Job alert in neuro-immunology! In case the internal link I shared last week does not work for some, here is an external link to apply for our postdoc position at the @mrclmb.bsky.social PNAC Division. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

First R01 obtained! Really excited about this project! Team effort all around.

B cells modulate lung antiviral inflammatory responses via the neurotransmitter acetylcholine www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One penny per tax dollar is what science, ALL science in America costs. I would gladly spend two or even three cents per tax dollar to double or triple what America spends on science. That is how you make things better, for everyone.

Social Media Linked to Increased Risk of Delusion-Based Disorders - neurosciencenews.com/social-media... "New research indicates a strong link between high social media use and psychiatric disorders involving delusions, such as narcissism and body dysmorphia."

The mood was defiant at many of the rallies, where chants of “Scientists will not be silenced”, “Facts over fear” and “What do we want? Peer review! When do we want it? Now!” were heard. https://go.nature.com/3F8T6FX

And it will take a generation to rebuild.

“We have to attack the universities… professors are the enemy.” #NIH funds universities. Jay Bhattacharya believes what Vance says here too. Bhattacharya was chosen by Trump because he would attack universities. Scientists must oppose Bhattacharya’s confirmation, and there is not much time left.

Today, a broad coalition of scientific professional societies who represent over 92,000 scientists are speaking out against the politicization and demonization of Federally funded science and government scientist jobs. It was an honor to help the Union of Concerned Scientists with this! 🧪🌎

KLF2 expression in IgG plasma cells at their induction site regulates the migration program, say Wataru Ise, Takuya Koike, Tomohiro Kurosaki @osaka_univ_e and colleagues: buff.ly/41bbKEF

The program-at-a-glance for #ATS2025 is ready for review. Get the latest information on clinical, basic, and translational science in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the ATS 2025 Int'l Conference in San Francisco, May 16-21. Register! conference.thoracic.org/program/inde...

NIH freeze by the numbers, and the conclusion is correct. This is sabotage, and we are quickly reaching a point where even if everything were to open back up today, it would be too late to save many labs.

A treasure chest of all of our immune system exposures and responses is hiding in our B and T cell receptors. Now that's being decoded to make diagnoses. erictopol.substack.com/p/the-first-...

Some good-ish news from NIH “Federal Register notices for study sections run by CSR (but not those by ICs) will start being permitted again” As far as I know, the timing for this is not clear, but I will be checking the Federal Register.

Everyone who ever got funding through NIAID should be aware of this bill and start sending messages to their US legislators. The bill intends to dissolve NIAID. This is Project 2025 www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

A US Senator Joins the Fray. Thank you @murray.senate.gov ! More of this, please! www.murray.senate.gov/senator-murr...

““This crisis — and I’m not exaggerating by calling it a crisis — has already consumed one funding cycle…But if this block to publishing in the register continues on much longer, it’s going to swallow two funding cycles, and that will put many labs out of business.” @labonnelab.bsky.social

Recent publication from my lab. Using all the “omics” to map out the neuroimmune landscape in the lung in response to fungal asthma. www.frontiersin.org/journals/imm... #immunosky #spatialtranscriptomics #medsky #phdsky

"Even NIH officers don’t know what will happen next." In our latest @science.org Working Life essay, an assistant professor expresses frustration with stalls at NIH and asks: "Will my grants ever be reviewed?" @vjrp.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

DOGE By The Numbers theonion.com/doge-by...

A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of an indefinite hold on submissions to the Federal Register, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter. By @avaskham.bsky.social bit.ly/3X8ngz8

When you read about layoffs and terminations of HHS, NIH, CDC employees - remember: these are people, with families, plans, who worked for the health, safety, well-being of the American people. Now they are thrown by the wayside, by those who never cared about anything but themselves.

When the next pandemic hits us, remember - our surveillance system did not fail - it was SABOTAGED. A quarter of the staff coordinating USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network program were fired. Do not say you did not know. www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

🚨 Yesterday was a true Valentine’s Day massacre for public health. 💔 Over 5,200 jobs cut at NIH & CDC 💔 EIS program slashed at CDC 💔 Federal funding cut for schools and universities with COVID-19 vaccine mandates We are gutting public health, with repercussions that will last for generations.

Welcome to the Bluesky account for Stand Up for Science 2025! Keep an eye on this space for updates, event information, and ways to get involved. We can't wait to see everyone #standupforscience2025 on March 7th, both in DC and locations nationwide! #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

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By voting to confirm RFK Jr., the Senate “is wagering the future of our public health system on a prayer that a conspiracy theorist can build back up the agencies that he and his supporters have spent years breaking down,” Nicholas Florko writes.

