Suckjoon Jun’s lab at UCSD
@junlab.bsky.social
We study quantitative microbial cell physiology. https://jun.ucsd.edu “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” -African Proverb
Remembering the life of Brandon Jutras gone far too soon www.nhscotthanekamp.com/obituaries/D...
Obituary information for Dr. Brandon Lyon Jutras
View Dr. Brandon Lyon Jutras's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.
nhscotthanekamp.com
Kudos to @science.org for this self-analysis of the peer review process. These kind of data are never shared and don't have to be. Wildly refreshing to see it out in the open. Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals
Analyses of deidentified data reveal complex interactions that quantify success at elite general science journals.
science.org
Academic advice travels downhill: manage your supervisor, publish early, protect your time. Where is the genre in which early-career researchers advise the people who hire, fund and judge them? New post 👇 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/the-first-...
The first curriculum
Academic survival guides teach junior researchers how to live with the judgements of senior scholars. No corresponding genre gives young researchers authority to advise the people who judge them.
academicrenewal.substack.com
Arguably the most important installment in this series so far. Will resonate with many idealists who see academia clearly, yet remain committed to it. Perhaps will also help mentees glimpse the weight their mentors carry.
Paul Rainey@paulbrainey.bsky.social · 3w agoMy postdoc director called my work "phenomenological" and forbade it. I walked to a museum, found Tinbergen had shared a Nobel for work of exactly that kind, and finished the study anyway. On temperament, luck, and what the system selects against 👇 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/a-certain-...
This is important.
Paul Rainey@paulbrainey.bsky.social · 4w agoPeer review is unpaid. Click "claim credit" for a review and that record enters a database owned by Clarivate, the company that also sells the impact factor. Your free labour becomes their inventory, and once anonymised, raw material for profit. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/who-owns-y...
1/ 🧬🔬 How does one cell become an entire animal? We can now film it in 3D 🐟, but turning those movies into accurate cell tracks is brutally hard. Enter our new #Kaggle challenge: $60K prize pool, to help crack 3D+time cell tracking at scale! 🧵👇 www.kaggle.com/competitions... @biohub.org
1/ Goodbye, New York. We are going to miss you.
Public money should not flow automatically to journals that fail to meet acceptable standards of editorial quality, transparency and accountability. In this post I ask what a journal accreditation system might look like & how it could work. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/building-a...
Building a journal accreditation system
How journals could be assessed without favouring size, wealth or brand
academicrenewal.substack.com
1/ Out today in Science (@science.org): a result a decade in the making, and one that changed how I think about what cells are doing when they grow. We found a bacterium that grows slower than it could. And we found the molecular switch that lets us reverse it.
Amongst it all: science is the most humanising of activities. It crosses boundaries, breaks boundaries & reminds that no matter our individual backgrounds or professions, we all delight in figuring out how things work. And fundamentally, we are all scientists: marvel at the curiosity of kids.
PlantEvolution 🌱🌾@plantevolution.bsky.social · 2mo agoMy comments on proposed OMB Rule "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance", written from the perspective of someone who became a naturalized citizen 25 yrs ago bc he believed in the US as a country of exceptional openness, opportunity & merit-based advancement drive.google.com/file/d/14Bbb...
“…early-career researchers in particular need to survive in the system as it is now… speak more openly with them about the difference between scholarship & career strategy, helping them navigate [] realities /wo pretending that the system is healthy – or accepting that it cannot be made well again.“
Paul Rainey@paulbrainey.bsky.social · 2mo agoOur piece about academic renewal is now out in the Times Higher Education. It deals with a familiar topic on which there have been multiple high-level declarations. We need to move beyond the symbolic. Early career researchers, pls read + ask questions! www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/academ...
Our piece about academic renewal is now out in the Times Higher Education. It deals with a familiar topic on which there have been multiple high-level declarations. We need to move beyond the symbolic. Early career researchers, pls read + ask questions! www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/academ...
Academic renewal needs pressure from below and responsibility from above
High-level declarations pledging not to misuse metrics in research assessment are important, but they are far from enough. Senior academics, in particular, must use their influence to ensure instituti...
timeshighereducation.com
much needed forum
Paul Rainey@paulbrainey.bsky.social · 2mo agoI’ve started Academic Renewal, a Substack on research culture, scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. The first post asks how private concerns about academic life might become an open conversation about incentives, assessment and responsibility. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/why-academ...
