🎉 Congratulations to Needhi Bhalla, UC Santa Cruz (www.bhallalab.com ), named a 2025 #ASCB Fellow! This honor celebrates her outstanding contributions to cell biology, leadership, & service. Fellows will be recognized at #CellBio2025 in Philadelphia this December. #CellBiology

🚨Our fabulous graduate student Selin's paper on how the KASH protein UNC-83 regulates the activity of kinesin-1 to control developmental stage-specific nuclear migration is out! Another great collaboration between the Starr-Luxton and MOM labs. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Why would anyone want to be a scientist? Check out our new Essay from Martin Schwartz: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

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I am honored to be selected as an ASCB fellow! SO much thanks to those who nominated me and provided letters of support! And congratulations to the other Fellows selected! 🎉🥳🎊

The NIH was healthiest when pay lines were in the 20th percentile range. We are headed into an environment where pay lines are in the 5% range. In my entire career, I’ve only had 3 grants that scored better than 5%. And my lab is considered a successful one. This is going to destroy science.

Longest run since I tour my hamstring 1.5 years ago, followed by a float with the family was the break my heart and soul needed this weekend.

It is fucking insane that we had a decade of people complaining about the dangers of cancel culture, and now literally hundreds of thousands of people are being purged from government jobs for ideological reasons, but that is not cancel culture.

🚨 Registration Now Open! 🚨 Join us for the 2025 Triangle Cytoskeleton Meeting on Sept. 15 at Trent Semans Center! Speakers: 🔬 Dr. Kris DeMali 🧫 Dr. Rae Cho 🧬 Dr. Stefanie Redemann Showcase your research, exchange ideas, and connect with the Cytoskeleton community! Register now! 💻 #TCM2025

ASCB and others filed a new brief opposing NIH’s request to pause a court ruling that protects early-career scientist grants. The original ruling struck down NIH’s termination of those grants. Read the brief: www.ascb.org/society-news...

Thank you to @ascbiology.bsky.social for the action alert and easy instructions to find the appropriations committee member in your state, with an example script. I just called, it takes max 3 minutes. www.ascb.org/society-news...

I’m hearing that some MOSAIC fellows are not only losing their grants (and for some in the postdoc phase their livelihoods), but also that their LRPs are now being cancelled. To have this population of scientists be targeted in such a manner should be unacceptable to everyone 😤

CBP scientist Selena Romero just found an #immune protein involved in responding to viral infections has an unexpected role in the brain. "What the heck is it doing in #neurons in a nonpathogenic or diseased setting,” said @deshmukhlab.bsky.social Read more here: www.med.unc.edu/cellbiophysi...

Say it with me now: If it can happen to asylum seekers, & it can happen to immigrants, & it can happen to legalized citizens, then it can happen to ANYONE.

As a recipient of federal grants from #NIH (for now! 😭) that funds research in my lab, I'd like to sincerely thank American taxpayers on #TaxDay for investing in scientific research that lays the foundation for medical and technological innovation in this country and keeps us all safe and healthy

In a time of fear in the biomedical research enterprise, I find solace in discovery and following our curiosity. @chrisho.bsky.social posted his first author thesis work discovering new unexpected roles for Coronin 1A in neuronal morphogenesis. We can't wait to hear what you think. l1nq.com/5N65s

It is *so* hard to get NIH funding. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to have finally gotten the grant that lets you do the meaningful research you want to do and then have it ripped away.

You in the Triangle area and thinking about standing up for science? Come to my beloved 2nd workplace and make a sign 😊🍻 supplies provided! You can leave a sign w me and i can bring it up to DC! @standupforscience.bsky.social

I had two grant proposals up for review in the NIH Bacterial Virulence (BV) study section. It was canceled without notice this morning. Without those grants, my lab must close within a year. And so the purge of scientific research in the US continues 🤬 #MicroSky 🦠🧫🧪🧬🔬

Put your senators numbers in your favorites and call everyday. Fill their voicemail. There are so many scripts out there.

It’s been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). I’m reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.

