Introducing the 𝐏𝐈-𝐚𝐭-𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞! 🤯 When activated, it will auto-reply to your PI's frantic ideas for new experiments, analyses, and projects with "Great suggestion! Saving this for later" (aka: let's talk when you’re back and got some sleep) #sfn2025 #sfn25

Defunding scientists for the nationality of who they co-author with or who they train. One of the most radical attack on freedom of speech in US history. A far right nationalist destruction of US science. Such a shameful time to be an American that this racist stupidity has become mainstream.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... This is going to be a fun next few grant cycles....

After shutdown guidance: As of today, we can confirm that we will be rescheduling all October and November grant application submission deadlines (specific dates to be announced in a future Notice).

While the government was shut down, 379 NIH study section meetings (containing 24,380 grant applications) were postponed. NIH is committed to getting these reviewed, but please be patient and understanding with staff, as this is a complex and heavy lift.

This on top of having the October submissions to process, and recruit/assign reviewers. Hard to imagine how CSR just picks up where they left off with the depletions and chaos.

Save the date: our faculty job market series continues this Wed, Nov12 at 3pm ET / 12p PT! Topic: on-site interviews + seminars Come hear our junior faculty share our thoughts/advice! There will also be time for Q&A. Registration link in flyer - see you soon!

N7 Day 2025 is today. #MassEffect

Are you a #Colorado resident who buys health insurance on the state marketplace (Connect for Health Colorado) & have seen a spike in your premiums for next year? DM me if you're willing to talk about the bill. Thanks! #copolitics

From the top rope

Beshear: Let me be clear. The president has both the funding and the authority to fund snap during a shutdown. In fact, every other president in every other shutdown has done so. People going hungry in this instance is a choice that this president has made.

For Halloween, the Sikora Lab is excited to announce the release of the debut self-titled album from **MITOTIC CATASTROPHE** with chart topping hits: - Pour Some Agar on Me - You Give Science a Bad Name - Sweet Graph 'o Mine - We're Not Gonna Fake it - Welcome to the Data - Back in Lab Rock on!!!

Endocrine research conference: Dr Maggie Musick from the Sikora lab @mjsikora.bsky.social discussed mechanisms of tumorigenesis in lobular breast cancer. #cancer #CUPathology

I know & trust that NIH staff will get this round of reviews done. Yet having done my own CSR reviews 'for nothing' & with my own R01 sitting unreviewed now, working on another NIH grant has never felt so painful and futile. A quiet impact on science, perhaps, robbing the joy from looking ahead.

. @cucancercenter.bsky.social member @mjsikora.bsky.social, PhD, is a leader in research into lobular breast cancer, an understudied cancer type that’s on the rise in American women and has sharply lower survival rates several years after diagnosis than more common breast cancers. #cucityofhealth

After Trump got his Covid shot, he chose to fire the scientists protecting the rest of us from diseases.

THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS

Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.

I am just so fucking proud of her.

NEWS: The F.D.A. approved a new generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/h...

Donald Trump is conditioning federal funding to universities on the signing of a loyalty pledge to his agenda. This reeks of authoritarianism, and the universities should reject this hostage-taking of their funding.

The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 1st, 2025, that Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, has passed away due to natural causes. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States.

This is going to be the most unhinged well-being survey ever.

“The Founders understood that without education, the ability to repeat tyranny was too great. They pushed—whether it was Franklin, Washington, Madison, or Jefferson—in their writings for education, for critical thinking, & for an understanding of its role.” — @rweingarten.bsky.social

This is right up there with interviewing Peter Navarro the other day - pandering to MAGA isn't going to get your funding back, NPR. There is no 'both sides' to acetaminophen and autism, it's a safe drug during pregnancy.

I often get this question from non-scientists I meet when I travel, "why haven't we cured cancer yet?" and it does reveal a true disconnect between reality and public perception. You know who never asks me that question? Breast cancer patients and advocates I work with /1

"STAT’s analysis of NIH Reporter data reveals that the agency will still fund far fewer new projects this year, due to a change in how it awards grants...the number of R grants issued has dropped much more precipitously — from 5,633 to 3,758 newly funded projects."

Sigh. Our 8th percentile R21 officially misses the crazy 7%ile payline at NCI. At the same time, my R01 gets Y4-5 funded together, when instead of that multi-year funding, they could've funded new work on the R21!

While Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., dismantles the federal institutions that set vaccine policy, states like Colorado are changing laws and regulations in an effort to preserve access to vaccines.

NIH's NOSI on Women's Health Research was edited to expire as of yesterday, in case you were worried that the clowns in charge were finished axing research that they don't understand. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

This is awesome. @ellecordova.bsky.social

Can you get a COVID vaccine this year in Colorado? Here’s what to know.

“Numbers always tend to benefit the left” is kinda a stunning admission. The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. George Orwell, 1984

My wife and I are both PhDs and both at U. Colorado - I'm faculty and she's in admin. Most of our work convos about each other's roles end something like "lolz no thanks, better you than me".

⛰️💪💉 www.cpr.org/2025/09/03/e...

I had the amazing opportunity to chat w @projbridgeco.bsky.social to talk about the lab, my career, studying #lobular breast cancer, and working w patient advocates. Loved talking re where I've been & talk about what's important to me as a PI and mentor! Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0NBd...

COMMENTARY: If this was happening in another nation, we'd call it by name. It's authoritarianism.

While other politicians talk, @philweiser.bsky.social delivers This group of state AGs has created something that should give us all hope; state leaders working together for the benefit of all of us

A Ryan Warner interview with Mike Lamp, though sad for Mike's sign off, might be the greatest audio-based therapy ever conceived. @cprnews.bsky.social

In today's soul-sucking waste of time tasks brought on by the current administration, I had to write a budget consolidation request and proposal to re-allocate funds intended for foreign collaborators on my R01, to comply with NOT-OD-25-104. We either end the foreign sub, or end the R01.

It must be nice when you can just "find" whatever conclusions you want, rather than have to rely on rigorous study and data analysis.

Can peer review be done faster, without compromising on quality? Biology Open has embarked on an exciting experiment to find out - Editor-in-Chief Dan Gorelick @danielgorelick.bsky.social explains. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt5h...

🦆

JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH! This gave me old Google back! It killed the AI results dead!

4 hour study section with one 5 (five!!!) minute break in the middle

There is not enough lobular breast cancer research, IMO, so I'm thrilled to see this radiation review by @mjsikora.bsky.social and co-authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #bcsm

I rarely am poking around in tissue culture these days, but was showing some cells to the family of one of our summer students this afternoon. Apparently I left the microscope light on. I'll let you guess what kind of shit I'm getting in the lab Teams chat right now.

I doubt that there is a single family in America that hasn’t benefitted directly from the NIH.