’re building their lab and so they can’t wait until year two or three to get the money, so it’s scientifically justified,” When you apply you don’t get to request MYF…

This man did far more fighting for the US than anyone in the cabinet or the White House. And he died one day after being taken to an American concentration camp. One day. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

@aai.org is working to protect you from preventable diseases…AAI contributed to the brief that helped the court in this ruling: Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...

Host innate immune response profiling reveals hidden viral infections across diverse animal species https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.16.711951v1

Associate Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor position in Molecular Microbiology available at Lund University, Sweden: lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Provides some insights into what is happening (or rather what is not happening) with regard to federal science grant making.

New personal view article The diagnostic void: how #typhoid -by-default drives antimicrobial resistance in Ethiopia www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... #IDSky #ClinMicro #AMR #Salmonella #OpenAccess #OA

AlphaFold database has entered the era of complexes. Together with NVIDIA, DeepMind and EBI, we use ColabFold, OpenFold and MMseqs2-GPU to predict ~31 million complexes (homo & hetro-dimers) resulting in 1.8 million high-quality predictions 📄 research.nvidia.com/labs/dbr/ass... 🌐 alphafold.ebi.ac.uk

Atlanta is covered in blossoming crab apples and redbuds right now. Leaves are unfurling everywhere. Is it foolish, courageous, or inevitable for trees to be blooming in times like these? The answer doesn't seem to matter to them. They just keep going. Goodnight💚🌸

BREAKING: A judge just blocked Kennedy's handpicked vaccine advisers, and all votes they've taken in the past year. They will not meet this week. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Now read this SUPERB piece by the inspirational virologist @angierasmussen.bsky.social, “Thirst for revenge—What Jay Bhattacharya has in common with Stalin’s crackpot science seer Trofim Denisovich Lysenko” It’s a long piece but well worth your time rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/bhattachar...

A must read for anyone who cares (and these days, worries constantly) about American science and medicine. Credit to Prof. Will Mair for sharing his story. There are many more stories like it.

I got excited when I saw that NIH might have received its first apportionment from OMB today. Alas, it's for ARPA-H. OMB still has not given NIH a dime for non-salary, non-emergency expenses from the spending bill that was signed into law on Feb 3.

Following @joshuasweitz.bsky.social post and discussions with him and the Vox story, I have estimated R01 success rates for each NIH institute and center with enough awards for this to be meaningful. A long 🧵... 1/25

A point of contrast.

Pete Hegseth wasted $93 BILLION in one MONTH. It’s indefensible—a $98,000 piano, $12,000 for fruit basket stands, and the list goes on and on (and on). Just another reason why Hegseth has got to go. newrepublic.com/post/207555/...

Bacteria in our BRAINS??! We observed translocation of bacteria from the gut to the brain via the vagus nerve. This occurred after high fat diet, or without dietary changes in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and autism. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Do you want somebody to blame? Start with Russell Vought at OMB, Jay Bhattacharya, Matthew Memoli, Jon Lorsch at NIH. These are evil, small minded men. I hope one day they’re held accountable for the destruction of biomedical research in the United States.

The White House is blocking the FBI and top US intelligence agencies from warning law enforcement across the country about new terror threats to the homeland tied to the war with Iran. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

If you’re in the USA, there’s a whole bunch of “Stand Up For Science” rallies and protests happening this Saturday you could join. Check it out. 👇 And share it around. #uspol #ClimateSky #EnergySky

National Day of Action, this Saturday March 7, with dozens of events taking place in communities nationwide. New reporting via @meghanbartels.bsky.social with key quotes from @cdelawalla.bsky.social & @mtosterholm.bsky.social on the moment we face. www.scientificamerican.com/article/stan...

Danny Kim in the Planet lab (@pjplanet.bsky.social) defends his thesis tomorrow!

Source-independent enrichment of light lanthanides: microbial mobilization, selective uptake, and intracellular storage https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.03.709224v1

"The Parallels between RFK Jr and Tofrim Lysenko: When Pseudoscience Infects National Leadership" "And by understanding the history of an unqualified person driving nonscientific decisions in scientific public policy, perhaps we can avoid another disaster." skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/th...

This is what authoritarians are never gonna understand: average, everyday citizens do not like watching paramilitary thugs brutalize children. All the vaporware memes in the world can't fix that for them

Plants use cell-surface and intracellular receptors that collaborate to detect pathogens🦠. We discovered that a key #ubiquitin recognition event recruits both receptor types into an unexpected dual receptor complex that boost the translation of defence proteins and establishes robust #PlantImmunity👇🏾

Don’t listen to anyone trying to suggest the FY2026 budget bill saved science. The bill has some wins (and I am grateful to those you worked with and from within Congress for those wins). We have a lot of work to do before we rest. open.substack.com/pub/sciencea...

Every American needs to watch this:

Powerful Shakespearian monologue from Ian McKellen on Colbert. Just a bit applicable to today... www.instagram.com/reels/DUXMaL...

If you need to find a figure skater to cheer on during the Olympics, here’s a great one from my small town in CT #TeamUSA

In brief, this maneuver: - effectively converts employee status to "at-will" (meaning they can be fired for any--or no--reason), - redirects whistleblower complaints to internal agency counsel, & takes away these civil servants' rights to appeal adverse personnel actions.

Without the Washington Post health and science team the public would have known far less about what’s been happening at NIH and CDC this year. Post reporters have done absolutely key reporting, for example a profile on NIH cancer researcher Steve Rosenberg speaking up about damage to his work.

Good news. I reached out to the Internet Archive folks to let them know about the discontinuation of the NIH Record. As I have found on numerous occasions over the past year, they are "on in". A great organization and an increasingly important resource.

Right now, Democrats have the power to defund and abolish ICE. We should do it. This is about right and wrong—and the murder we are seeing on the streets is just plain wrong. Anyone who supports funding DHS and ICE is supporting the murder of Americans. We can stop this.

“We will not be intimidated into silence.” —Dr. Leonard Bright, AAUP Texas A&M This fight is bigger than Texas A&M—it is about whether public universities will serve democracy or fear it. @tamu-aaup.bsky.social @texasaft.org @texasaaup.bsky.social @movetexas.bsky.social

Ok people!!! I believe we may be taking March 7th NATIONAL! This will require financial support. Last year, nationwide, the protests cost $75,000. We need all the help we can get! Help us fuel the fight here: www.standupforscience.net/donate @standupforscience.bsky.social #standupforscience