Many congrats to the newly minted Dr. Maddie Clark!

Wonderful holiday lab party last night, with very fun white elephant. Lots of stealing commenced. Everyone wanted this adorable mouse in their own little enrichment cage 😂

Super excited to share this new story led by @jedziabis.bsky.social where she defines a critical role for microglial innate immune signaling in PV cell and perineuronal net (PNN) development in hippocampus, and consequences for plasticity and behavior in adulthood www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

oh, hey, just photo boothing with the Provost at the Duke holiday party...😂

⏳ Just 10 days remaining to submit your symposium proposal for #PNIRS2026. Don’t miss the opportunity to highlight your work! #PNIRS #Psychoneuroimmunology #PNIRS2026 #NOLA #NewOrleans

cute gift from a student....😂

My niece is obsessed with bugs and creepy crawly things right now, so I'm working on this jumping spider for her. I think he's pretty cute!

Spending the last precious weeks of my sabbatical doing ACTUAL LAB WORK! Hooray! here are confocal images of very angry microglia (red) attacking amyloid plaques (teal) in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (left photo), and synaptic staining in young brains. #fluorescencefriday 1 day early.

I am very grateful for Steve's leadership and excited to step into this new role! www.neuro.duke.edu/news/lisberg...

Raise a glass for Rosalind Franklin tonight and honor her memory and scientific contributions

my first #FluorescenceFriday post! Mouse hippocampus showing microglia, a lysosomal marker (CD68), and Aggrecan, a perineuronal net component. 😍 Image by Dr. Julia Dziabis!

Air pollution from fossil fuels kills 200,000 to 350,000 Americans. Every year.

yes a million times yes

Deadline for applications- November 1st!

Deadline TODAY at 5pm Central! ACNP Promising Targets Submissions are open for the ACNP 64th Annual Meeting: January 12-15, 2026, Nassau, Bahamas. For more information, visit: tinyurl.com/4euj9bca #ACNP2026

LOVE

For 10 weeks starting in mid-July, NIH went on a tear. They issued 23,436 grants worth $14.9 billion—5k grants & $5 billion more than the same 10 weeks in FY24. In fiscal week 46 alone (mid-Aug), they awarded $2.1 billion in grants, nearly double their best week in FY24. NIH staff are amazing. 🤩

acnp.org/annual-meeti... Promising Targets at @acnporg.bsky.social ! 💊 This a great way to ensure your late breaking pharmacology - clinical trial unblinding, drug study or preclinical pharmacological study gets attention! Was a very hot session last year. 👏

📣 #PNIRS2026: Save the Date‼️ 🗓️ June 22–25, 2026 📍 New Orleans, Louisiana 🇺🇸 ✨ Whether your PsychoNeuroImmunology research emphasizes the P, N, or I — we look forward to seeing your work and connecting in The Big Easy! 📻 Stay tuned for more info re: call for abstracts. Please spread the word 🙏🏼

I find this really insightful (and scary). Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/o...

It's always such a joyful day when students defend! Congrats to the newly minted Dr. Julia Dziabis on a brilliant thesis. We are so proud of you!

How are #circadian rhythms established during development? This study shows that maternal metabolic signals oscillate in the fetal #SCN before the endogenous #clock becomes functional, offering a plausible mechanism for maternal entrainment of the developing clock @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3VD45fZ

Always happy to share hopeful science. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/s...

😂

Last week: Both NIH grants that support the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program were terminated as part of a broader attempt by the federal government to terminate direct NIH funding to Harvard Medical School. 32 students who spent countless hours applying for and earning fellowships saw their awards vanish.

I still get chills Meet Mike *30+ years severe depression *first hospitalized @ 13y *20 meds *3 rounds of ECT *2 near-fatal suicide attempts Mike felt joy for the first time in decades after we turned on his new brain pacemaker or PACE see videos, read paper, follow thread doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Senate committee endorses NIH budget increase, rebuking Trump administration’s proposed 40% cut www.statnews.com/2025/07/31/n... via @statnews.com

Future of NIH in the hands of five senators. Write to them if you are in PA -McCormick WV - Moore Capito ME - Collins AL - Britt LA - Cassidy

All science needs an evolutionary perspective....

Can you hit repost? Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want you to know the name of her opponent but will try every desperate attempt to save her seat. My name is Shawn Harris. I am a Democrat, husband, father, Retired Brigadier General, farmer, and I'm running against MTG. Can you share and follow me?

Yesterday, marked 1 month since we sent the #BethesdaDeclaration. So, has anything changed? 🧵 1/n

Graduate students who have an offer to study in the US but are reconsidering or have been denied entry or current grad students who want to leave, then consider coming to Western University in Canada. Our University just launched a US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Program : grad.uwo.ca/finances/wes...

Public comment on this new "no animal only studies" is open here: www.fda.gov/news-events/... It closes next Monday.

For every 1 animal used in research, there are hundreds to thousands used for food. Research animals globally: Estimated 50–100 million/year (most are mice, rats, and fish). Animals killed for food globally: Over 70–80 billion land animals per year, plus trillions of fish.

The double standard here is stunning. Universities are losing grants, student aid, and endowments for being "too woke." But churches (which also receive federal funds, eg, for school vouchers, food banks, and marriage promotion programs) are now allowed to openly endorse political candidates.

Neuro-Immune Link Could Shape Brain Development, Study Finds medschool.duke.edu/news/neuro-i...

Excited to share this new story from the lab and led by the very talented @bendevlin.bsky.social! In collab with Anne Schaefer and grateful for funding from NIH and @curealzheimersfund.bsky.social. a brief 🧵

Excited to share this new paper from the lab, now out in @cp-immunity.bsky.social! Led by the talented @bendevlin.bsky.social and in collab with @anneschaefer.bsky.social. a brief 🧵

*sigh* Feeling sad today about the complete destruction of science in the US. But like, in a personal way--the dismantling of the science field is bad in every way, but it is also the dismantling of my community, my friends, my people, my life.

NC freinds: Call Sen Thom Tillis today--thank him for voting against the disastrous cuts to Medicaid in the Big Bill and urge him to rally some colleagues to oppose final passage. (202) 224-6342

It seems that only the science community is noticing that NIH and NSF budgets are cut 40% and 55% in the budget bill, respectively. If you live in Maine, West Va, Pennsylvania, Alabama, or Louisiana, CALL YOUR SENATOR as they could make a difference. See below. prospect.org/politics/202...

Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...

So important! Please contact your Republican senators, especially Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA). 🙏 amplify!

New piece by me! I wrote about how freaky measles is, which many people don't know about. It depletes immune cells, and makes people vulnerable to many other infectious diseases. This raises the risk of complications for years after an infection.

Congrats to MD/PhD student Seneca Oxendine on passing her prelim with flying colors!!!👏

Happy pollinator week! My latest is dedicated to these little creatures.