Macrophages protect against sensory axon loss in peripheral neuropathy @nature.com @sarainthelab www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A tour de force review of the connections between between the nervous and immune systems www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Staggering losses for state economies (red and blue alike) if NIH cuts as proposed are carried out jamessmurphy.com/2025/02/09/t... www.datawrapper.de/_/NuMNN/?v=2 $804,030,803 CA $632,304,519 NY $549,235,817 MA $371,060,802 PA $310,282,120 TX $226,011,965 NC $205,241,931 IL $189,833,348 MD

Why conspiracies are so popular—and what we can do to stop them phys.org/news/2025-02... "We're much more comfortable with hearing stories that confirm our beliefs than ones that challenge them." "...anecdotal stories hold a lot of weight within a community..."

AIMBE has posted a public statement on the impact of federal policy changes on biomedical research: aimbe.org/advocate/wri... Above, we have also developed an advocacy letter for members of the medical & biological engineering community to send to their congressional representatives on this matter.

More terrific writing from @dereklowe.bsky.social on the ongoing saga between DOGE and NIH that is, in my opinion, trying to strangle the greatest biomedical research engine the world has ever known: www.science.org/content/blog...

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗜𝗛 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/wp-content/u...

Made some slides for scientists to talk about what's been happening & what we should do next. There are probably many people better qualified than me to talk about these issues. If that's you, please, please, please consider holding some virtual advocacy training sessions for researchers this week.

Petition to Reverse the NIH Indirect Cost Cap initiated by Tom Maniatis. Please amplify Sign the Petition: chng.it/kK2HMP5pGk "Share with Leadership & Faculty. Reach out to professional societies, biotech and pharma leaders, and philanthropic organizations to raise awareness and mobilize support."

Scientists and journalists need to figure out right quick how to explain to the average person how a massive change in research indirects will impact the medical care they and their children get (eg at the local children’s hospital), the education their children will get, the price of tuition, etc.

ICYMI: Last week's issue of @science.org featured some very cool work sitting at the intersection of #Type2Immunity & #neuroimmunology from @danhkaplan.bsky.social & colleagues! Check it out!

Per an NIH source: “Discussions with colleagues have suggested that if the universities all come together and raise hell about the delays to funding caused by not holding meetings, that might move the needle. From every state. There are well-funded universities in red states that will be impacted.”

Happy and healthy New Year to all🥳🍾! Do you want to learn more about the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) in 2025? Maybe you’ve heard that the vagus nerve controls a wide range of physiology and inflammation 🤔; find out more here: youtu.be/RoxQhv57O18?...

Spot on!

#Immunology by first release now @science.org Plasma cells producing high-affinity antibodies dominate the plasma cell population through increased proliferation. https://buff.ly/3BzpLmL By Andrew MacLean, Michel Nussenzweig et al.

Staphylococcus aureus induces IL-10 which abrogates protective anti-staphylococcal antibody function through hyper-sialylation imprinting leading to vaccine failure @jclinical-invest.bsky.social www.jci.org/articles/vie... www.jci.org/articles/vie... www.genengnews.com/topics/infec...

This week in #Science #Immunology: a fantastic paper on #GerminalCenter #BCell #immunometabolism! Check it out!

B CELL FUN FACT: Secrets of the GC #2 There are 300 billion B cells with total mass of 60g in the human body. That is 3 times the number of stars in the Milky Way! Naïve B cell express >10 million unique antibodies to protect us from this universe of possible antigens! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The systems that connect scientists with politicians are not working well, according to a Nature survey of around 400 science-policy specialists around the world. The survey, together with more than 20 interviews, revealed where some of the biggest obstacles to providing science advice lie. 🧪

Enjoying a great 2-day immunology conference with a great line up #immunosky

The deep goal of bluesky is to decentralize the social internet so that every individual controls their experience of it rather than having it be controlled by 5 random billionaires. Everyone thinks they signed up for a demuskified twitter...we actually signed an exciting and bizarre experiment.

#WeekendRead #FungiPower! Liao Gao Iliev &co show @ Nature that the stomach of wild, not lab, mice is colonized by an immunosilent fungus! Mucus alterations via diet or antibiotics drive a Th2 -not Th17- response that worsens allergy but protects against parasites! doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08213-2

IL-2 acts intrinsically on B cells to trigger a “vanguard” metabolic shift that activates mTOR, reprograms B cell metabolism, and drives their differentiation into extra-follicular plasma cell, diverting them from germinal center selection www.cell.com/immunity/ful...