Russell Vought's OMB is continuing to hold up funds at NIH. www.medpagetoday.com/publichealth...

The NIH budget was basically the same in 2025 vs. 2024. This massive decline in health research funding was driven by *administrative* choices.

Does anyone’s institution have guidance on addressing tenure and promotion in the great (it’s great again now right?) year of 2026? Are we still relying on NIH funding as a stamp of approval?

HAPPY HALLO WNT From the spooky wingless flies 🪰

@joann-trejo.bsky.social, @marymunson4.bsky.social and I have a commentary in @natcellbio.nature.com on recent attacks on DEI in biomedical research: "If scientific research, especially biomedical research, is meant to serve everyone, then it requires that everyone has an opportunity to participate"

Gave a seminar at the Van Andel Institute and greatly enjoyed meeting with pioneers in the field of Wnt signaling @sgraingerphd.bsky.social and @bartwilliams.bsky.social. Also reunited with amazing colleagues in the fields of epigenetics and RAS biology. What a vibrant research community @vai.org!

Look. I’ll own it, ok? It’s been hot and I’ve been using the AC. I will do better.

This is a great idea! 🧪 laist.com/news/educati...

Me: could we please have a phone call to go over issues 2 and 3? These really look resolved on my end and I need some help understanding where the disconnect is so that I can fix it. EO: no. Also make your graphical abstract about this thing you didn’t show in the paper. Me: …

You had your chance to remove and bar him from the presidency after Jan 6. And you chickened out.

Editorial office: please fix issue 1, 2, and 3 Me: I’m sorry I think we submitted without issue 2 and 3. Could you please clarify? EO: crickets Me: hello? EO: all is well please submit Me: uploading like a MOFO EO: please fix issue 1, 2 and 3 Me: has existential breakdown

Well that seems very bad

I have received confirmation from ... the NFL twitter account ... that Taylor Swift is engaged

congratulations to taylor swift, travis kelce, and to the whoever is about to drop the world's most unnoticed news dump

🚨| Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s engagement announcement just BROKE Instagram.

Well that’s enough news for today

Researchers have registered more than 120 clinical trials to date evaluating the potential of mRNA-based approaches for treating many types of cancer, including lung, breast, and prostate, pancreatic, and brain tumors.

I truly cannot emphasize enough how this is straight up Lysenkoism. Because of the incredible work of our nation’s scientists, we have our finger tips on the closest thing humanity has ever come to “a cure for cancer”, but brainworm over here doesn’t believe in it. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/h...

@aoc.bsky.social I hope we can count on you!

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray. "Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

"Trump’s interference in the sciences is something new. It shares features with the science-damaging policies of Stalin and Hitler, says David Wootton, a historian of science. But in the English-speaking world, it has no precedent, he told me: “This is an unparalleled destruction from within.”

See how the NIH cuts are impacting your area. scienceimpacts.org

As stressful as it is to run a laboratory in the US right now, my thoughts are often with the NIH staff living in the awful chaos trying to preserve the whole enterprise. I’m grateful for every moment they choose not to give up. These people are the only thing keeping it from entirely collapsing.

Good morning to all the reviewer 3s out there who believe in bioRxiv papers and the pandemic having disproportionate impacts on the junior faculty who started then.

The NIH’s 2024 budget of just under $37B generated $95B in economic activity in 2024 alone. 99.4% of new pharmaceuticals approved from 2010-2019 came from NIH-funded research. I’m hard pressed to think of anything that generates as much direct economic benefit as our NIH did before they destroyed it

I'm sure I'm not the only GenXer who is tearing up at this. If you were there when it began, then you know why.

“With these considerations, we expect to fund through the 4th percentile.” There it is, in black and white, the destruction of cancer research in the US.

It is not just that SCOTUS is weakening Congress by giving its powers to Trump; it is also weakening other parts of the judiciary. It is overturning decisions in a fashion it did not do under Biden (hat tip to @adambonica.bsky.social for the graph). donmoynihan.substack.com/p/when-youre...

Do not organize conferences in the US with an expectation to invite international scientists. www.nbcnewyork.com/news/busines...

The NIH is asking scientists and the public to comment on plans to drastically limit animal model research. If you think animal models remain important tools for basic and clinical research tell them! Click the link below and scroll down to send your comments! www.fda.gov/news-events/...

Birth defects kill twice as many children as cancer. Animal model are crucial; no stem-cell or computer models can yet recapitulate the embryo's complexity. If you support birth defects research tell NIH that animal models are important! Click & scroll below to comment. tinyurl.com/mr3he6bx

Shock. Awe. More shock.

Let’s be absolutely clear. This decision, based on fringe conspiracy theories, will kill children. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Very VERY excited to see this addition to the SCIMaP project. @joshuasweitz.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social BOTTOM LINE: Proposed NIH cuts are estimated to result in ~50b in economic losses and over 200k job losses. But hey! How are those egg prices?? scienceimpacts.org/fy26

Blah air travel.

Heading to #ICDB #sdb in Puerto Rico for a few days! I only packed one bottle of sunscreen and that may have been an error…

"The National Institutes of Health limps along on invisible crutches, its significance on life support, its staff feeling diminished, dazed and confused. When this madness will end is anyone’s guess" federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2...

Seriously fuck the 77 million people who voted for this including my own family who decided that this is okay 🤬🤬🤬🤬

Losses from cuts to NIH research and training grants now total $3.8 billion. #AcademicSky #HigherEd www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

The first of two #NoKings protests in Grand Rapids. Thousands of people on the lawn in front of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum.

This week, more than 300 scientists from the NIH released the Bethesda Declaration, which speaks against the cuts and disruption to scientific funding. Want to support their efforts? Sign this letter in solidarity: actionnetwork.org/forms/add-na...

Health Secretary Kennedy abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel Expert: “We have just demonstrated that politics will overrun science in this administration. It scares me to think of what’s ahead.” www.statnews.com/2025/06/09/r...

Some good news.

So much this

And if you haven't read this shattering ProPublica piece about the effects of Covid on pregnancies, you should take a deep breath and do so:

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” turns 50 so I decided to write about it, an exercise as misguided as Arthur’s search for the grail itself. And I still don’t know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow! www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

Welp, it begins. Sigma Aldrich.