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Carolyn Rasmussen

@carolynplants.bsky.social

Prof of Plant Cell Biology at UC Riverside. Views are my own. She/her

610 Posts3705 Follower3625 Folgt
Mark Peifer (He, him)@peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 6d ago

Earlier this year the scientific community successfully fought back on dramatic changes in Federal funding proposed by the Trump Administration.Now another RFI is proposing substantial changes that would damage peer review. This letter from SDB President Helen McNeill lays out the issue clearly 1/n

Dear SDB Members, I am writing you now to ask everyone to respond to a proposed change to the way that grant review information at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is communicated to grant applicants, institutions, and NIH program staff. This is your opportunity to provide feedback on the process that selects our grants for funding. The proposed change means that individuals, institutes and NIH staff will no longer receive the final overall impact score or percentile score that reflects the scientific opinion of a panel of experts. Currently, three reviewers provide their detailed opinion of a grant, and then the entire panel asks questions, can examine figures, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a grant, and then members all independently score. The final overall impact score reflects this discussion and careful consideration of the entire scientific panel. The proposed change is to now simply divide the scored grants into three categories: Scored applications would be grouped into three broad categories - “Most Competitive (top 25%),” “Competitive (26%-50%),” and “Not Discussed”. The motivation for the change is that decisions would now focus on the comments of reviewers, not the score of the grant to determine which grants to support. However, the current mechanism allows for scores and comments to be considered. Thus, removing the score component from NIH staff makes selection of which grants to fund more burdensome for NIH staff.The loss of detailed scores will also make it more difficult for researchers to assess how competitive an application was and determine whether to revise and resubmit it. An application ranked top 2% and one ranked 24th% would receive the same label, even if the scientific panel viewed them quite differently. Meanwhile, applications ranked 25th%and 26th% would be placed in different categories because of a tiny difference that NIH itself says should not be treated as meaningful. The proposal would erase potentially important differences while creating arbitrary new dividing lines. This is a dramatic loss of transparency in the scientific review process. Under the new plan, principal investigator(s), applicant institutions, NIH program staff, ICO leadership, and the relevant NIH Advisory Council will no longer have access to the final overall score. NIH is explicitly asking for input on this particular question. This is a Request for Information (RFI), not simply an announcement of a policy that has already been finalized. NIH says comments will be used to inform the final recommendation, including implementation and communication. Please comment here: https://rfi.grants.nih.gov/?s=6a2b1c22c3fcfda46e0badd2 Deadline for response receipt is October 13, 2026, 11:59 PM ET.
Dave Baltrus 🦦@surtlab.bsky.social · 3w ago

My Uni has had serious money issues for past 5+ years. the kind that mean my Dept has lost 14 faculty in that time and next replacement hire scheduled for 2030 (not joking) The University President just sent an email that he’s hiring a new “Special Advisor to the President” to help solve problem

Carolyn Rasmussen@carolynplants.bsky.social · 3w ago

Check out this summary of our recent paper in JCS journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Cutting corn-ers: KATANIN p60 guides asymmetric division plane positioning in maize

decorative imageIn plant cells preparing to divide, a cytoskeletal ring called the preprophase band (PPB) forms to mark the future plane of division. Later, a microtubule (MT) array called the phragmo...

journals.biologists.com

Journal of Cell Science@jcellsci.bsky.social · 3w ago

Also in Issue 17: - Research Highlights on asymmetric cell division and clathrin-mediated endocytosis - Review on the cell biology of cancer dormancy - Plus, four ‘First person’ interviews journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13...

Figure showing regulation of dormancy emergence of DTCs in the lung microenvironment. On arrival in the lung, DTCs lodge in the alveolar and perivascular niches. Dormancy is enforced by several converging cues. These include contact with AT1 lung epithelium (which promotes survival and restrains growth), anti-proliferative action of vascular endothelium-derived TSP-1, sequestration of tumor-derived ECM remodeling enzymes (e.g. LOXL2) by endothelial PEAR1, and activation of a NAS1-driven NR2F1-based dormancy transcriptional program by stromal cell-derived BMP. NR2F1 mediates suppression of ΔNp63, the pro-proliferative isoform of p63 (TP63). Reactivation (indicated by the proliferation marker Ki67) occurs when tumor cells interact with AT2 epithelium (which provides pro-proliferative signals). Additional reactivation cues include tumor-derived factors tenascin-C and Coco (which antagonizes BMP to release the dormancy brake via integrin-dependent FAK signaling; phosphorylated FAK is indicated as pFAK), sprouting angiogenesis (which supplies TGF-β1 and periostin), and activation of integrin-dependent ERK–MLCK signaling triggered by alterations in the ECM (e.g. fibrotic ECM and/or remodeling of laminin by NET-derived proteases like MMP9). Together, these opposing endothelial, epithelial, stromal and matrix inputs determine whether DTCs remain dormant or undergo metastatic outgrowth in the lung. Created in BioRender by Sharma, I., 2026. https://BioRender.com/j23rlwk. This figure was sublicensed under CC-BY 4.0 terms.
Omaya Dudin 𓂆 ¦🍉¦🦠¦🔬¦@dudinlab.bsky.social · 3w ago

Must admit, ever since I was a kid, I’ve dreamt of seeing microscopy images of #protists in @lemonde.fr Today, protists are everywhere, and several images were taken by the team. And seeing #ichthyosporeans there too?! 🥹 One step closer to showcasing the beauty of the invisible microbial world. 🔬✨

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Le Monde@lemonde.fr · 3w ago

Plongée dans le monde fascinant de micro-organismes unicellulaires doués d’intelligence