We are hiring! Please circulate in your networks. Join us in beautiful warm and wonderful KZN to answer some important questions about asymptomatic / subclinical TB. #TBsky #IDsky 🧪

We are hiring! The Dept of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics is looking for faculty at the Assistant or Associate professor level (tenure track). Please consider joining our vibrant microbiology and immunology community at the University of Pittsburgh School of medicine

Happy to share our new pre-print, led by PhD student Linh Pham! We examine inhibition of MHC II expression by NRF2 during Mtb infection and its impact on innate-adaptive crosstalk. Special thanks to the Behar lab who helped us set up a T cell co-culture system for the project! #TB #immunology

Tragically, the NIH is finding any reason it can to cancel grants, including critical research into the nature and function of mycobacterium tuberculosis. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

NEW: In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant funding. NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and told to expect placements by political appointees.

‼️ Save the date! ‼️ Tuberculosis: Understanding the Disease Across Scales Keystone 2026 on March 23-26 in Cape Town, South Africa 🇿🇦 Very excited to organise this meeting with Digby, Bree and Margarida Short Talk Abstract Deadline: Nov. 24, 2025 www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...

WOW!.. 8500+ supporting cast heroes (that's us!) have already signed our Letter of Support for the brave NIH heroes who laid down their case in the historic #BethesdaDeclaration. Add your name here actionnetwork.org/forms/add-na... & stand up to save science & health in America. #StandUpForScience

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

Delighted to see this piece with Victor Ambros, @carlbergstrom.com, Carol Greider, @michaelemann.bsky.social, and @briannosek.bsky.social in the wild. Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it @standupforscience.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There’s been some “advice” coming from some quarters for scientists not to focus on DEI-related funding cuts. I wholly reject this concept. Cutting programs designed to reduce science and healthcare disparities is as detrimental to science as anything else, both morally and functionally.

New NIH Notice "expiring" a large number of funding opportunities because "We have identified a number of Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) that were not expired or reissued as indicated in the implementation plan outlined in NOT-OD-24-085." grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Congratulations @payalyokota.bsky.social! Fantastic work!

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM Implementation of Schedule F This is what a lot of us have been worried about. This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs. BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD... 1/n

Updated funding curves... Data downloaded today, but plotted through 4/15 to correct for NIH Reporter lag time). New and Competitive Renewal Awards first Awards being made but the rate remains lower than normal 1/2

Faculty senates at Rutgers University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the University of Indiana at Bloomington, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have passed resolutions calling for the creation of a mutual-defense compact. chroni.cl/4cBFrnu

I'm taking action following the Trump administration's sudden revocation of international student visas in MA-02. Their actions are unconstitutional, unconscionable, and unprecedented. We need answers. Read more: mcgovern.house.gov/news/documen...

An exciting finding for the TB community! Erwin Schurr & team show people with HIV who are resistant to infection from Mycobacterium tuberculosis display activated alveolar macrophages and increased numbers of alveolar poly-cytotoxic T cells: buff.ly/xJ42sfP

Cancellation of this TB "moonshot" would be devastating to the #TB research community, further reducing any chance for novel and innovative therapies to contain the global epidemic. On a personal note, I've learned so much from this amazing team. Just heartbreaking. #TBsky #Immunosky

Greenfield, MA #HandsOff #SocialJusticeSingout Standing room only!

"This will go down as one of the darkest days in modern scientific history." Story on the decimation of NIH by @maxkozlov.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...?

Inspiring words tonight by Cory Booker. He’s touched on so many critical topics, but I’m so proud that in his final hour he is specifically calling out the importance and power of NIH-funded research.

I’ve taken the Senate floor and will speak for as long as I’m physically able to lift the voices of Americans who are being harmed and not being heard in this moment of crisis. Watch here:

NEW: Per a source with knowledge, in a "bloadbath" of firings, communications, legislative, and acquisitions staff at NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are gone.

This is an understatement. We have already lost our scientific edge. Mass personnel cuts, lost grant support, gutting of pipeline programs, and the uncertainty about the future has already impacted our competitiveness and future generations of scientists. We just don’t see it yet. But we will.

