New preprint on conserved BCG in myxobacteria from Cole Steven's lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Constance Bailey
@constancebailey.bsky.social
#SynBio and #naturalproducts. Enzymology, heterologous expression, and bioengineering. Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Synthetic Biology at the University of Sydney .
The Extraordinary Benefit of Nature’s Chemistry to Health, Society, and the Economy | Journal of Natural Products pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
The Extraordinary Benefit of Nature’s Chemistry to Health, Society, and the Economy
The connection between humans and Nature’s chemistry is astonishing and built into the very fabric of our genetic code. In this Perspective, we focus on bioactive molecules from microbes, plants, and ...
pubs.acs.org
NIH is freezing funds for research abroad, threatening thousands of projects. 9/10 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Exclusive: NIH to suspend funds for research abroad as it overhauls policy
Move by US biomedical agency threatens thousands of projects on infectious diseases, cancer and more.
nature.com
Important story of NSF cuts by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social, & important perspective from @alondra.bsky.social: ‘These accounts of how we are decimating with a thousand cuts the science & research ecosystem are devastating… It’s sort of cutting off the future.’ www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
Amid DOGE-induced turmoil, National Science Foundation in crisis
The $9 billion agency, which exists solely to fund researchers, projects and facilities outside its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters, is hitting reverse on its mission.
washingtonpost.com
Affected by the foreign subawards policy? Help run clinical trials abroad on a project with a subaward? I want to hear how this policy impacts you. Send me a message on Signal at mkozlov .01 or email me at maxkozlov [at] protonmail [dot] com. You can stay anonymous.
There's an open call for editors (5-year terms) at Applied and Environmental Microbiology, for those of you who might be interested: journals.asm.org/journal/aem/...
journals.asm.org
I know conservation biologists have ethical concerns about Colossal Biosciences, etc., but one thing is for sure: DAFT and the OGTR are never ever going to let a GMO thylacine-like animal that is actually a GMO numbat or whatever wander the bush in Tassie.
I injured my thumb tripping on a run this morning, and it is kinda annoying typing, but I am really glad that I am not a PhD student/postdoc anymore because pipetting would be literally impossible.
Great news: NIH postbac program is recruiting again! If your grad school plans were affected by program cutbacks or admissions freezes this year I highly encourage you to apply, this could be a perfect opportunity. Please repost. www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...
training.nih.gov
NSF will award ~1,000 instead of their usual ~2,000 Graduate Research Fellowships this year. NSF slashes prestigious PhD fellowship awards by half www.nature.com/articles/d41...
NSF slashes prestigious PhD fellowship awards by half
US National Science Foundation announces lowest number of Graduate Research Fellowship Programme recipients in 15 years.
nature.com
Not to throw rocks at glass houses (because I definitely am guilty of this) but sometimes synthetic biology is so vibey. Sometimes people are just doing a pretty basic genetic experiment and dressing it up in technical futuristic jargon.
🧪 #ScienceSky and #AcademicSky: We’re trying to learn more about the real-life scope and impact of the Trump administration terminating NIH grants. Here's how you can help our reporting 👇
Did You Work on a Terminated NIH Grant? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You.
The National Institutes of Health is canceling grants that are seen as conflicting with the Trump administration’s priorities. We want to hear from researchers who have been affected.
propublica.org
I worry about all the focus on commercialision from the ARC here in Oz for the same reason
Sebastian S. Cocioba@atinygreencell.bsky.social · last yr.Gasp, private investors cant justify paying for basic research with no immediate path to commercialization. It's almost like innovation relies intrinsically on fundamental basic research and only way to do that at scale is with nation-scale subsidy. What a shocker 🙃
This came to mind after hearing recent discussions on podcasts etc. about the rise of Chinese innovation with companies like Byd and Xaomi, Byd's accession while Tesla flounders and Elon Musk is DODGE-ing, etc. China has won biotech: thehill.com/opinion/tech....
thehill.com
Big ups to ACS for providing complimentary childcare at #ACSFall2025. Attending conferences is enough logistical work as-is. Not having worry about week-long arrangements for kiddos makes a huge difference, especially to early-career folks who are more likely to have young kids.
Nobel Prizes by country and year. The dominance of Germany is striking every time. Before 1933, that is. And the utter dominance of America (and the UK) after 1945.
See this chart for one stark example: NIH funding has dramatically slowed down. Grant awards are down *$3 billion* so far, compared to same time period last year I asked the White House to explain. “This is not a researcher entitlement program,” said an official, defending their new approach.
Countries that have issued a travel advisory this year warning their citizens about visiting the United States: Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Ireland Netherlands New Zealand United Kingdom
Imagine if those funds went to paying students, technicians, or postdocs to do more research. 🧪
Eric Schares@eschares.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨 Preprint! We combine our recent open dataset of #APC prices with the article counts per journal-year from #OpenAlex to estimate how much the academic community has paid in APCs over the last 5 years. A. $8.349 billion ($8.968 B in 2023 USD) $2.5B in 2023 alone. arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551 #metasci
biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Here’s a paper that was many years in the making. The idea that the climate can affect the thermodynamic mechanism of binding due to the temperature dependence of the entropy term is interesting- we see gradual shift in binding mode along evo trajectory…
Studies terminated at NIH: -On reducing asthma from mold -On prenatal risks & screening -On statins influence on dementia -On the safety/risk of gender-affirming care -On how Covid vax outcomes & disparities -On improving HIV care -Training programs for the next generation of scientists
taggs.hhs.gov
Heterologous expression of complex BCGs has a lot of analogies to total synthesis. Easy to get "so what, why did you spend time doing this" if it's a target that is not exciting enough from a biological activity standpoint.
Excited to speak at the Cell Free Systems conference this year. Even better, I can stay with my parents in my childhood home who live minutes away from Northwestern! www.aiche.org/sbe/conferen...
3rd Cell Free Systems Conference
The Cell Free Systems Conference will focus on understanding, harnessing and expanding the capabilities of biological systems without living intact cells.
aiche.org
Cell free people--anyone notice that E. coli tRNA is no longer being sold by Sigma: sigmaaldrich.com/AU/en/produc... Any advice for alternative suppliers?
sigmaaldrich.com
I've been noticing that despite having a larger follower count here (probably due to starter packs) and being followed by many of the same people here as Twitter/X, I still have more engagement over there. What do we need to do to boost the algo here?