The CDC changed the universal vaccine schedule & no longer recommends Rotavirus Hepatitis A & B Meningitis Influenza RSV I’ve cared for previously healthy kids who died from RSV, influenza and meningitis. We all are going to be caring for a lot more now. In our already overflowing hospitals

The US is a country full of really good people

An image I’ll never forget.

You cannot simultaneously care about maintaining measles elimination status while actively campaigning against the vaccine that allowed this elimination status to be achieved in the first place. That's not how any of this works 🤷🏽‍♀️ www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

“According to the agreement, filed Monday in the federal District Court of Massachusetts, the NIH will review a set of grant applications that were frozen, denied, or withdrawn through the agency's standard process of scientific review rather than based on Trump administration directives…”

This is an outstanding essay describing some of the important roles and influences of NIH program officers (from an insider perspective). Read! elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-quiet-...

OSTP has issued a request for information, please share with them your ideas for how to improve government functions related to science funding and policy www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

Powerful short documentary about the researchers affected by NIH grant terminations and broad extortion of universities. youtu.be/DaTOmUZHeik 1/2

Imagine that a decade ago someone had told you that in 2025 Americans would be torrenting a handheld video of a Canadian television screen to see a 60 minutes broadcast about Trump‘s torture prisons.

Tens of thousands of annual cases of chickenpox, rotavirus, and other vaccine preventable diseases a year - in a country of six million people. Not only will Denmark’s vaccine schedule not work for the US, it already isn’t working for Denmark.

I wrote to my representatives @hirono.senate.gov @schatz.bsky.social, and Ed Case to tell them to stop the dismantlement of NCAR. You can do the same with your representatives at this link.

New Reuters story on NIH institute director searches www.reuters.com/business/hea... 1/3

"(Memoli's) actions look like those of a leader who has been given broad discretion to shrink down the agencys infectious-disease work—an area where he may have a few personal grievances. “People are afraid of him,” one official said, pausing. “I’m afraid of him.” www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

Looking for a faculty job at one of the world's great research stations? We're looking for a marine invertebrate biologist at UW's Friday Harbor Labs. apply.interfolio.com/178804

🧵 NSF is reducing external review requirements and eliminating routine expert panels, citing staff shortages that this administration implemented. This change expands program officer authority. But the solution to flawed accountability isn't less public accountability.

NEW: After freezing billions in U.S. foreign aid and putting countless lives at risk around the world, Trump administration officials in Washington celebrated with a sheet cake. By @annamaria.bsky.social & Brett Murphy, photos by @peterdicampo.bsky.social

NSF - Forced reorg - POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements) - Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …) I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing. “Details matter” 🙃

NIH has for decades used a rigorous recruitment process to hire its top scientists, the institute directors. The Trump NIH is changing that. They’ve already installed one political hire this way, reportedly a friend of JD Vance. This post describes the process. Demand the Trump people follow it.

$15k stipend to support 9 weeks of full time summer research! For rising juniors/seniors who are able to travel to and obtain housing at the location of the lab they are placed in! I did an HHMI summer experience in 2013 and it changed everything for me! Apply…or tell someone to apply! 🧪🧠

New logo for ACIP released just now.

WALZ: “.. Donald Trump’s calling our Somali neighbors ‘garbage’ and calling the state of Minnesota a ‘hellhole’. I’m assuming it’s unprecedented for a United States President. .. We’ve got little children going to school today, their president called them ‘garbage’.”

The US is close to an institutional collapse across multiple public health agencies. Trump/RFK have purged anyone with expertise, many have fled and they’ve been replaced w functionaries who are either incompetent or malicious. I don’t think many understand how close to the edge we are right now.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is seeking input on Federal policy updates to accelerate the American scientific enterprise. This is your chance to give some feedback on how the past ~10 months have gone for science. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... I plan to highlight:

ICYMI, this new preprint is just awesome. "Here, we show that O-antigen–dependent trade-offs between pathogenicity and interbacterial competition have persisted for over two centuries in natural P. viridiflava populations." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New York Times article on science funding with some depressing but familiar curves with interactive graphics. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

We are thrilled to announce the first official release (v0.1.8) of #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗿, the successor to one of our flagship tool, #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀! Based on ideas we conceived of long ago (!), this was achieved thanks to the dedication of Brent Pedersen. 1/n

How to keep in step when your (protein) partner speeds up… Here we investigated the adaptive remodeling of a protein-protein interaction surface essential for telomere protection. Congrats to whole team! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I was one of those immigrants, and we commit fewer crimes than people born here. “Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the US by revoking their legal status.” apnews.com/article/trum...

One of my favorite preprints of the year from the great @mollyschumer.bsky.social. A foamy virus that makes things sparkle, now up on TWiEVO episode 120 for some podcast peer review www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T65...

As someone who has worked in HIV for 35+ years, I can tell you Carl is a consummate scientific leader. We’ve been lucky to have him at head of DAIDS. The only thing that wins here is the virus.

This is concerning. NIH is changing their policy so that staff have to prepare justification for every application that is funded BUT NO DOCUMENTATION FOR APPLICATIONS THAT ARE SKIPPED (BASED ON PERCENTILES). 1/2

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Lots going on but don’t lose track of the Trump attacks on biomedical research and cancer cures. @jeremymberg.bsky.social posted a leaked #NIH memo today. I want to highlight a few scary parts. They’re about taking power from scientists and experts and giving it to the president’s hacks. 1/ 🧪

RFK Jr & his loyal henchmen (the Great Barrington Declaration dudes Jay Bhattacharya & Martin Kulldorff; Martin Makary; Dr Oz; Vinay Prasad) have been successfully dismantling the US vaccination system & achieved the return of deadly vaccine preventable diseases. This is the world they worked for...

Hey folks, we (the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University) are looking for an Assistant Teaching Professor in microbiology and immunology. Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested, or check it out if you are interested yourself! apply.interfolio.com/176994

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

Wisconsin Evolution is accepting applications for our Seminar Series' Early Career Scientist Award. Come share your evolution research and visit UW-Madison's evolution community. Open to grad students and postdocs (<5 yrs post PhD) from outside UW-Madison. Apply by Dec 15th here: shorturl.at/4a4O6

Few things bug me more than higher ed leaders saying that we lost our mission and lost the trust of the public, when we have actually been the target of a decades-long smear campaign by the right wing that worked. The moment we’re losing our mission is right now, in capitulation.

Calling all rising juniors & seniors: Interested in biological or biomedical research? Applications for our ’26 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program are now open! Nine weeks, hands-on research, & mentorship from some of the nation’s top scientists — learn more: bit.ly/CechFellows

The vast body of research that Ken Burns relied upon to make his new documentary on the American Revolution would be practically impossible to be produced today, what with the defunding of humanistic scholarship, the collapse of stable academic jobs, the attack on public history & academic freedom.🗃️

This is Judge William Young who also ruled that NIH grant terminations were illegal and also called out the racism even though it was not an issue raised in the case. It is satisfying when judges call out clearly what is presented to them.

"What James Watson got wrong about DNA" By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com). www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...

SAVE THE DATE: the yearly NY Population Genetics meeting will be back on March 9 2026, generously hosted by the @simonsfoundation.org. Details to follow. Please RT.

Can confirm. I am okay and more motivated than ever to speak up. Nothing scares this administration more. Their power lies in our silence.

@jenna-m-norton.bsky.social has more integrity and spine than the entire HHS "leadership"

Prohibited activities include advising Chinese graduate students. For reference, a recent Georgetown report estimated 16% of STEM graduate students in the US are Chinese nationals. This would take out entire fields at the knees, which is perhaps the point.