@vvsmider
Biomedical researcher, antibody investigator (especially cow antibodies 🐮, which are the best), drug discoverer, entrepreneur 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 Founder and President at Applied Biomedical Science Institute: https://absinstitute.org
In some of my early grants I made the mistake of trying to put too much in (regardless of legibility) maxing out how much text and data the page limits could fit. Now I only show data if it is essential and use more generous line spacing. I'd rather my proposal be the easier one to read in the pile
A phylogenetic tree of insects is shown annotating the presence or absence of a an antimicrobial peptide gene across winged insects
Various phylogenetic secondary loss events are mapped to a tree of insects to explain the parsimony calculations necessary to explain the diversity of insect Drosomycin antimicrobial peptide genes
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are key defence molecules of the innate immune system of plants and animals. Understanding the evolutionary origins of AMPs can help to explain how immune systems acquire novelty and vary in their defensive capabilities. However, AMPs evolve rapidly, and so the origins of similar AMPs across organisms is often unclear. Furthermore, false negatives due to low search sensitivity are common and can hinder confident annotations about true absences. Due to these difficulties, understanding whether similar AMP genes found in diverse organisms represent ancestral molecules or evolutionary novelties has been challenging. In this report, we present evidence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of the antifungal peptide gene Drosomycin across insects. We show that in Diptera, the presence of Drosomycin is restricted to the Melanogaster group and additionally the distant relative Drosophila busckii. We go on to recover Drosomycin genes in cockroaches (Blattodea), mantises (Mantodea), one katydid (Orthoptera), various beetles (Coleoptera), and a recently acquired pseudogenized Drosomycin locus in Liposcelis booklice (Psocodea), but no other insects. Explaining this diversity through shared ancestry requires at least 50 independent loss events, or just seven HGT events. Previous studies have suggested that similar AMPs found across divergent species reflect conservation from a common ancestor, or due to their small size, that they arose via convergent evolution resulting from pathogen-imposed selection. Our findings suggest horizontal gene transfer can be responsible for the presence of some AMP genes found scattered across the tree of life. By presenting a mechanism through which immune systems can acquire novelty, our study also suggests a possible explanation for certain lineage-specific competencies for defence against infectious disease. While loss of AMP genes is common in certain lineages, here we suggest gain of AMPs can occur just as suddenly.
Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23
@cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun).
Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects
bit.ly/DrsHGT
1/🧵
How long would it take you to spend $5.6 billion? Could you spend $1 million per year? $10 million? $100 million? On what?
You could get one or two drugs approved for this much $…but not in a few days.
More on science presidential power grabs - seen at #NSF with #NCAR today.
1/4 🧪
www.linkedin.com/posts/markhi...
Congress must go beyond reinstating US government research spending and re-establish decentralized governance at the NIH and other agencies, says sociologist Natalie B. Aviles.
go.nature.com/4bCwTNh
A short Bluetorial on plots of NIH application success rates as a function of percentile.
1/20
Assume $1-3B per drug, attrition of drugs is significant so only a small % get approved. This is a massive upfront cost. Where would this $ come from w an NIH budget of <$50?I doubt the math is even close to feasible. (that’s assuming patents are really the problem, which is debatable).
The cost to develop a new drug to approval is well >$1B, and takes many many years. The current NIH budget is <$50B. So this idea seems pretty impractical in terms of changing the “system”.
what will the curve look like for FY2026? we know that total $$ and MYF fraction are roughly the same as in 2025. However CSR moved the triage line (% of apps discussed and scored at study section) to 1/3 instead of 1/2. This will likely shift the 2026 curve upward, particularly at the left end.
Great new piece by @melodyschreiber.com in The Guardian about NIH/CDC Director Bhattacharya .
In it, I talk about asking Bhattacharya in January about a recent issue affecting the affordability of healthcare for thousands of early career researchers on the NIH campuses.
Svetlana Mojsov’s research paved the way for Ozempic, but she had to fight for her seat at the table. The Matilda Effect strikes again! 😤
This #WomensHistoryMonth, we begin by honoring the chemist who identified the active GLP-1 hormone.
It’s high time we credit the women who change the world. 🧪✨
And the science really isn’t “intriguing” at all…
This happens in science all the time- a little nugget of interesting data, filed away, that can re-emerge later in another context.
“it is time, finally and forever, to get rid of for-profit scientific publishers.”
Interesting story (and beautiful graphic) from Undark about how long NIH institute directors stay (and should stay) in their positions.
undark.org/2026/03/04/t...
“it is time, finally and forever, to get rid of for-profit scientific publishers.”
An announcement that the Senate voted to reauthroize the SBIR/STTR program.
The Senate has (finally) voted to reauthorize the small business SBIR/STTR program.
Not reauthorized yet, but this was likely the biggest hurdle.
This is a nice contrast to all the awful behavior confirmed through the Epstein files. Proud of @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social & @seanmcarroll.bsky.social for picking up on the sexism & charlatanism right away.
The mass psychosis over Ivermectin as a "cure all" miracle drug did not end w COVID. It's being embraced as a cure for cancer in right wing circles.
If you have scabies or a parasitic worm infection it ivermectin helps.
It is NOT effective chemotherapy for any cancer!
www.npr.org/2026/03/02/n...
Just had a meeting with another colleague who is leaving the United States for Canada because of the political and science climate here.
This is just devastating for science in America, but I totally understand.
Some shit is about to go down with NIH study sections, friends. Keep your eyes peeled for change that may affect your grant submissions.
bsky.app/profile/tiva...
Science and Engineering is the basis of modern civilization, but particularly those studies into fundamental things. It is a foundational building block from which most wealth eventually derives. When we sacrifice it, we sacrifice much of our future.
Ultra-sensitive CAR T cells eliminate hard-to-treat tumours in mice
A proof-of-concept study opens up an avenue for treating solid tumours that express low levels of a target antigen.
www.nature.com/artic...
1/3
Given that clonal biofilms of single bacterial species rapidly diversify into niche specialists, how do biofilms of multiple species evolve?
A 🧵 featuring new collaborative pubs:
1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
2. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ohh.... #biology #lego
That's right. Worse than Pointless
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...
So I’d imagine that I’m not the only one looking into switching my (low level) paid account from open.ai to Anthropic. Any thoughts about which performs better for your average academic scientist?
Every now and then I read a paper that opens my eyes to see an aspect of biology in a new way. This paper blew my mind - TLR7/8 have agonist sites to bind viral RNA, and antagonist sites to bind endogenous RNA degrad. products, enabling self/nonself discrimination: www.nature.com/articles/s41...