#TobRegSky #PedSky #MedSky #EpiSky #addictionsci #policysky #polisky #neuroskyence #neurosci 🧪🛟🫁 Excellent reporting by @bruceylee.bsky.social in @forbes.com about the new NIH multi year funding policy decimating US biomedical research. www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...

I was supposed to serve on the BTSS study section today—nope. And my A1 application review was canceled last week, after the A0 application was also delayed earlier in the year. Winning!

I enjoyed sharing our latest work in my plenary talk this morning at the 2025 Modeling Estimation and Control Conference (MECC)! Had a great time at the conference too, thanks to the organizers.

Great demo from Boston Dynamics/Toyota Research Institute. Other robots do manipulation (hand tasks) while people mess with them, but mostly while standing upright and still. Here it steps and crouches to pick up parts, combining locomotion with manipulation quite nicely. youtu.be/HYwekersccY?...

Trump tries to put federally funded science under full ruling party political control. Hard to see how the U.S. maintains any global competitiveness in science in this scenario.

Yep, it's Fustilarian Friday again. Defunding Terry Tao to own the libs.

🧪 Senate appropriators say: NIH's budget gets a... boost! Rather than 40% cut, NIH gets a $400M *increase* in the Senate committee bill for FY26 (about +1%). "Congress has your back," said @murray.senate.gov. ADVOCACY MATTERS! There's still a long road (esp in the House), so keep up pressure.

‼️🚨‼️ Russel Vought just locked up the entirety of the remaining extramural NIH budget for this fiscal year, and part of intramural. $15 billion. ~a third of the NIH budget. THIS IS AN ALL-OUT ASSAULT. All $$ is iced except intramural salaries, admin expenses, and clinical center. NO MORE GRANTS. 🧪

New, from an anonymous NIH insider: Trump is being pushed to spend more NIH money. The White House is ordering NIH to do multi-year budgets for awards. This budget trick means fewer awards, fewer labs funded, and lower paylines for researchers. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

Good grief, the US National Cancer Institute projects it will fund only one in 25 RO1 grant applications in 2026. This is massively defunding cancer research. Despicable vandalism. www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

NIH staff are being required to fully fund ~ 50% of their grants. This means that all 4 years of an award will be paid out of this appropriation. This will help them get the appropriated funds spent, but will mean they can only fund (1/2 + 1/4*1/2) = 5/8 has many grants as they would have otherwise.

📣 CALL TO ACTION - Yesterday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee that determines the funding for NSF proposed a 23% cut to NSF’s 2026 budget. If one of these members listed is your representative, use our link to easily call your rep & demand NO CUTS to NSF➡️ actionnetwork.org/call_campaig...

Update on funding curves and late non-competitive renewals. First, funding curves for new and competitive renewals. 1/n

In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists who were about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant applications for the US agency, Nature has learnt. go.nature.com/3TEw7GN

Grant terminations have grabbed the headlines and have seen legal action, but even more damaging to the US research enterprise has been the massive decrease in number of research grants issued by federal agencies NIH has seen a decrease of 57% in the number of awards & 63% in value compared to FY24

US NIH to cap publisher fees for federally funded research by 2026 reut.rs/4kyoTiH

Read this thread, watch the segment and share. As a comms manager for an org that supports cancer centers, I’ve been consumed by these budget cuts and their impacts since January. I hope this helps people who aren’t immersed in this day to day start to understand what’s happening — and fight it.

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

"[The House letter] called on appropriations leadership to provide 'at least $51.3 billion' for the NIH’s foundational work in FY 2026. The House recommendation aligns with the FY 2026 funding recommendation set forth by the AAMC-convened Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research."

I helped explain to the Chicago Tribune the enourmous and irrational damage the NIH funding freeze is causing at Northwestern. “You’re at risk of losing an entire next generation of scientists" "it’s terrifying; it’s completely senseless." www.chicagotribune.com/2025/06/07/w...