A future scholar (bottom left) at Arvind Murugan (@amurugan.bsky.social, top right)’s physical learning seminar at the Flatiron Institute in NYC today.
Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr
After USDA request, Indiana plant biologist locked out of lab by school
Move comes after Roger Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs
scim.ag
Congratulations to Haochen Fu on receiving the Jean Fort Dissertation Prize at UCSD! Haochen is our most recent PhD graduate and has just started at Princeton as a Lewis-Sigler Scholar. 🎉🎉🎉 lsi.princeton.edu/people/haoch...
Haochen Fu
Bacterial physiology, plasmid biology, single-cell imaging, precision control
lsi.princeton.edu
Applications are due in 2 weeks for our Pivot Fellowship! This opportunity enables today’s brightest minds to apply their talents and expertise to a new field. Deadline is May 14, 2026. https://www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/pivot-fellowship/
Pivot Fellowship
Pivot Fellowship on Simons Foundation
simonsfoundation.org
To be clear about what just happened: The Trump administration sent armed FBI agents to abduct a 78-year-old doctor and former federal public health worker from his home and stripped him because the brainwashed right-wing base, hopped up on a literal conspiracy theory, wants scalps.
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak “This country has given me endless opportunities…: The America we inhabit today bears almost no resemblance to the country I chose all those years ago” newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-nobel...
I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country.
Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.
newsletter.ofthebrave.org
Excited to share our structural insights into how microtubules differentially guide phosphorylation of kinetochore-microtubule regulators, Ndc80 and MCAK, for chromosome segregation. Heroic efforts by Yiming Niu with a fun collaboration with Jennifer DeLuca lab! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Microtubules guide Aurora B substrate geometries for accurate chromosome segregation
Cryo-EM reveals how kinetochore-microtubule attachment is regulated by Aurora B substrate accessibility on microtubules.
science.org
The Rockefeller University @rockefeller.edu · 4mo agoMicrotubules have been viewed as passive structural supports, but a study from @hirofunabiki.bsky.social in @science.org Advances redefines microtubules as active regulators, helping to prevent abnormalities in the number of chromosomes, a hallmark of cancer. 🔗: https://bit.ly/4v8miCC
International Congress in Biological Physics, Genova, Italy, 28 June to 3 July 2026. URGENT: submission deadline 25 March. Session topics, plenary and invited speakers: www.icbp2026.org IUPAP Physics of Life medal awarded at meeting. Spread the word - and act quickly to submit your work.
ICBP 2026
We proudly invite experts in biological physics worldwide to the International Conference on Biological Physics 2026 (ICBP 2026) in the magnificent Italian city of Genoa from June 28 to July 5, 2026
icbp2026.org
I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗 beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...
Biological Laboratory | LEGO® Ideas
This is a two-floor realistic Biological Laboratory building. In this design, I try to tell stories about biologists, introduce biology concepts to general publ…
beta.ideas.lego.com
BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.
Out in @physrevlett.bsky.social: @sfuphysics.bsky.social postdoc Antonio Patrón Castro (in tight collaboration with my colleague John Bechhoefer) pushes our information engine to higher dimensions! doi.org/10.1103/xwjd...
Harnessing Higher-Dimensional Fluctuations in an Information Engine
We study the optimal performance of an information engine consisting of an overdamped Brownian bead confined in a controllable, $d$-dimensional harmonic trap and additionally subjected to gravity. The...
doi.org
Read the Save HHS open letter! www.savehhs.org/letter-we-wi...
Letter: We Will Not Be Pawns — Save HHS
HHS current and former staff, unified under the name Save HHS, have written an open letter to members of the US Senate, calling for a freeze on funding for ICE and USCBP. The letter asks Senators to s...
savehhs.org
Defending PhD student, looking over their thesis: “If I knew then what I know now, I could’ve done all of this in like 9 months.” A thread about my favorite pioneering cave explorers and why I don’t think AI will ever “solve” biology.
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell
Excited to announce that our Econophysiology workshop has been accepted at the BIRS in 2027 🇨🇦 Co-organized with Hidde de Jong, Edda Klipp, & Matt Scott, we will bring economists, biologists, and physicists together to build a shared conceptual language across disciplines. Stay tuned! www.birs.ca