I have a confession . . . I was an “overhead cost”. I was a beaker washer, agar plate pourer, research secretary. I was paid by “overhead cost” fees. Loved it. Those “overhead cost” jobs allowed this rural kid to become a physician. Please tag how #OverheadCostJob impact u.

Trump & Musk are making massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health. I know there is a lot going on right now, but this is one of worst things they have done so far, will affect cancer research and trials, the search for cures, innovation and competitiveness, our universities. Your lives.

I would like to point out to the finance bros out there, all your tech stocks, pharma stocks, biotechnology, they are about to tank. You defund the NIH, the universities, the research infrastructure, who do you think is buying the 10x genomics plarforms? The novel monoclonals? The NMEs?

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings. But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

I just lost my job, along with most of my coworkers, due to the illegal grant freeze. I worked at an organization that -helped veterans who have lost a limb -Assisted elderly and disabled people -Helped hospitals better treat people who have lost limbs

It has been a rough 2.5 weeks, watching so many important areas, approved by Congress, supported by tax payers unconstitutionally dismantled by this administration. All while feeling powerless. What can we do, beyond call our Senators? March? Is anyone considering not paying taxes?

I just contacted my representatives about the nomination of RFK, Jr and the recent executive orders. Here is what I wrote in my email or said to the staffer on the phone: Hello- I am writing/calling on several topics:

Working on a paper about health inequality while processing news about our national health research infrastructure being demolished.

Closing out my postdoc with a bang! I’ve been selected as 1 of 10 Young Investigators dedicated to #RareDisease research for this year’s draft! It’s a true football style draft (😅) and I’m going to the Link! 🦅 Learn more about the org and event here: bit.ly/yid2025

Especially if you have a republican representative, remind them that every dollar that goes to NIH nearly doubles in economic impact, And that many patents (profitable discoveries) come from NIH funding www.nih.gov/about-nih/wh...

#CYTOSKELETON YEARLY RECAP. If you haven't seen our first issue of 2024, here it is. The #Specialissue on the 50 YEARS OF #TAU onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/19493592.... Have a look at the many #openaccess articles in the issue!

24 years later and still the annual ASCB meeting is some of the best science and best reunions of the year. @ascbiology.bsky.social @applewhitederek.bsky.social @omqu.bsky.social @klukasik.bsky.social @chrisho.bsky.social @channyskye.bsky.social

Cytoskeleton is now on Bluesky!

Looking for the latest and greatest single particle tracking software. Please send your recommendations.

I want to brag on @lemccorm.bsky.social for a minute! I’ve never seen someone pull so much beautiful data together in such a short period of time with such thoughtfulness and grace!

Heading to #SICB2024? Look for a talk by Emily McParland in the Morphogenesis and organogenesis Session Friday Jan 6 1:30-3:15. She explored how the small GTPase Rap1 regulates the function of the conserved Canoe/Afadin protein, mediating cell junction/cytoskeletal connections during morphogenesis

Need last minute gifts for the science lover in your life? Pay taxes and tell your elected officials that research funding is critically important. That would be so delightful.

Beyond proud of the beautiful defense from Dr. @lemccorm.bsky.social today!

While I am happy about who has won this award (and TBQH, even happier about its application during the ongoing pandemic), I can't help but wonder how many other innovations we have refused to acknowledge because of who the innovators were/are. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Have loved time at the Membrane fusion and budding Biophysical Society meeting in Estes Park. Great science and community!

I'm excited to announce that the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biology has TWO openings for tenure track Assistant Professors using genomics-informed methods to study critical questions in Plant and/or Microbial Biology. unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/265...

Tomorrow will be the 10th Triangle Cytoskelton Meeting. Invented and continuously led by graduate students and postdocs, it has become the premier regional cell biology meeting. Our lab will join labs from throughout the region for talks, posters and networking trianglecytoskeleton.com

An exhaustive, 285-refs review on fluorescent probes for super-resolution microscopy pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Looking forward to the BPS Thematic Meeting on Membrane Fusion and Fission, but sad for my first miss of the Triangle Cytoskeleton Meeting! Look out for posters from the lab!