Being a publicly funded scientist in 2026

Nothing like waiting to get a score on a grant that I count as among the best and most creative work we’ve ever done to question all my life decisions.

And an absolutely spectacular splashdown to end the day! We all needed this win!

Today I was reminded again of challenges for women in professional settings. In a meeting, a male colleague alone was acknowledged for work that we both perform. The few women in the room immediately noticed and exchanged glances. I wish for a time when everyone would notice (and speak up).

It’s brutal in academia right now. A lot is out of our control, but it doesn’t cost anything to remember that there are humans behind papers and grants…reviewers, program officials and funders can be more empathetic in the face of unprecedented chaos in the US scientific enterprise.

Well some of us are. Many top neuro journals straight up desk reject model organism papers nowadays. And if you want to get fast, detailed and precise mechanistic answers - some of these are still the best systems.

It is impossible to avoid the realization of where we are as a country today, no matter how much we’d like to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the violence is not directly impacting our lives. Until it does.

If you / your lab / your institution rely on NIH funding, you need to read this and understand how this is one of many changes affecting you. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🧪 An EMBO Meeting on Axon Biology in Okinawa, Japan Iconic science at an amazing venue. Please join us! EMBO | COB Workshop on Axonal degeneration and regeneration meetings.embo.org/event/26-axo...

Powerful piece in STAT this morning from some NIH staff members who have resigned www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n... 1/3

A superb summary of why our investment in fundamental science fuels stunning advances in medical treatments 🧪

Having these two headlines juxtaposed only underscores the awfulness of this year

before I started my lab, I asked several senior PIs what their one piece of advice would be and PI pointedly said: “Know when to drop a project.” And that advice has been invaluable in my lab. There are always other projects to follow up on, dropping one isn’t a failure in and of itself.

An essential development over the past decade-plus is that the ignorant went from feeling chastened when their ignorance was revealed to banding together and deciding that, actually, they were right. They might disagree at times, but they agreed that ignorance itself was an indicator of trust.

What a year! But grateful for the good things in life, which includes good people in my life, work that is fulfilling, warmth of a fireplace, some downtime over the holidays, waking up without an alarm, and furry companions.

In a year beset by funding and visa uncertainties, sheer chaos, where some still don’t know whether they have a future here-this group keeps surging ahead driven by curiosity. Grateful to work with a talented & wonderful group! Our annual tri-lab party with @samerhattar.bsky.social and Haiqing Zhao

🚨Job Alert plz RT! Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition! We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals Open-rank apply.interfolio.com/178146

PSA: "calm down" is not a productive way to start a discussion, esp with people who have been traumatized by chaos and bad faith actions in a system they must keep navigating. information good, condescension not so much

“THIS is what we should be monitoring and protecting. The who and the how and the why of applying priorities beyond the study section evaluation.”

I agree what matters is how funding priorities are set, and by whom. Institute directors must be hired based on expertise/ experience, not partisan politics, or funding priorities AND DECISIONS will reflect ideology. The system already allows this, but one can read intention into making this easier

No more paylines at the NIH grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

And I’m a big fan of Turing, von Neumann, Shannon, Metcalfe, Hinton, Sejnowski, and all the other algorithmic and computation people. No shade. But data limits still limit understanding of the brain. That’s why the #NIH US BRAIN Init was so important: public investment made new tools.

Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain. The key barriers are not algorithms or AI. 🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky

It is a good night for democracy…

Submitted two NIH grants this month-floated off like messages in the bottle in the ocean. No idea if anyone would read them one day….

After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.

Someone asked me the other day*: How do we replace all the science that’s being lost across the US as NIH, NSF etc are being lawlessly destroyed? The answer is: we cannot. It is impossible. The task now is to defend #NIH and public funding for medical research. 1/ 🧪 #neuroscience

Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake go.nature.com/47zrzYZ

Today is many federal workers first full paycheck they’ve missed for this shutdown. They have bills. Rent, mortgages, kids tuition, food, credit card payments, car payments, grocery bills… All because the Republicans don’t want people to have affordable healthcare.

