Billadeau Lab

Might need to be satisfied with just pushing research out on BioRxiv. Ugh.

Just got news that our NIDDK T32 training grant renewal has been funded. Looking forward to training more PhD candidates in various digestive diseases. It’s been a long haul, but we made it.

A photo of a dark glass covered building reflecting another building with grey and white tile in the mirrored glass. A stone walkway, green grass and landscaping dominated the lower part of the photo. An orange piece of art rests on a cement stone.

Reflections are look into the past. Maybe just a few femtoseconds depending on the distance from the object and the observer, but the past nonetheless.
#Photography

The U.S. government is failing on vaccine policy. The Vaccine Integrity Project is here to help The Vaccine Integrity Project will convene experts to assess the evidence on influenza, RSV, and Covid-19 to equip clinicians with reliable, evidence-based information.

The scientific and medical communities are stepping up to safeguard the systems they helped build over decades. In moments like this, it’s important to affirm the role of science and evidence in guiding public health decisions. 💉🛟

www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/v...

A great wheel of perhaps a hundred time-lapse stars in night sky over a dimly lit modernist house with palm trees on one side and a desert pine on the other.

For the night of the new moon, my OH tracked the desert stars again with camera & tripod.

I can’t get over the wonder of this, even just the colour variations of the distinct paths. If you know the celestial opening sequence of the 1946 film A Matter of Life & Death — it makes me think of that.

Well… it don’t look good for vaccines going forward. Anyone who says otherwise has not been paying attention.

A photo of a lamp made from a small microscope. It has a grey shade and sits in a white desk.

A fellow in the lab who has been leading the natural killer cell therapy projects is heading off to do a clinical fellowship in Immune Cell Therapy. He gave me a parting gift that he made from a microscope he bought on eBay. Very cool and creative gift.
#Science 🧪

🥰

It is very peaceful. Just need to get through the 4th of July week (before and after), then it will be back to serene.

I go back and forth. Totally mood dependent.

This mama duck has her wings full. Nine, not so little ducklings.

Water everywhere. They made it to it safely once they were removed from the planter area.

They were picked up and moved to a grassy area. Momma duck followed.

A mother mallard duck stands on a concrete wall at berlioking a sidewalk and street. Several ducklings (maybe 8) huddle together just below the concrete wall surrounding the planting area. A lot of dead perennial grasses provide some cover.

Mamma and her little ducklings paid the research building a visit today.

Can we reduce metastasis in pancreatic cancer?

Kawai et al. show PBRM1 is a tumor suppressor controlling tumor grade and metastasis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by regulating vimentin—and metastasis is reduced with vimentin inhibition in mice: buff.ly/znLWXzs

A photo of two sunfish in water. One swims at an approaching sunfish to defend its spawn bed, which is essentially a concave depression in the pond bed layered with small stones.

A photo of two sunfish in shallow pond water.

Out pond fishing last week with my son. Skunked him 7-0. Had a good time watching some sunfish defend their spawn beds. Such bloviating behavior from these little guys.😁

😁 most definitely will!

A view off the end of a dock (a bench is on a platform), out into the lake. The sun has set. The trees around the distant shoreline are dark. The remaining sunlight reflects hues of orange, yellow and white against the clouds and into the still lake. If you listen carefully you can hear the call of loons in the distance. I know it’s a photo, just use your imagination.

Water reflecting
The days last photons of light
Until tomorrow
#Photography

There have been several breakthroughs this year already. I’m positive we are making serious inroads on this deadly disease!

🤣😂🤣
I hear ya. Science is filled with acronyms like the stock page. We shorten everything.

Wow. She was one of the lucky ones. Most people (85%+) diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma have inoperable disease. Probably had a Whipple.

I have heard about this. I believe they are using mRNA for vaccines against the patient’s tumor. The drug I am alluding to is an inhibitor of a kinase that is overexpressed in cancer cells.

A meme showing a mother and two kids around a table. The text on the photo reads: “Mom, why are we rich?” “Because your dad sold antibodies that cross-react with everything except the target.”

This is for all my science followers out there, since many of the others won’t really get it, w/o a backstory. Just know, a certain company’s antibodies really SUCK! We all know it, but continue to get lured in like Charlie Brown kicking the football that Lucy is holding.

Thanks, CJ! It’s fantastic to see something like this make it all the way to the clinic.

Sorry. No. GSK stands for Glycogen Synthase Kinase. Unfortunately, due to the limit I ended up using the acronym. My bad. This is a protein that is widely expressed in all cells, but is aberrantly overexpressed in cancer cells where it regulates tumor cell survival, and proliferation.

I wouldn’t expect any, bud! I’m sitting on ‘dock of the bay’ right now. Canadian wildfire smoke could make for an interesting sunset. Have a great evening!

Yes.

Thanks, Jean.
Just spoke with some money men the other day about the target and the asset. The company is looking to raise a volume of cash to run a phase 3. Fingers crossed.🤞

Damn, Vinny.
I love all of these lake photos. I wish I had some of my own.😉

The FDA has given it ‘orphan drug’ designation in pancreatic cancer and Ewing sarcoma but the target (GSK-3 beta) is highly overexpressed and active in a number of other cancers.