Fiona Hollis

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Perimenopause: An understudied transition for the brain We know little about the mechanisms underlying well-known perimenopause symptoms in the brain. More research—in animals and humans—is essential.

Excited to have my piece on perimenopause published @thetransmitter.bsky.social

"Perimenopause: An important—and understudied—transition for the brain"

We need more studies & better education -we need this to be mainstream- knowledge is power! #WomensHealth

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

a group of people are dancing in a hallway and the word team work is visible ALT: a group of people are dancing in a hallway and the word team work is visible

This work represents the first major publication from our USC VPR Institute and collaborative efforts from many talented colleagues

Stress reduced adrenal gland respiration in females while stressed males exhibited increased complex II protein expression that may have prevented stress effects in respiration.

We found that stressed females but not males exhibited significantly reduced respiration in the hypothalamus that correlated with alterations in behavior

Give. sex-dependent effects of stress, we hypothesized that stress might impose sex-specific effects on mitochondrial respiration.

We exposed adult male and female mice to 4 weeks of chronic unpredictable stress and examined behavior and mitochondrial respiration in hypothalamus and adrenal glands

I'm excited to share a new manuscript from the lab, out on bioRxiv and submitted to Clinical Science. So proud of Alexia Crockett for her efforts in her 1st first-author research article. Synopsis below.

The GOP plans to slash $2.1 Billion from the National Science Foundation. It won’t just hurt labs—it hurts students, startups, and the future economy. From clean energy to advanced manufacturing, these are jobs of tomorrow. These cuts hand American jobs and opportunity to our foreign competitors.

Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.

it's another purge: www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

FDA-NIH Workshop: Reducing Animal Testing The FDA is hosting a workshop on reducing animal testing. The workshop is open to current FDA and NIH employees.

🧪 After the workshop on 7/7, the FDA and NIH are asking for public comments on implementing novel methodologies and other strategies to reduce the use of animal testing by 7/14:

www.fda.gov/news-events/...

The Scientists Who Got Ghosted by the NIH Under Trump, their grant applications disappeared. What now?

NEW: I wrote about scientists who have been ghosted by the NIH.

The agency has disappeared dozens of grant applications. Not rejected them, but shoved them out of the peer-review pipeline into an administrative no-man’s land. And there’s no clear exit. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Trump’s NIH cuts aren’t just numbers. They are delayed cures, abandoned treatments, futures stolen, lives that will be lost. This is why we Stand Up For Science.

#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience

There's a lot of polling that Americans in general are in favor of things like international students, federal science funding, climate action, etc. This is good & important, but I do worry the right-wing mediasphere will be amping up attacks on these things, so we need to push back just as loudly

something that stands out about this is just how cheap it is for us to have world-leading scientific capacity

we spent ~6.75 trillion last year, and the combined budgets for NIH, NSF and NASA are barely more than 1% of that

what an incredible waste to lose it all for a drop in the bucket

quote on a dark blue and purple background from Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), criticizing proposed cuts to science funding in the FY26 U.S. federal budget. The quote reads: “If enacted, the FY26 budget request would end America’s global scientific leadership. The cuts to science would imperil our nation’s future health, security and prosperity. This budget proposal stands in stark contrast to the President’s call for a renewed commitment to American scientific leadership. Congress has demonstrated a bipartisan commitment to investment in research and must do so again to answer the President’s call.” The quote is attributed to Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. The AAAS logo appears at the bottom right.

I don't think anyone outside of universities, pharma and biotech, independent research institutions have any idea of what is happening right now. If you haven't sounded the alarm among your friends, family and colleagues, now is the time to do it.

🧪 Detailed data viz NYT article, out today, on the extent of funding cuts at the National Science Foundation.

This "broken pie chart" is neat & new to me: Powerfully shows the slowdown in new NSF awards across areas.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Most Americans use federal science information on a weekly basis, a new poll finds Most Americans frequently use federal science information. But few are concerned that cuts to federal science spending could affect their access to such information, a new poll finds.

Most Americans frequently use federal science information. But few are concerned that cuts to federal science spending could affect their access to such information, a new poll finds.

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

So proud of these students! AmeliaC, MercyM, Emily G, Arshaam, GabbieW, and Hannah B. They gave great poster presentations yesterday at #DiscoverUSC2025 Special thanks to @uscresearch.bsky.social OUR and Honors college and our own USCSomC for their support!

Great advocacy tool in the works! While some searches (e.g., postpartum depression) might still pull up an error, this is just what we needed to start conversations with people about the value of NIH-funded science.

graph of NIH basisfor new drugs

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... for 356 new FDA drugs approved

This is absolutely horrifying.

We #StandUpForScience in South Carolina! #ScienceIsForEveryone. #ScienceNotSilence #ScienceMakesAmericaGreat

Photo shows a Swiss scientist holding a flyer for Stand Up for Science.

Photo shows Swiss scientists holding flyers for Stand Up for Science.

Photo shows Swiss scientists holding flyers for Stand Up for Science.

Good morning, US colleagues!

In Switzerland, we'll speak up for you and #science everywhere!

#Standupforscience walkout in #Geneva

So many came even with little notice ☺️

We'll stay with you, and we'll only grow

🙏🏼 to the great leadership of #unige

#ScienceSky #MedSky #EpiSky

50 inventions you might not know were funded by the US government Stacker compiled information on 50 inventions funded by the United States government using government and scientific reports, and news articles.

“If you've ever used a GPS system, you have the Defense Department's research to thank. What about your smartphone? Although the government didn't directly fund the exact phone you own, NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF)…”

stacker.com/stories/busi...

How the menstrual cycle shapes heart and brain health How the menstrual cycle shapes heart and brain health

How the #MenstrualCycle shapes #heart and #brain health -
@jellinap.bsky.social together with Julia Sacher @cogneuroend.bsky.social & Arno Villringer describe how these naturally occurring variations might influence #stress, mood, and long-term #womenshealth: tinyurl.com/35pu6447

NSF fact sheet

The National Science Foundation benefits communities in every state.

I still cannot log in. Maybe just access is spotty?

eRA commons still down as of this morning.