“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” — Thomas Paine
Kris Willis
@kawillis.bsky.social
Systems biologist, data scientist, policy wonk, runner. Former NIH-funded investigator, former NIH program official. Founder, Woodley Park Institute. Writing about understanding and accelerating scientific progress at https://theprogressbarwpi.org
TFW you realize the heat-stable version of the smallpox vaccine, used for global smallpox eradication, was invented by a graduate student as part of his MD thesis pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Similarly heparin was discovered by a second-year medical student, in a project originally designed to isolate pro-coagulation factors (the opposite activity of heparin) www.ebsco.com/research-sta...
Saloni@scientificdiscovery.dev · 3d agoTFW you realize the heat-stable version of the smallpox vaccine, used for global smallpox eradication, was invented by a graduate student as part of his MD thesis pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
On August 1, 1931, Harriet Creighton and Barbara McClintock published the first experimental proof that genes are physically located on chromosomes—a discovery that transformed genetics. 1/3🧵
"guys bob wants to study the venom of the gila monster, what a stupid idea" -- industry, 1990s
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒@eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 5d agoLove this idea that industry should subsidize basic research. Industry famously is great at prioritizing timelines longer than a year or two
Great to see this out in the world!
Ian Hutchins@bihutchins.bsky.social · last wk.How cost-effective are NIH Extramural vs Intramural mechanisms? We did internal analysis at NIH but never published results. Happy to share some answers: Extramural is better for measures like publications and citations; Intramural is better at basic -> clinical translation doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
One of the best things I was taught by my advisor: direct your critique at the work, never the people.
Piali Sengupta@senguptalab.bsky.social · last wk.If you don't like a paper, it is obviously totally fine to point out the issues. But please do NOT make egregious and unpleasant comments about the first author's qualifications. A first author who is usually a trainee. Beyond inappropriate and unprofessional.
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
Fund the Humanities just because. Fund the Humanities for more vicarious intellectual intercourse on Main. Whichever.
Note: “Letters of collaboration should be limited to stating the intent to collaborate or provide material support as described in the application and should not contain endorsements or additional information about or evaluations of the proposed project. “
I-75 Scientist@flscitriguy.bsky.social · last wk.Oh, and Forms J are coming... grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
In writing about our work predicting breakthroughs I’ve often emphasized older discoveries, for the simple reason that they’ve had longer to be recognized. But we’ve made forward looking predictions too. One is for a major advance in understanding cachexia/sarcopenia. By 2027, if past trends hold.
Nature@nature.com · 2w agoScientists are getting closer to understanding the wasting and fatigue that often accompanies cancer go.nature.com/4wjEQjb
This is why we should study the biology of all living organisms, not just a handful of “models”. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio ..
Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · 2w agoCan a cancer become a new species of parasite? Here's my story on the discovery of a transmissible cancer lurking in Vermont catfish. Gift link: nyti.ms/4whfi6v
"Here we show, in a large post-publication peer review database, that research assessment is driven more by differences between evaluators than by difference in the evaluated research. " arxiv.org/abs/2607.09783
Judges matter more than papers in post-publication research assessment
Research assessment relies on expert evaluations, yet human judgement is noisy, and it is unclear whether differences in assessment arise primarily from differences in genuine research quality or from...
arxiv.org
New work from @aaronclauset.bsky.social goes straight to the top of my to-be-read pile 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
Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 2w agoDo You Have to Be Fancy to Get Published in ‘Science’? No, not necessarily. But scientists who work for a prestigious university are three times more likely than their peers who don’t to get published in the top-tier journal, according to a new independent analysis... https://bit.ly/3R4nAiV
Nature research paper: Ketogenic diet mediates intestinal tumorigenesis through lipids not ketones go.nature.com/4fpEvVf
Ketogenic diet mediates intestinal tumorigenesis through lipids not ketones - Nature
A combination of different manipulations in mouse models of spontaneous intestinal adenoma formation dissects the roles of systemic and epithelial ketogenesis versus dietary lipids in ketogenic diet-mediated intestinal tumorigenesis, highlighting the need for nuanced consideration of dietary strategies for cancer prevention.
go.nature.com
A ketogenic diet promotes tumour growth in the small intestine in susceptible mice go.nature.com/3TB3Cge
A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet can feed intestinal tumours
A ketogenic diet promotes tumour growth in the small intestine in susceptible mice. In people, diet advice might need to be tailored to individual cancer risks.
go.nature.com
And it shows in the data—this paper concluded that NIH review norms reward incremental, executable projects arxiv.org/html/2601.15...
