Mark Namba, PhD

@mdnamba.bsky.social

Postdoc w/ @jbarkerlab.bsky.social Neurobiology of Addiction, HIV, and Glia 🧠🦠💊

🚨 It's that time of year again! 🚨 We are happy to share that we are returning to a nationwide search this year for our SPINE postdoc fellows! Application instructions, meeting registration, and relevant dates can be found in this flyer or at SPINEphilly.org

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We are excited to announce our 2025 SPINE Fellows! We also appreciate everyone who submitted applications this year - it was great to read about everyone's awesome science! If you have not already, please register for SPINE by 9/24 and submit poster abstracts by 9/22 (extended) at spinephilly.org!

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Sharing this to remind my fellow neuro postdocs to consider applying! This is a great opportunity to share your work and network with a super talented and diverse neuroscience community spanning the greater philly area! Please share with anyone you know who might be interested!

P-SPINE@spinephilly.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨Attention Philly Postdocs!🚨 The deadline to apply for P-SPINE 2025 is extended to Friday, 8/22! If you are a senior postdoc that is interested in sharing your work with the Philly neuroscience community, please apply! Please share with anyone who you think might be interested in this opportunity!

My hot take on this Friday - you’re not a real scientist unless you have a graveyard of sticky notes on your desk that you’ll definitely never use but can’t throw away because they obviously have super crucial information on them that you’ll definitely need as soon as you throw them away.

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding. Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24. See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it. 🧵 1/3

Subcommittee Markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

appropriations.senate.gov

Never thought I would feel such a sense of relief to receive an NoA for year 2 of my F32. Shout out to all of the super hard working and dedicated folks at the #NIH who are doing the best they can in these uncertain times.

Nothing like a panic-inducing eRA Commons email erroneously notifying me that I supposedly don’t have reference letters to go with my K99 application to get the blood pumping on a Monday morning. 🫠

Keep in mind: When Trump and White House officials talk about tariffs generating $6 trillion in revenue, they're talking about a massive transfer of wealth from U.S. consumers to the federal government, which plans to use the money for tax cuts for the rich

Defunding SAMHSA won’t make mental health and substance use challenges magically disappear. This isn’t peekaboo. It’s real people with real problems and in a country without other social and health safety nets they are cutting it to provide tax cuts to billionaires.

Drug Policy Facts@drugpolicyfacts.bsky.social · last yr.

"By the end of this week, the staff of the agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, could be cut by 50 percent, according to senior staff members at the agency and congressional aides who attended briefings by Trump officials." www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/h...

I was hoping that my first bsky post would be more cheerful. I recently joined NIH (NIEHS) as a PO. I fought hard for this position and was so excited to support health science from a new vantage point… I picked up my life and moved to NC. Unfortunately, my time at NIEHS was short lived.

It’s been hard lately to focus on doing my job as a postdoc, which is under daily threat at this point. But we are persisting. Out now: “Dissociating the incubation of appetitive and consummatory behavior in a model of oral cocaine self-administration”. Very thankful to all who helped get this done!

biorxiv.org

When cities clear homeless encampments, workers often take people’s belongings — including important documents, survival gear and irreplaceable mementos. Over and over, people across the U.S. told ProPublica they were devastated by such losses: https://propub.li/3WScD3g

A notecard with the prompt, "What is something that was important to you that was taken in a sweep? How did it impact you?" The handwritten statement below says, "My momma’s ashes were displayed on my table in my tent. I came back one day — and EVERYTHING was gone, including her ashes. They were clearly labled 'In loving memory — my mom, my best friend…' and her name. Her ashes were all that I had left of her. No one stored my stuff. I called tons of places and NO ONE knew anything. It is very difficult for me still, everyday. No warning, no remorse, nothing."

Another perk of traveling to AZ for ACNP this year: my partner and I had the chance to catch up with my (bluesky-less) mentor Janet Neisewander and some lab mates for a cute little happy hour. Love these gals to pieces ❤️🥰

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Excited to share new work from Qiaowei Xie's thesis! Qiaowei identified increased cocaine locomotor sensitization in the EcoHIV mouse model of HIV infection, and further demonstrated that it could be reversed by chemogenetically modulating NAc astrocytes. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Astrocytic Regulation of Cocaine Locomotor Sensitization in EcoHIV Infected Mice

Cocaine use disorder (CUD) is highly comorbid with HIV infection and worsens HIV outcomes. Preclinical research on the outcomes of HIV infection may y…

sciencedirect.com