Deeply honored to be named a 2026 Beckman Young Investigator #BYI!🧬 This recognition reflects the creativity and hard work of my incredible lab, and we are so grateful and excited for the Foundation's support as we tackle the next generation of continuous evolution.

Beckman Foundation@beckman-foundation.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Congratulations to our 2026 Beckman Young Investigator Awardees! Twelve Researchers Selected to Receive $7.2M in Total Science Funding for Cutting-edge Research www.beckman-foundation.org/latest-news/... #BYI #beckmanresearch #newlyawarded

:: deep exhale ::

On top of the slowdown in grantmaking I wrote about last week - this is another deeply worrisome trend for scientists, physicians, patients, families, and basically anyone who wants new treatments and new tools to promote health. 🆘🧪🥼 open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

I Wrote Research Funding Announcements for NIH for 22 Years. This Year They’ve Published 14

How NIH went from 756 funding announcements to 14 in two years — and what it means for every disease that depends on federal research

open.substack.com

Evolution navigated billions of challenges to get to us to where we are today. Directed evolution compresses this to a 1D axis. Imagine if you could sample 200 dimensions at once, with data to boot 📈 First @chorylab.bsky.social PACE preprint on our new system to tackle this: bit.ly/turboprance

A Purpose-Built Open Source Liquid Handler for Industry-Class Automated Experiments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.02.709168v1

An autonomous system for multi-objective continuous evolution at scale https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.02.709196v1

NIH research grant funding rates plummeted in 2025. Agency acknowledges young investigators are losing out as result of multiyear funding policy imposed by White House. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH research grant funding rates plummeted in 2025

Agency acknowledges young investigators are losing out as result of multiyear funding policy imposed by White House

science.org

So proud this multi-year effort is finally out. Led by my exceptional collaborator Joanna Buchthal, who put her blood, sweat, and literal tears into making a real impact for communities impacted by Lyme disease. bit.ly/MAT-tracking More papers soon. Learn more & support: miceagainstticks.com

☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️🐝☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️

Happy holidays from all of us in the Chory Lab and our lab neighbors at Duke!☃️🎉 @chorylab.bsky.social @dukeubme.bsky.social

Exciting opportunity @pasteur.fr for junior scientists aiming to create their research group !

Institut Pasteur | 130 years of biomedical research@pasteur.fr · 8mo ago

🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines Special interest: AI methodologies 📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026 👥 2-12 years post-PhD Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea... #JobOpportunity #Research

A foundation model for microbial growth dynamics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.01.691707v1

The weirdest move is automated letter-request systems sending emails with no deadline included.

2011 v 2025. Variance not statistically significant.

Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on. (Please repost to reach a broad audience.)

We're thrilled to announce SeqHub, an AI-enabled platform for biological sequence analysis. SeqHub brings together sequence search, genome annotation, and data sharing in one place.

Teamwork makes the scream work. Happy Halloween from the Chory lab! 🦖🎃👻

Best group costume 2025! #JurassicLab 🦕🦖 @dukeubme.bsky.social @chorylab.bsky.social

The Crick is looking for new junior group leaders! Any postdocs or early career researchers wanting to be our colleagues should apply 👍

The Francis Crick Institute@crick.ac.uk · 10mo ago

We're now recruiting early career group leaders at the Crick to lead ambitious research programmes and explore bold scientific questions. Hear our Director, Edith Heard, explain why the Crick is a unique place for curiosity-driven research. Apply now ➡️ www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Interested in using microbes to degrade plastics? We made the discovery that two breakdown products of PET, MHET and BHET, are readily taken up by E. coli cells Our latest preprint exploits this surprise to realize improvements in cell-based upcycling www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Robust cellular transformations of PET deconstruction products by import of glycol esters

Efforts to transform polyethylene terephthalate (PET) deconstruction products using live cells have been limited by terephthalic acid (TPA) uptake. Here, we used an intracellular carboxylate reduction...

biorxiv.org

The things Apple will do to procrastinate improving Siri

Alexis Verger 🧬🧫🧪@alexis-verger.cpesr.fr · 11mo ago

iFold, sorry, SimpleFold, by Apple arxiv.org/html/2509.18...

Reviewer #3: Major Comments: 1) The absence of ref Ahlqvist et al. (2024, JAMA) calls the manuscript’s central claims into question. This selective omission undermines the work’s credibility. Major revisions required prior to resubmission. ::cough peer review cough:: @washingtonpost.com

Gregg Gonsalves@gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 11mo ago

The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy and Children’s Risk of Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability

This nationwide cohort study with sibling control analysis examines the association of acetaminophen use during pregnancy with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability.

jamanetwork.com

Years in the making — Mice Against Ticks is on @60Minutes this Sunday! 🎥 Sneak peek: www.tiktok.com/@60minutes/v... 🌐 Join the fight! miceagainstticks.org Huge cheers to our amazing team, brilliant collaborators & island communities for bringing this story to life! 💛 #LymeDisease #MITMediaLab

Researchers are attempting something unprecedented: using genetic engineering to curb Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness spreading across the U.S. Instead of targeting deer or ticks, they hope to rele...

TikTok video by 60 Minutes

tiktok.com

"The PI does not seem to have experience with these downstream biochemical assays, and no collaborators were identified for cell-based applications.” lol.

As stressful as it is to run a laboratory in the US right now, my thoughts are often with the NIH staff living in the awful chaos trying to preserve the whole enterprise. I’m grateful for every moment they choose not to give up. These people are the only thing keeping it from entirely collapsing.

:snaps: :snaps: :snaps: Just loved this, @erika-alden.bsky.social We’re obsessed with better ways to track & share science. This ELN+LIMS built in Notion + Airtable is usable, readable, and full of real stats & insights. and it's pretty! erikaaldendeb.substack.com/p/an-ai-read...

With NIHs new 6-grant/PI cap (incl resub) we’re locked out for a year. We submitted duplicates bc FOAs were being pulled mid-sub & were told to submit to the parent. I get that POs are overwhelmed, but we’re all trying to stay afloat. MultiPI collabs will suffer. Welp, guess I’ll get my wkends back.

Drug Monkey@drugmonkey.bsky.social · last yr.

I am instantly intrigued.... grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

I saw it firsthand at the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting--international young scientists welcomed and recruited in Germany and elsewhere. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

America’s Brain Drain Could Become the World’s Brain Gain

Research-funding cuts and immigration changes threaten some of America’s economic advantages.

wsj.com