The Rise of Large Language Models and the Direction and Impact of US Federal Research Funding
arxiv.org
Over … more than 3 years and seven NIH submissions, in which I presented increasingly substantive preliminary data, I received seven grant proposal rejections, some of which included reviews with scores as disparate as 2 (nearly perfect) and 8 (nearly meritless). www.cell.com/trends/endoc...
Nordic track: NIH dysfunction and my Helsinki recruitment
National Institutes of Health aims to prioritize groundbreaking work that challenges existing views with rigor and reproducibility, and shows potential for translation. Increasingly, however, reviewer...
cell.com
The great hall at the National Academy of Sciences. The domed ceiling reads: “To science: pilot of industry, conqueror of disease, multiplier of the harvest, explorer of the universe, revealer of nature’s laws, eternal guide to truth”
One day last week saw a few big moves in the decades-long quest for an HIV vaccine: -The official end, announced last year, of NIH's flagship HIV vaccine program -Two papers showing that a complex B-cell-training regimen can coax out antibodies that can block infection. cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...
HIV vaccine candidates reach milestone in primates
Multistep vaccination strategy coaches B cells to raise broadly neutralizing antibodies
cen.acs.org
When I was learning R in 2016 (grad school): I started in June and didn't get good until September. It was simple stats, data wrangling, ggplot, and bulk RNA-seq analysis. Fall 2026 I'll teach bioinformatics as my teaching assignment. Things can be difficult at first. Be patient.
This story about trying to manufacture nitrile gloves in the US is a great read - requiring US government agencies to only buy US-made nitrile gloves is going to be challenging when the manufacturers already can’t produce enough and the Iran conflict is making raw materials harder to source
Patent Buddy@patentbuddy.bsky.social · 4w agoAlmost a Billion Dollars Later, the US still Cannot Make a Surgical Glove: archive.is/zcwYo#select...
🧵 This is something scientists and science policy nerds need to think about more if we want to live in an accountable and evidence-based reality. How do we ensure that data remain transparent and accessible over time?
Joe Bak-Coleman@jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 4w agoEvery once in a while you find a paper that does a lot with a simple approach. Today's is from @natematias.bsky.social, Cassidy Waldrip, and @davidlazer.bsky.social. They simply ask how much computational social science can be reproduced? #metascience. journalqd.org/article/view...
Update of my NIGMS funding estimates/data. Thanks to @needhibhalla.bsky.social for pointing to some FY2025 numbers showing funding rates. Funded grant # are from Reporter. FY2026 is in progress. A few points 1/
“move from preprint to peer-reviewed publication leaves the central claims of most abstracts intact, indicating preprints are a reliable source…papers that were never posted as preprints were retracted at roughly twice the rate of those that were…” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Tracking claim changes from preprint to publication across 72,644 biomedical studies using large language models
Preprints now disseminate a large share of biomedical research before peer review. Because they have not yet passed peer review, some scientists regard preprint claims as unverified or potentially unr...
biorxiv.org
Absolutely this. Bell Labs was very productive when I was a kid. But they, as a monopoly, basically had the ability to tax the entire US population. Moreover, while they published or otherwise disseminated some of their findings, they kept some just for A T & T.
Brent Simmons@thrashy.bsky.social · last mo.It's worth pointing out that one of the few private entities to ever do significant amounts of basic research was Bell Labs, a subsidiary of a telecom monopoly at the height of its monopolistic abuses. Basic research is a costly endeavor, and few entities outside gov. can afford it.