A strong statement about the importance of NIH on @cbsnews.com.web.brid.gy Sunday Morning (Part 1)

Ugh they are taking away the one COVID vaccine that doesn’t render me useless for 24-48 hours.

Carl makes an excellent point that peer review has already been done for canceled grants, so the science quality has already been vetted.

Breaking: NSF will pause the 15% indirect cost cap until June 13 in order to proceed to a summary judgment, thereby avoiding a preliminary hearing. www.courtlistener.com/docket/70143...

Nonsense, Mr. Secretary. Facts are facts. seer.cancer.gov Data from NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program shows clear decreases in cancer deaths from 2019 to 2023.

🧪 Though a doubling of NSF's budget might seem far-fetched, that's exactly what Congress said what's needed to maintain national competitiveness in science & tech. From the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022:

Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature. https://go.nature.com/44Ugf9V

Here’s the full NIH @60minutes.bsky.social segment. Please watch and share with family and friends.

The federally-funded research university is almost surely the single greatest American invention ever. And it probably has some of the best ROR in federal spending, both in its contribution to the US specifically, but also to the greater world overall. I doubt anything comes close.

The campaign against academic research continues: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/u...

The NSF's flagship fellowship program typically gives offers to 2,000+ young scientists. This year, in the face of looming budget cuts, that number was halved: only 1,000 received an offer. Our story on what that means for the science talent pipeline: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Announcing our new @ieeetro.bsky.social IEEE Transactions on Robotics paper entitled "Ambilateral Activity Recognition and Continuous Adaptation With a Powered Knee-Ankle Prosthesis" with Shihao Cheng, PhD Curt Laubscher and Kevin Best! youtu.be/4tPWJnouVEA

New lawsuit filed today in Massachusetts aginst NIH from many state Attorneys General First, plaintiffs seek relief for the unreasonable and intentional delays currently plaguing the grant-application process 1/n

We are in a biotech space race, cutting off basic science via slashing NIH and NSF funding robs the US of our competitive advantage: early innovation.

If you are interested in learning about the state of the art in robotic exoskeletons to assist human movement, this is an incredible lineup of speakers at #ICRA!!! @doctorbobg.bsky.social @rai-maclean.bsky.social @helenhuang.bsky.social @mehuber.bsky.social sites.google.com/umich.edu/ic...

I can’t believe this needs to be said. TransGENIC mice are not TransGENDER mice

Anxiety-reducing videos playing at our faculty meeting was a highlight of the day on Friday. 😅

NIH operates three cycles of grant review, approval for funding, and actual notice of award right now all three cycles are blocked if noncompeting awards are frozen, that's a fourth block American science is running out of oxygen because of an acute airway obstruction

By @katherinejwu.com "The NIH... supported 99 percent of the drugs approved in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019. The agency has had a hand in “nearly all of our major medical breakthroughs over the past several decades,” The NIH is in a struggle for its (and our) lives. This is existential to America:

The breakneck pace and devastating impact of the Trump administration’s policy changes has researchers shocked. https://go.nature.com/4iboVwb

This article explains the current freeze on NIH review, which has impacted my R01 renewal: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s...

I was quoted in this @nytimes.com article on accessibility-related initiatives in the sciences: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/s...

Who could have seen this coming.

Almost all grant-review meetings under Trump 2.0 remain suspended at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), preventing the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research from spending much of its US$47 billion annual budget. https://go.nature.com/4gM6oW4

The MRS study section scheduled for yesterday was canceled. My R01 renewal is now in limbo with the current period expiring in the next months. I have no words. This article explains what is currently happening at NIH: www.thetransmitter.org/funding/fede...

I've seen plenty of great analysis on why the new NIH indirect rate (15%) will devastate research hospitals and universities. I'll add that it's especially harmful to cut indirect costs without relaxing the regulatory regime that contributed to administrative bloat in the 1st place. 1/n

I am sure the Florida legislature and DeSantis will be happy to make up for the $100 million income that UF just lost in the annual budget, yes?

NIH peeps have been told that they are explicitly not allowed to communicate publicly.

In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research https://go.nature.com/4gc0Bc5