Herranz Lab

New approach methodologies: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater The NIH has recently called for expanding use of new approach methodologies (NAMs) to reduce use of animals in research. Arany discusses the need not to forget the irreplaceable aspects of animal rese...

SO much on point, thanks for pushing back Zoltan!

www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

This week's cover @thelancet.com

Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology.

We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

F.D.A. Refuses to Review Moderna Flu Vaccine

NEW: The F.D.A. refused to accept an application from Moderna for its mRNA flu vaccine.

Its reason: The agency did not think Moderna compared the new vaccine to one of the best flu shots available. The company spent $750M+ on a 41,000 person study.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/h...

Is your funding for hematology research "Between a rock and a hard place" #fightforhematology funds from ASH members and fans now provide a new program:
A R C H hematology.org/awards/caree...
NOTE: Are you doing well? .....your donations go 100% to lab support in the ARCH program.

Cite them as referencing to Product#XX or Other Significant Product#YY…add bold, line breaks, etc with html tags.
But overall, not sure who likes this new format tbh…

Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio) YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen

youtu.be/wWKSoxG1K7w?...

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

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

No more calling them ICE. Time to call them Trump’s Death Squads.

Dear Ms. Fogel: I had applied for the position of Director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) on November 21, 2025. I was subsequently informed that I had passed the first level of review (although I have no idea what that means). I am writing today to withdraw my application. As I mentioned in my materials, it would be hard for me to consider this position, even it were to be offered, given two-career issues with my family. I saw this video this morning, posted on the official NIH Director's X account (https://x.com/NIHDirector_Jay/status/2013752138493559265). This made me fully realize that I should not waste my time or yours with my application as I cannot imagine working for NIH leadership that has so little respect for facts, the NIH and its staff, and the American public (and, I might add, themselves). Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely yours, Jeremy M. Berg

I just withdrew my application for the NIGMS Director position....

From A1 percentile 10th to A0 ND…🤯

Line graphs of the new and competitive renewal awards from 2021 to 2026. The fiscal year 2026 curve is essentially zero with only 42 awards compared with more than 1200 through the same date in previous fiscal years.

Here is the curve for new and competitive renewal (Type 1 and Type 2) awards.

This reveals that only very few (42) new and competitive renewal awards have been made thus far in fiscal year 2026.

This compares with more than 1200 through the same date in previous fiscal years.

3/6

How am I supposed to live in the same country with people who believe or say such things, or with people who choose such representatives?

Fundamentally incompatible. This faction of US politics has to be defeated and has to face justice for its actions.

Nutrient requirements of organ-specific metastasis in breast cancer - Nature How the complex interplay between multiple nutrients within the microenvironment dictates potential sites of metastatic cancer growth is explored.

new out in Nature www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🤣

When I explain to people what is involved with writing a successful grant, they simply don’t believe me.

I explained it once to a famous person from Pixar, and he looked me square in the eye and said: You mean all the cancer and Alzheimer’s grants work that way? You’ve gotta be &$%#ing kidding me!

Congrats to both!! @kharaslab.bsky.social @bloodgenes.bsky.social

Inherited resilience to clonal hematopoiesis by modifying stem cell RNA regulation Somatic mutations that increase the fitness of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) drive their expansion in clonal hematopoiesis (CH) and predispose individuals to blood cancers. Population variation in t...

New @science.org today
Discovery of a genomic variant that protects against blood cancer by reducing risk of CHIP (blood stem cell mutation clones, common with aging)
@bloodgenes.bsky.social
@kharaslab.bsky.social
science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Magic Johnson was the grand marshal of the Rose Parade today, and as someone who remembers his November 1991 HIV announcement: if you had told anybody that day that he would be alive and healthy 34+ years later, I don't think they would have believed you. Medicine and research—they work.

A dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in vivo reveals a critical role for histidine in T-ALL Dietary interventions show therapeutic potential in cancer, but systematic comparisons are lacking. We performed a dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in an orthotopic model of NOTCH1-driven T-cell ...

Which amino acid is most required for T cell leukemia?
Did you guess...histidine?
excited to see this out, congrats to Komal and @herranzlab.bsky.social and coauthors!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in vivo reveals a critical role for histidine in T-ALL https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.21.694897v1

Thanks so much to the funding agencies that supported these studies, most prominently @ludwigcancer.bsky.social and The V Foundation.

Now, may the review Gods be with us! 🤞

We believe the potential implications of our findings are huge, not only in leukemia, but also in immune-related diseases and hypercholesterolemia.
This was done as an extremely enjoyable joint collaboration with Raphael Morscher's Lab at the University of Zurich.

Even more fascinating, this phenotype was linked to a translational regulatory axis between histidine levels and cholesterol. Indeed, cholesterol supplementation in the diet partially rescued the antileukemic effects of diets without histidine!

We verified dose-dependent effects of dietary histidine in mouse T-ALL progression, and histidine restriction also showed therapeutic effects in human T-ALL PDXs.
Moreover, histidine restriction led to a massive block in normal T-cell development.

A dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in vivo reveals a critical role for histidine in T-ALL Dietary interventions show therapeutic potential in cancer, but systematic comparisons are lacking. We performed a dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in an orthotopic model of NOTCH1-driven T-cell ...

🚨 📣 NEW PAPER ALERT 🚨📣
Probably, our most exciting discovery yet!!
We performed the first-ever dietary pan-amino acid dropout screen in cancer in vivo using T-ALL as a model, and surprisingly found histidine as critically needed for T-ALL progression
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This about sums it up, folks.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Illegally terminated

Thrilled to be one of this year's @bepositivefdn.bsky.social grant recipients! Thank you so much for your support!

www.bepositive.org/research-ove...

📢Interested in #CancerMetabolism and #leukemia using mouse models in vivo? Come join us!! We're looking for a #postdoc to help us drive one of our multiple currently funded projects! Friends & colleagues, please RT!
👇👇👇

jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/262...