Xilma Ortiz-Gonzalez MD PhD

Stand Up for Science at Philadelphia, the original American city of science. #standupforscience # Philadelphia

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Stand Up for Science rally poster March 7th, 1:00 PM at Allegheny Landing in Pittsburgh.

Very excited to be speaking at the @standupforscience.bsky.social rally in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

I am speaking just prior to Dr. Rachel Levine

1/2

Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros., Paving Way for an Ellison Takeover

The richest man owns X.

The second and third richest men control Google.

The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.

And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.

See the problem here?

Join us today, February 24, for Ex Vivo Gene Therapy in Leukodystrophies at 3 pm CT. Learn about FDA-approved ex vivo gene therapies for X-ALD & MLD, including eligibility, risks, and early diagnosis. Register: https://ow.ly/BKzt50Yac5A

Screenshot from an NIH website reading: "Table 1 shows the number of principal investigators (PIs) applying for or receiving an R01-equivalent grant in FYs 2021 to 2025, disaggregated by career stage. NIH supported 1,423 and 1,144 ESIs in FYs 2024 and 2025, respectively. The decrease seen in FY 2025 may likely be due in part to NIH implementing a requirement to use 50% of its remaining competing Research Project Grant (RPG) funds (starting in June 2025) for full-year funded competing RPGs, which was expected to lead to fewer awards and support fewer researchers overall."

Check this out straight from the NIH website, acknowledging that multiyear funding was likely responsible for a 20% decrease in early stage investigators.

And that it was expected.

A strange approach for someone so committed to the next generation of scientists.

grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

There’s a seven year old boy hospitalized in Greenville, South Carolina with measles encephalitis.

He can’t walk or talk or feed himself.

This didn’t have to happen. Please vaccinate.

In a country with a bad president, be a Bad Bunny. [Cartoon by Matt Davies]

Any resemblance with academia is pure coincidence

We're pediatricians. We see how ICE is harming children. | Opinion Liam Ramos is one of more than 1,700 children to have been put in family detention centers since 2025. We call for these centers to close.

As pediatricians, we’re speaking out on the harms of aggressive immigration enforcement and detention on children. Our kids deserve safety and protection.

See our piece in USA Today:

Top of the photo in white text reads: "BREAKING OVER 680 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES MEMBERS, INCLUDING 10 NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATES, ENDORSE IMPEACHING RFK JR." Below that in black text is a statement reading: "We, the undersigned Members of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, writing in our private capacities, endorse the Articles of Impeachment introduced in the House of Representatives on Dec 10, 2025 by Representative Haley Stevens." Below that is the red "STAND UP FOR SCIENCE " logo. Below that is a link in white text reading: "standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr".

BREAKING: Over 680 members of the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering have endorsed articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.
(1/2 🧵)

Yeee!! Congrats

Because of technical issues with the SciENcv website, NIH is extending a period of leniency accepting old format biosketches through May 2026 (see FAQ #5):

grants.nih.gov/faqs#/common...

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

The scale of the loss is unimaginable.
www.science.org/content/arti...

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

The heartbreak is that we all know those nurses: the ones who don’t compartmentalize to the hospital, but are always caring for the people around them.

Minnesota is the best of us.

Graphic helps visualize how MYF funds FEWER grants despite the increase in budget approval by Congress. https://www.researchamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ACT-for-NIH-Multi-Year-Funding-One-Pager_October-2025.pdf

🧪IMPORTANT! This graphic explains how science all over the US is funded. Congress approved a 2% increase in the #NIH budget for FY 26.

Buried in the bill-
Shift of ~40% of grants to MYF. This will still result in a 35% DECREASE in the NUMBER of grants funded per yr.

Russel Vought is behind this.

#MLK

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents just launched flash bang grenades at protesters in front of federal building in Minneapolis—causing massive explosions. "It's terrorizing, this isn't the America I served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy," tearful protester tells us.

WE'RE LIVE NOW ⬇️

Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators. ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.

Know who profits from ICE's cruelty. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/ice-businesses-boycott-campaign/

So which lawmaker is going to write the Renee Good Act to disarm ICE? @thedemcoalition.bsky.social @aoc.bsky.social @robertgarcia.bsky.social @raskin.house.gov @crockett.house.gov @edmarkey.bsky.social @warren.senate.gov ?

Border Patrol officers arrived at a Minneapolis high school while students were leaving and tackled, sprayed chemical irritants, and handcuffed parents and teachers.

Public high schools in Minneapolis have canceled classes for the rest of the week following the incident.

This. A government agency who is able to kill anybody with impunity is able to kill any of us with impunity

Doctors who care for children’s brains know this: Childhood vaccines save lives. They significantly reduce serious illness and death in children and help protect entire communities. 🔗 Read our full statement: https://ow.ly/qU4O50XSeSm

Appeals Court Upholds Prohibition on Trump’s Medical Research Cuts

A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration could not make drastic cuts to the federal funding supporting much of the country’s medical and scientific research, reaffirming a lower court’s ruling from early last year.

An email from NIH Director Bhattacharya stating that the removal of Walter Koroshetz was at the direction of the Department of Health and Human Services.

We see that Bhattacharya's opinion is highly valued within HHS.

"Dr. Koroshetz's performance as Director has been exceptional; however the Department of Health and Human Services elected to pursue a leadership transition."

Not even the integrity for anyone (e.g. RFK, Jr.) to claim responsibility.