BREAKING: The AAUP & chapters @ Harvard, Rutgers, & NYU; & the Middle East Studies Association today filed a lawsuit to block the Trump admin from carrying out arrests, detentions, & deportations of students & faculty who participate in pro-Palestinian protests & protected 1st Amendment activities.

📣 Across the U.S., cuts to federal funding for health research are projected to cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs. How will YOUR area be impacted? Excited to share SCIMaP, a website that our team has created to communicate the impact of funding cuts. #PsychSciSky #MedicalSky scienceimpacts.org

It's #WorldTBDay. Let's remember that even before recent threats to #Tuberculosis funding, there was a funding gap for #TBdiagnosis, #TBtreatment, and #TBresearch. We must increase (not decrease) global health investments to fight this epidemic.

Bare bones dashboard is up... (Including the first Advisory Council meeting posted in the Federal Register) jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

Congratulations @pamelialim.bsky.social! #ReadTheJI #immunology

This would be truly devastating. NIH funded research in South Africa is critical in the fight again TB and HIV. Collaborating with S. African colleagues has enhanced and enriched the research in my own group. Any cuts to their research hurts us all. #TBsky

We will keep trying to understand asymptomatic TB! #TBsky #IDsky Thankful for funding from @niaidnews.bsky.social @gatesfoundation.bsky.social @bwfund.bsky.social Very aware that the work of so many colleagues has been unjustly, illegally, tragically halted. We will press on as long as we can.

I’m so happy for my first post on Bluesky to be introducing my first 1st author paper! We show that alveolar macrophage inflammatory cytokine production to low dose LPS is enhanced by IFN-b due to lack of c-Maf/IL10 production. Download, share, and support science!! academic.oup.com/jimmunol/art...

Wonder which #innate responses in your animal models are shared with or distinct from humans? We did too! To answer, we teamed up with @mcampomd.bsky.social and the Hawn lab to compare human and murine alveolar and monocyte-derived #macrophage responses to #Mtb. (1/4) #TBSky #ImmunoSky #NewPI x 2

Our lab is ready to #StandUpforScience in Amherst, MA! Where will you be at noon today?

AAI encourages members and friends of #immunology to #StandUpforScience on March 7. Join the rally in Washington, D.C., or participate in the National Day of Action to uphold the integrity of science, protect its accessibility, and ensure its benefits serve all people! standupforscience2025.org

Increasing evidence for the central role of peroxisomes in antiviral immunity. A new study provides in vivo evidence to support a role for peroxisomes in SARS-COV-2 infection. Kudos to the authors on this important study. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TB is already the leading infectious killer of humans US funding cuts are making things even worse 😔

So happy to share our latest paper on #AlveolarMacrophage responses to low-dose #LPS led by @pamelialim.bsky.social!AM #innate responses are enhanced by IFN-beta due to low c-Maf and IL-10 expression, with implications for AM responses to respiratory infections and environmental exposure. #ImmunoSky

I'll be at the event in Amherst, MA. Whether you're a student, trainee, faculty member, or tax payer - the choices that are being made about federal support for scientific research affect us all! #StandUpforScience #SavetheNIH

Extending my grant update this morning. Here are data limited to new and competitive renewal applications. The Pause is dead, Long live the Pause...

Terrible news. TB is one of the top infectious disease killers worldwide. Another attack by this administration on global health and infectious disease treatment and research.

Despite court order, NIH grants remain frozen. Newly awarded grants, grants with fundable scores, & funds for a new budget cycle of a current project are all *FROZEN*🥶 and not being released. US research is being choked to death & is on life support right now www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Trump's illegal NIH cuts mean cancer researchers would be laid off, sick kids going without treatment, and more. These cuts would be DEVASTATING for lifesaving research. Some Republicans have said they agree—but they just blocked my amendment to reverse Trump's NIH cuts anyway.

The starvation of biomedical research in real time…

Graduate admissions being put on hold because of the chaos...

There is already so much uncertainty baked into the typical grant application process. Cancellations of NIH study sections and advisory councils make it unbearable, especially for those of us in the early stages of our career. So glad to see @science.org highlighting these stories.

New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s... 1/n

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