Rejji Kuruvilla
@rkuruvi1.bsky.social
📤 1242
📥 989
📝 279
Neurobiologist, Professor, fond of reading, cats, thrillers, and food
pinned post!
Hello there! My lab studies the sympathetic nervous system and its interactions with body organs and tissues. I post about my science, academia, food, cats, travel, my experience as an immigrant scientist and politics (occasionally). Check out our lab website
www.kuruvillalab.com
over 1 year ago
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On my way home after a memorable Cell Biology of the Neuron GRC and some sightseeing. It was an honor to chair the meeting with Gipi Schiavo, soak in some amazing science, catch up with friends and colleagues and make new connections.
16 days ago
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BWJones
29 days ago
This is why we fund basic science. You never know from what little curiosity will derive the tools that enable greatness.
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BWJones
about 1 month ago
NIH funded peeps: This is insane and coming for us.
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Mark Histed
about 1 month ago
If their goal is to choke off economic advantages from the US’s university system it’s hard to think of a more effective way. Scientists and other academics come to the US to study— then stay in the US often via green cards, to start companies, do unique work, and contribute to the US economy.
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Green Card Seekers Must Leave U.S. to Apply, Trump Administration Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/us/politics/green-card-changes-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kVA.Lirq._txqlNWg-dgG&smid=nytcore-android-share
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samuel mehr
about 2 months ago
Being a publicly funded scientist in 2026
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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.
3 months ago
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And an absolutely spectacular splashdown to end the day! We all needed this win!
3 months ago
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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).
3 months ago
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Jason Shepherd
3 months ago
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.
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Piali Sengupta
3 months ago
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.
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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.
5 months ago
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Chris Gunter 🧬
5 months ago
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...
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Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026
Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00183-x
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Mike Fainzilber
5 months ago
đź§Ş 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...
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Axonal degeneration and regeneration
Neurons are the largest and most long-lived class of cells, necessitating specialized mechanisms for their survival, growth and maintenance. Axons are the longest extensions of a neuron, reaching len…
https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-axonal-degeneration
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Jeremy Berg
6 months ago
Powerful piece in STAT this morning from some NIH staff members who have resigned
www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n...
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The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left
“We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.
https://www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/nih-resign-protest-four-leaders-cite-interference-censorship/
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Mark Peifer (He, him)
6 months ago
A superb summary of why our investment in fundamental science fuels stunning advances in medical treatments đź§Ş
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Having these two headlines juxtaposed only underscores the awfulness of this year
6 months ago
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽
6 months ago
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.
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Philip Bump
6 months ago
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.
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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.
6 months ago
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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
7 months ago
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Chris Krupenye
7 months ago
🚨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
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7 months ago
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
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽
7 months ago
“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.”
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7 months ago
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
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boehninglab
7 months ago
No more paylines at the NIH
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
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Implementing a Unified NIH Funding Strategy to Guide Consistent and Clearer Award Decisions | Grants & Funding
https://grants.nih.gov/news-events/nih-extramural-nexus-news/2025/11/implementing-a-unified-nih-funding-strategy-to-guide-consistent-and-clearer-award-decisions
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Mark Histed
8 months ago
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.
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Mark Histed
8 months ago
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
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It is a good night for democracy…
8 months ago
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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….
8 months ago
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Wei Wen
8 months ago
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.
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Mark Histed
8 months ago
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/ đź§Ş
#neuroscience
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Nature
8 months ago
Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake
go.nature.com/47zrzYZ
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From MRI to Ozempic: breakthroughs that show why fundamental research must be protected
In these financially straitened times, funders must recognize that great discoveries often arise from work that was looking for something completely different.
https://go.nature.com/47zrzYZ
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BWJones
8 months ago
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.
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Carolyn Bertozzi
8 months ago
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.
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Wins for the week-submitting a grant application and a revised manuscript. Bottom line-focusing on what I can control.
9 months ago
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Laura Helmuth
9 months ago
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
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The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org
The Nobel Prize rewards science, humanism and peace efforts. This is one of the central concepts in the will of Alfred Nobel, and it also permeates the outreach activities that have been developed for...
https://www.nobelprize.org
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Mike Fainzilber
9 months ago
Intriguing new insights on axonal TDP-43 in ALS from
@labperlson.bsky.social
and colleagues
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Muscle-derived miR-126 regulates TDP-43 axonal local synthesis and NMJ integrity in ALS models - Nature Neuroscience
Ionescu, Ankol et al. show that, in ALS mouse and iPSC models, TDP-43 aggregation at NMJs stems from aberrant axonal translation, normally repressed by muscle EV-derived miR126. Loss of miR126 in ALS increases TDP-43 buildup, impairs local synthesis and triggers degeneration.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02062-6
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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...
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A multi-omic atlas of human autonomic and sensory ganglia implicates cell types in peripheral neuropathies
The human peripheral nervous system (PNS) consists of many ganglia, including sympathetic ganglia (SG) and dorsal root ganglia (DRG), that house the cell bodies of many constituent neuron types and no...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.18.677119v1
9 months ago
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Lori O'Brien
9 months ago
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.
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Jeremy Berg
9 months ago
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
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What if NIH had been 40% smaller?
Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeb1564
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Harmit Singh Malik
9 months ago
Any academic folks on H1B visas (even with stamps in passports) please get legal advice from your University attorneys before leaving the US.
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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.
10 months ago
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Harmit Singh Malik
10 months ago
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!
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Wistfully thinking about the days when incompetent Reviewer 3 was the biggest problem…
10 months ago
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BWJones
11 months ago
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.”
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BWJones
11 months ago
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.
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Ardem Patapoutian
11 months ago
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...
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TRYPTYR (acoltremon ophthalmic solution) 0.003% eye drops | Alcon US
TRYPTYR is a prescription eye drop used for the treatment of the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. See prescribing information, how to save, and more.
https://tryptyr.myalcon.com/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22878920344&gbraid=0AAAAA-ftjJmcslNwjEfunAxiwWBerLYED&gclid=CjwKCAjw7_DEBhAeEiwAWKiCCz4X9uqXt4wtYflZWu1Z9S31_MADkoSScm-VKgdudxHOYmJyEu0agRoCklwQAvD_BwE
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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.
11 months ago
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@LaBonneLaB
11 months ago
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...
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Full Committee Markup of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Acts | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate Committee on Appropriations
https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/full-committee-markup-of-defense-and-labor-health-and-human-services-and-education-appropriations-acts
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Yup this.. paylines below 5% are demoralizing not only for applicants but also reviewers. Good luck, NIH, finding reviewers to take on this task..
add a skeleton here at some point
11 months ago
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