KenOliveLab
@kenolivelab.bsky.social
Ast. Dean for Graduate Curricula and Asc. Prof. of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Comments are my own and do not reflect Columbia positions. Dedicated to educating scientists and curing pancreatic cancer.
This is one of the most remarkable stories of technology benefitting society that I've read in years. Anyone looking for a positive read today should check it out. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
How Phones Alerted Millions Before Earthquakes Shook Venezuela
Millions of people in Venezuela and surrounding countries received early warning alerts to their phones up to two minutes before back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday.
nytimes.com
I fell behind on posting. Day 4 of #CSHLPDAC26 included lectures by Danni Engle (Model Systems), Laura Wood (early lesions), Bryson Katonah (epidemiology), and me (mouse models and translational research).
Day 3 of #CSHLPDAC2026! Cancer immunology day, with a tag-team lineup from Stephanie Dougan and Kate Byrne.
I just mis-clicked and hit Accept on a paper review that I meant to decline. 🤦♂️ Sigh.
Day 2 of the CSHL PDAC. Marina Pasca di Magliano kicks off with an intro to the TME, Nina Steele discusses endothelial cells, @marasherman.bsky.social covers nerves, and @tme-caf-ecm.bsky.social explains the ECM. Capped off by tumor plasticity and subtypes by @hccvpdac.bsky.social.
Really excited to welcome this year's class of students to the 2026 Cold Spring Harbor course on Pancreatic Cancer! Kicking off the course with a day of clinical education from @anirbanmaitra.bsky.social, @filbednar.bsky.social , Andy Aguirre, @manciaslab.bsky.social & @benstanger01.bsky.social.
My lab had a watch party for Brian Wolpin's plenary lecture at ASCO reporting the results of the RASolute 302 Phase 3 trial of daraxonrasib in previously-treated metastatic PDAC. TWO standing ovations. So incredibly excited to see these results.
I swear some of my lab members like to torture me by holding off telling me about their results. When I was a student, I had NO CHILL - the second I had a result, I wanted to tell everyone about it. Now my students are like "oh, I'll tell you about that next week in lab meeting". WTF!?!?!
This
Trudy G. Oliver@tgoliver.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe govt decision to make us certify every Biosketch & Other Support page is a massive waste of time and energy. They should just assume if it’s submitted, we take responsibility for it. Period. Creating bigger problems where there was no problem. Constant chaos, when we could be doing #research
Super proud of my postdoc, Alvaro Curiel-Garcia @alvarocuriel.bsky.social for his Rising Star lecture at #AACR26. Alvaro has a Nature Genetics cofirst author paper in press, and another 1st author manuscript that is in revision, also at Nature Genetics. He's on the job market folks!
Daraxonrasib median OS 13.2 months vs. 6.7 for chemotherapy. Phase 3 randomized controlled trial. I'm so happy. ir.revmed.com/news-release...
ir.revmed.com
We are seeking a highly motivated scientist with expertise in mouse embryo manipulation and the generation of genetically engineered mouse models. This is a permanent position with competitive compensation. Contact me via direct message if interested. Please share!
Did you know pancreatic tumors plan their travels? Learn more about this fascinating new discovery: www.cancer.columbia.edu/news/pancrea...
The language on multiyear funding (MYF) is ineffective. Final bill anchors MYF to 2025 instead of 2024. This means MYF will likely continue at the same rate we saw last year, where NCI's payline from ~10% to 4%. This is incredibly harmful to the US research workforce - especially early career.
Ian L Morgan@ianlmorgan.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe final LHHS bill with funding for Health and Human Services is out this morning! At first glance, it looks similar to the Senate bill with a roughly 1% increase in total funding for the NIH. While it doesn't match inflation, it avoids many of the problems in the presidential budget request. 1/n
🧪IMPORTANT! This graphic explains how science all over the US is funded. Congress approved a 2% increase in the #NIH budget for FY 26. Buried in the bill- Shift of ~40% of grants to MYF. This will still result in a 35% DECREASE in the NUMBER of grants funded per yr. Russel Vought is behind this.
The NIH's MYF policy in 2025 resulted in 4000 fewer grants and fellowships that touched every area of biology and medicine; continuing it in 2026 would be disastrous for science, technology and health in the United States 🧪 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine
A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.
nytimes.com
Mark Histed@markhisted.org · 7mo agoSo what can we do? Start now and demand no votes for this bill unless the MYF provision is returned — to ban MYF at NIH this year, to set it to zero. We can still do this. But if scientists stick their heads in the sand and deny reality, we cannot even begin to fight. Realistic optimism.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
It is a PROBLEM that the new MANDATORY ScienCV platform does not (as far as I can tell) enable one to indicate co-first or co-senior authorship in your bibliography. This is a massive disincentive to collaborative science and it needs to be fixed.
NIH - you can ONLY use our proprietary system to generate your biosketch. Simply typing it up isn't allowed. Ready GO! Everyone has to start using it RIGHT NOW! Also NIH - what do you mean they ScienCV is barely functional and hangs every time you use it? no idea what your talking about...
Dear journal editors, what do we think about including summary figures in a cover letter? I've never done this, but a co-author wants to include one for our latest manuscript. Helpful in illustrating the case? Weird and gauche? What say ye?
Finally, a huge thanks to all of our incredible students at #CSHLPDAC25. This was a standout class who leaned into the science, the questions, and... UNO! Look forward to seeing you all at meetings for many years to come!
So, I dropped the ball in my #CSHLPDAC25 posts. Huge shout out to all of the instructors I didn't get to highlight with photos, including: Ingunn Stromnes (Immunology I), David DeNardo (Immunology II), Bryson Katona (Epidemiology and Early Detection)...
Computational biologist extraordinaire Dr. Elana Fertig @fertiglab.bsky.social asks "what's your QUESTION?" Please be nice to your friendly neighborhood computational scientist!
In our second talk on cancer-associated fibroblasts, Dr. Mara Sherman from MSKCC digs into the functional relationships of CAFs with other cells in pancreatic cancer at #CSHLPDAC25.
Next up, course director (and fellow Hedgehog pathway afficianado) Dr. Marina Pasca de Magliano from UMich gave the first of two lectures on fibroblasts in the pancreas, preneoplasia, and PDAC.
Dr. Laura Wood gave a fascinating lecture on precursor lesions and the spectacular 3D pathology tools that she and her extended team at JHU have developed to quantify pancreatic pathology.
Kicking off the morning with end-to-end coverage of gastroenterology for #PDAC, from the inimitable Dr. Ben Stanger @benstanger01.bsky.social! #CSHLPDAC25
Radiology and Radiation Oncology - Dr. Eugene Koay from MD Anderson tells us they both are RAD!
