I was on Capitol Hill today with @asbmb.bsky.social urging lawmakers to support strong federal investment in
scientific research and training. Also to support : predictable and sustained funding.
#ASBMBAdvocates #ScienceServesUsAll
Folks from @rnasociety.bsky.social advocating for basic science research funding #ASBMBAdvocates @uwmadisonrna.bsky.social @cassandrahayne.bsky.social
A line graph showing the number of NIH new and competitive renewal awards funded in fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2020-2025. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies below the other curves and appears to be flattening out somewhat. A total of 840 awards have been made in fiscal year 2026.
New and competitive renewal awards
Fewer than 40 new awards were made in the past week, compared to over 100 the previous week.
5/9
This flattening may be due to the apportionment issue covered in the recent Nature story.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
3/9
A line graph showing the number of NIH projects funded in fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2020-2025. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies below the other curves and appears to be flattening out somewhat.
All projects
The fiscal year 2026 appears to be flattening out a bit in the past week.
2/9
New preprint alert! We share some of our recent insights about sequence similarity in IDP protein families and find that conservative substitutions in well-conserved binding motifs of the CITED proteins have big impacts on their ensembles and functions. Take a look!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The commitments in the SAFE Labs Handbook.
A new community-driven lab handbook for reducing conflict and creating more positive and equitable work environments gets strong support from a survey of 200 researchers.
buff.ly/K7CGFLV
Are you looking for female speakers in CryoEM for seminars and conferences? Are you a woman in CryoEM and not yet on the ‚woman in CryoEM‘ list? Find your speakers and add/update name and affiliation! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Job alert ‼️ UChicago Micro is hiring! Open to tenured/tenure track faculty at all levels in any area of microbiology. Come join our amazing and growing department. apply.interfolio.com/174404
What are people using for calling m6A from pacbio revio data? This is for analysis of fiberseq library. Any suggestions appreciated, we are newbies with m6A analysis!
This tracks.
I feel this way about cloning too. If you take the time to do the experiment correctly, you will usually succeed.
Listed are some of the many NIH research training programs that were terminated! Together, these programs supported thousands of trainees, whose careers are now in limbo. Such a great loss for discovery and innovation. We must protect our next generation of scientists!
#HandsOffNIH #ProtectScience
It bears repeating that nearly the entire US enterprise in science and technology has been irreversibly gutted. This is shocking.
All this loss has occurred without any real benefit to the average US citizen. Except we now have the biggest, best funded secret police force perhaps ever.
Yay for us!
Yes. There are a few gems that seem fairly consistent, like conicals, but most is much more.
I calculated that about 14% of our purchases are “luxury” consumables that we could acquire cheaper. Precast gels, commercial cloning (probably cheaper than in-house), premade buffers.
I’ve had a lab for less than 3yrs. In that time the costs of many science reagents have grown faster than inflation. I ordered an antibody today that I paid $383 for in 2023- today with a good promotion, I paid $467. Tariffs on top of that.
Other easy examples:
Grids are up about 30%
Gloves up 25%
Congrats!
Jay Bhattacharya in a hot dog suit. We are all looking for the people who did this
Hearing that all 27 NIH institutes have been instructed to stop using "paylines" in funding decisions starting Oct 1. Order issued in the last 48 hours.
Using paylines means scientific peer reviewers control funding decisions.
Removing them allows more political interference. 🧪
1/
A joint statement with @savehealthresearch.bsky.social on the supreme courts decision today that will pave the way for hundreds of millions of dollars in NIH grant terminations. We are heartbroken and stand with the extramural community during this devastating time.
There is no solace for NIH funded researchers in this Supreme Court decision. Grants that were ripped away on dubious grounds, restored by a reasonable judge are now again terminated by an out-of-control Supreme Court. Labs will shutter, people will lose jobs. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...
Screenshot of Essay from Martin Schwartz on 'Why would anyone want to be a scientist'. An anniversary article from The Company of Biologists published in Journal of Cell Science. The first few lines are: It is difficult to fathom why anyone intelligent enough to be a scientist would actually choose to be one. Doing good science requires the utmost exertion of body, mind and spirit, yet is consistently filled with failure and rejection. But, strange even to myself, I not only don't question the unfavorable risk-to-reward ratio but consider myself astonishingly lucky to be a scientist. There are three fundamental pleasures that have sustained me through 50 years of this madness.
Why would anyone want to be a scientist?
Check out our new Essay from Martin Schwartz: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Annnnd… hoping people actually read them.
I think a good rule of thumb is to spend at least as much time thinking about your data as you did obtaining it. It's common for people to spend a lot less time thinking than doing which gives rise to all kinds of problems.
New Notice about No-Cost Extensions...
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
There’s a nonzero chance you will die from a cancer that could have been curable because people who couldn’t pass 7th grade biology and are scared of things like “mRNA” and “riboflavin” and “walkable cities” decided to make their ignorance everybody else’s problem
Grant terminations have grabbed the headlines and have seen legal action, but even more damaging to the US research enterprise has been the massive decrease in number of research grants issued by federal agencies
NIH has seen a decrease of 57% in the number of awards & 63% in value compared to FY24
text in the link
A big thanks to NC Sen. Thom Tillis for being the first signature on this bipartisan letter urging the Senate to maintain a strong commitment to funding for NIH in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education FY 2026 Appropriations bill. Is your Senator here?
www.aamc.org/research/adh...
Please share widely with friends, family, and foes. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/u...
*International students represent about 15% of all higher ed students.
*They subsidize US students, so expect domestic student costs to increase
*Trump complains about tariffs but he is destroying an industry where the US is a huge net exporter
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/u...