A university that signs the “compact” is one that acknowledges its own inability to compete and succeed based talent and merit. It would signal insecurity and mediocrity to current and future students and faculty. Say no. Recruit the best people, protect their freedom and support their hard work.

Wins for the week-submitting a grant application and a revised manuscript. Bottom line-focusing on what I can control.

Six of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S. Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world. www.nobelprize.org

Intriguing new insights on axonal TDP-43 in ALS from @labperlson.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cool pre-print and valuable resource highlighting the molecular and cellular diversity of human sympathetic ganglia and DRG cell types www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

For this #FluorescenceFriday, a gorgeous image of an adult mouse kidney labeled with AQP2 and alpha SMA antibodies. AQP2 (green) marks the collecting duct and distal connecting segment while SMA marks the arterial tree. Courtesy of talented postdoc Sarah McLarnon.

This paper does a great job with a "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario about NIH, supposing the consequences of the bottom 40% of the funding NIH grants never existed. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... tl:dr The world would lose a lot, but directly and indirectly

Any academic folks on H1B visas (even with stamps in passports) please get legal advice from your University attorneys before leaving the US.

Arundhati Roy’s intense memoir of her mother “Mother Mary comes to me” is a brutal read, yet funny and poignant. Rekindled my love of reading and brought on all the emotions of complicated mother-daughter relationships, orthodoxy of Kerala Syrian Christians, and not conforming to societal norms.

It bears repeating that nearly the entire US enterprise in science and technology has been irreversibly gutted. This is shocking. All this loss has occurred without any real benefit to the average US citizen. Except we now have the biggest, best funded secret police force perhaps ever. Yay for us!

Wistfully thinking about the days when incompetent Reviewer 3 was the biggest problem…

The GOP needs to understand the economic impact of the cuts from the Trump administration. Higher education drives economies. “If you include the hospital systems, [our impact] is well over $60 billion, and it's 7% of our whole economy — literally more than coal and natural gas combined.”

Science is a long game. Translational science, or clinical medicine is only possibly because of basic science discoveries where the clinical applications are not yet known. Also: Nobels are typically awarded for basic science… *exploratory* basic science. True story.

Over 20 years after Julius’s lab and mine cloned TRPM8, it is rewarding to see this science helping patients. The TRPM8 agonist Tryptyr treats dry eye by increasing tear production. A reminder that NIH-funded curiosity-driven research translates to medicines. tryptyr.myalcon.com?gad_source=1...

From a trip to PNW and being reminded how beautiful this country is. My childhood was spent in a crowded and polluted city (much as I loved it). But the majestic splendor of the natural beauty in the US will never cease to amaze me. Hope we can sustain the national parks.

Senate Appropriations has a modest *INCREASE* in NIH funding but it will need to be recconciled with the house cut. If you have not been calling your representative of late now would be a good time to start again www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/ful...

Yup this.. paylines below 5% are demoralizing not only for applicants but also reviewers. Good luck, NIH, finding reviewers to take on this task..

Finding comfort in little things these days. Working with a good group of people, discussing science, sharing ideas. Trying to tune the noise and chaos out in moments like this. Lab lunch.

I don’t know how to say it more strongly: it is asinine to think that AI and basic/exploratory, creative science are at all similar, never mind interchangeable. There are many details one could get into on this, but the important takeaway is the above. 🧪

So, it seems that the conclusions are: (1) The communications around this policy have been atrociously bad; (2) NIH leadership includes some people with strong opinions about animal-based research who aspire to reduce or eliminate the use of animals, but realize that this would be foolish now.

so.... NIH issued a news item clarifying the new use of animals policy. It seems that the bottom line is that NIH will not issue NoFOs specifically about creation or use of animal models of disease. 1/2 grants.nih.gov/news-events/...