💯💯💯 100th paper alert!!! 5th year @paigejacky.bsky.social and 3rd year Madison Neukirch have achieved RAFT for anionic polymerization using an aldehyde CTA! What some professors have called "sh*tty aldol chemistry," we call success 😎 doi.org/10.1021/jacs...

Soooo my best friend is smart *and* internet famous?! Go @paigejacky.bsky.social !!!

Want to see the economic impact of #NIH grant cuts in your community? Check out @joshuasweitz.bsky.social and colleagues' project here. Tell your friends and neighbors what is happening. scienceimpacts.org

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years. Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

i wrote an essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social about what it feels like to serve on an NIH grant review panel (study section) right now www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding. Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24. See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it. 🧵 1/3

yep! unpaywalled:

How do you turn a carbonyl into sulfur? In this work, Zining from our lab developed a carbonyl-to-sulfur swap enabled by a rationally designed N′-alkyl-hydrazonamide (NAHA) reagent that promotes double C-C bond activation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Please make a comment on this NOW (they are due tomorrow). We can't let NIH and NSF POs and division directors become political appointees--this will completely destroy science.

Behind every cure, every breakthrough, every treatment — is someone who needed it. If NIH funding helped you, your research, or someone you love, your story can help protect it. Share your “why” and help defend the future of NIH & science. Fill out the form here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

🧪 The NSF grant terminations hit women, racial & ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities the hardest. E.g.: --Female PIs were 58% of canceled grants (but 34% of all active grants) --Black PIs were 17% of canceled grants (but 4% as base rate) A closer look shows this is structural... 🧵

New op-ed in @nature.com: The Trump administration's assault on freedoms and the rule of law is an existential threat to US science. We urge scientists to speak out in defense of freedoms, not just funding. With Andrea Liu @upenn.edu and Sidney Nagel of UChicago! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🧪 ICYMI: $25,000 bridge funding for terminated NSF grants. Major props for to the Spencer, Sloan, W. T. Grant, and Kapor Foundations for their swift action, even though we (and they) know this is a band-aid fix. Due May 30. Applications are brief: a 2-3 page memo of 6-month plans & other docs.

🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants. Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.

I am so heartened to this seriously AWESOME #SaveNSF website go up today!!!! Has a take action toolkit with: 1. Press outreach templates 2. Social media toolkit 3. Elected official outreach 4. Talking points Check it out and share widely!!!! Likely more to come. www.savensf.com

NEWS: After canceling thousands of foreign students' immigration records — threatening their ability to study and live in the US — the Trump administration has reversed course and restored them all. It follows intense pushback from courts across the country. Details TK

If your NSF grant has been terminated recently, please report it here ⤵️ airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... We're tracking these terminations to organize, advocate, and possibly litigate. And please spread the word!

There we go.

NSF REU sites awarded: 2015 - 207 2016 - 232 2017 - 248 2018 - 204 2019 - 209 2020 - 222 2021 - 189 2022 - 219 2023 - 212 2024 - 217 2025 - 52 This is not likely to increase; REU awards are made early in the year to enable recruitment for summer.

Good for John Hartwig. He is of course correct, and it’s important to say these things loudly and clearly, both abroad and in the US.

Anybody else’s calculator they got in 8th grade still getting them through their PhD?

They are just disappearing people off the street. Having a hard time thinking about literally anything else.

They are coming for every university, if you think you’re safe because it hasn’t been yours yet I don’t know what to tell you. Join AAUP, refuse to comply, organize your colleagues

Spice up your plastic waste with PEPPr, the PolyEthylene Property Predictor!! Teaming up with the DiStasio group, 5th year Jenny Hu made and tested **THOUSANDS** of PE blends—teaching a machine learning model to relate MW distributions and physical properties for better and smarter PE recycling.

Scientists have just cured pancreatic cancer in some patients with personalized mRNA vaccines. Pancreatic cancer. And this Trump administration wants to throw it all away. They’re throwing away a cure for cancer.

Wow. Devastated that my strategy of waiting to file my taxes just in case the IRS got wiped out did not pan out, and now I’m actually having to file my taxes. Absolutely gobsmacked (but also relieved).

NIH cuts are hitting young scientists the hardest. By David Baker. timmermanreport.com/2025/03/davi...

…this is insane????

🧪 The NSF director is lying to you. Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵

Got ideas to help Stand Up For Science? We need to keep this momentum!

I think I’ve been mildly cursed to have one bout of yakking every year of grad school: Year 1- too much alcohol/not enough food @ our dept’s bar night Year 2- food poisoning in Kenya Year 3- horrible migraine in West Virginia Year 4 (last night)- food poisoning AGAIN from gourmet popcorn @ a movie

Firings are happening right now at the National Science Foundation. Essential staff are being cut. This isn’t about the budget. If it was, they’d be going after the military (17%) or state appropriations (38%). NSF is 0.7% of the federal budget. All federal employees make up only 4% of the budget.

Howard University is now a R1 university, the first HBCU with a research one designation. H-U definitely knows!

Every day is International Day of Women and Girls in Science when all your grad students are female 😉

How Ironic that on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Woman's portraits have been taken down at NIH and Women is a forbidden word that if found in your NSF grant could get it revoked. #womeninstem

Funny how a little bit of complicity doesn’t save your ass … as we’ve been saying because Germany already ran this experiment

Extremely disappointed to see HHMI decide to kill their Inclusive Excellence program, including terminating the current IE3 awards to over a hundred institutions effective this year in the middle of a 6-year grant. I was hoping HHMI (and other private funders) would continue to lead the way.

By polymerising the same monomer under two different reaction conditions, researchers can create a range of degradable, partially recyclable thermosetting plastics that could be sustainable alternatives for many widely used polymers today. www.chemistryworld.com/news/two-way...

Happy Black History Month! I’m trying to compile a list of contemporary black chemists and I could only think of 20 off the top of my head. Drop some names please. Thank you!

schrodinger’s federal funding

I am so so so grateful to @forsgroup.bsky.social for their support through this project, to Brett for his unwavering encouragement and support for academic freedom, and to my co-author & amazing mentee Kat (!!) who will start her PhD this fall!

As Jon Stewart said, “It is important in these troubled times to continue to dab on the haters” … and the haters would be loathe to see my first independent work on recyclable/degradable thermosets made from 2,3-dihydrofuran! 🌱🥽♻️

Are you interested in what the future of work in the chemical sciences looks like? Make a note in your diary to check out our Future Workforce and Educational Pathways report, which comes out on Thursday. #FWEP #ChemSky

This is good advice for US scientists looking to reach out to Congress. Call. I usually emphasize economic impact, science / technology innovation, biomedical advances, etc. because a lot are business / finance background. Oh, and that even short disruptions can have huge effects.

If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi... They need to hear from you.