Nucleic acid structural biologists expose that many CASP16 predictions, even ones obtaining high scores by CASP metrics, are inaccurate in the most functionally relevant regions! Read more insights on functionally relevant features by the expert structure determiners (doi.org/10.1101/2025...).

Over the last 100 days at the NIH, the Trump administration has been dismantling science. In this Medium post linked below, I describe what the last 100 days have been like for an scientist at the bench, doing research on RNA viruses. #science #RNA medium.com/@jones.cpric...

What’s next? Tariffs against Arrakis?

“Let there be an epsilon > 0” takes me back to my Analysis days in college. I just wish the epsilon here were a dummy variable and not just dumb.

Excited to share my latest research. In this paper in PNAS, I use #cryoEM and #crystallography to solve multiple new structures of a viral RNA motif that controls frameshifting. #virus #retrovirus #structuralbiology #science #biochemistry www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Trees in our backyard blooming 😍😍

My friend from graduate school found out that funding for her NF1 project got pulled. From $25 mil to 0 with a stroke of a pen. NF1=Neurofibromatosis Type 1, an inherited genetic disorder. Both of us are early career scientists. 🧪🔬🧬 #Science #AcademicSky www.wired.com/story/the-ch...

Kate Shaw on Preet is like the eclipse of my two favorite legal podcasts @strictscrutiny.bsky.social and @preetbharara.bsky.social . I just wish it weren’t about whether we still have a Constitution.

Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women. More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications. I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.

my NIH grant was terminated today - the grant that pays my rent and my bills and my loans and my health insurance - because I study how to improve the lives and wellbeing of queer people #episky #medsky

DOGE laid off 10,000 postal workers today. Farewell to the US Postal Service – more than 10,000 employees will be laid off following the agreement signed with DOGE unionrayo.com/en/usps-job-...

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. 
I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

Since the cherry blossom festival is happening soon, I am expecting an announcement any day now that DOGE is cutting them all down

Liberation day, when the dollar will be liberated from the tyrannical yoke of value

There are days in life that shake you. I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University & academic career... 1/🧵

NIH is likely cutting up to 25% of its workforce this week. NIH staff have substantial expertise, typically PhDs. And they really *believe* in the work. NIH's will not be able to meet its mission w/these cuts. The scientific threat is not just direct funding cuts www.statnews.com/2025/03/14/n...

Exclusive: NIH officials have advised scientists to remove reference to mRNA vaccines from their grant applications, in expectation the Trump administration intends to abandon most research in the field. By @arthurallen202.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Without scientific progress, no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation. -Vannevar Bush, requoted in this week’s New Yorker

Our paper describing our Transcription Elongation Complex Display platform for high-throughput cotranscriptional RNA functional assays is now online at @naturecomms.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... We used TECdisplay to assess the activity of >1M ZTP riboswitch variants!

Is it too much to ask that next time we vote for a President, we vote for an American?

Students: I cannot stress enough how powerful you are. People will tell you aren't because they want to quiet you, but you really are.

I am very happy to announce that we solved the in-virus #cryoEM structure of the #HIV matrix protein. The structure helped us to resolve a long mystery in HIV biology. A🧵1/5 Read more in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

Hmm all orders at NIH placed on hold until further notice … I have multiple papers accepted—must I stiff the publishers?

Woohoo #rna paper accepted to PNAS, long post to come when embargo is lifted 🔥

I talked to NIH officials, current and former, about what's been happening inside the agency since the Trump administration shut down their grantmaking pipeline in January. Their stories showed just how willing our new leaders are to break the law: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

RNA xkcd.com/3056

Nothing to see here. Just casually dropping a comprehensive list of banned books docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/...

Kendrick’s “Alright” on loop for just over a month—is this healthy

NIH indirects case update: Hearing ongoing now, and I'll try to live tweet some notable exchanges. Prior to more detailed arguments, Judge Kelley starts off with a few point questions to both sides: (I'm paraphrasing here)

NIH indirects case update & summary of Trump admin’s args: - Trump admin not backing down - Oral argument this Friday, 2/14 - Hearing is to decide whether to extend the block - 1 hearing for all 3 cases Trump admin filed its arguments on Friday. Here’s some of what it’s arguing: 🧵

Lawrence Tabak, longtime principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, has abruptly resigned—surprising even his own lab staff and the broader community. scim.ag/4hR40OE

F99/R00 AND K99/R00 DIVERSITY AWARD APPLICANTS If you have applied for a F99/R00 or K99/R00 Diversity award and the study section for review is not listed on your eRA Commons page, please reach out to me. DM me, email [email protected], Signal jeremymberg.78 THANK YOU

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography First real RNA crystals I ever obtained, a shower of plates

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Buttery U1A crystals found ~8 months after setting up trays, going to 1.6-1.7 Å

It would be unfortunate if universities had to charge higher tuitions (100x?) to the relatives of project 2025. It would also be unfortunate if they were expelled.

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography U1A RNA co-crystal ready for treatment

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Prisms going through a phase

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Prism growing on a highly concentrated phase or precipitate

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Rectangular prisms going to 4 Å … so close yet so far away

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography SARS-CoV-2 PK: stunning prisms that poorly diffracted, even after many attempts of treatment and ideal growth optimization

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Bizarre bundle of crystals, one apparently sending out feelers to the other

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography SARS-CoV-2 PK: looks can be deceiving, as these diffracted poorly

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography Giant SARS mofo that did not diffract worth a damn

Welp, NIH intramural program has paused recruitment. There are some exceptions, but it seems like no new hiring of fellows, trainees, and summer students. Every summer, it is a joy to see students come to the NIH to try out research. It brings back fond memories.

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography RSV PK: happy rods poking out of a phase, requiring mechanical separation, 2.7 Å with two different structures from one asymmetric unit aka magical Christmas land

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography SARS-CoV-2 SL5: iridium soaked crystals for phasing, flat edge was attached to the cover slip, diffracting to ~3.5 Å after dehydrating in 1.4-1.6 M citrate 😬 that liked to precipitate during looping, phases were outstanding despite resolution

Well we can order things now as long as it isn’t for new studies, equipment or research

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography SARS-CoV-2: gnarly needles that surprisingly went to 2.2 Å. Dehydration pushed them to 1.2 Å 😳, the best RNA crystals I’ve had by far, first time doing anisotropic B factor refinement

#RNA crystals over the years #crystallography SARS-CoV-2 PK: crystals proving once and for all that, yes, SARS is a dick Alas, poorly diffracting form though

Expanding particle event horizon #cryoEM #RNA