Summer Thyme
@sthyme.bsky.social
Associate Professor @ UMass Chan Medical School BMB Department; PhD @ UW Baker Lab; PD @ Schier Lab; Down Syndrome, ID, zebrafish, computation, protein engineering. MomX3!
Read about the groundbreaking neuroscience research that UMass Chan faculty are doing: https://direc.to/o_Hn These interdisciplinary teams have received funding from the Dan and Diane Riccio Fund for Neuroscience. #neuroscience @reboldilab.bsky.social @sthyme.bsky.social @briankelch.bsky.social
Might cerebellar disinhibition underlie Restless Legs Syndrome symptoms? Will Joo found that loss of the RLS-associated gene meis1b perturbs locomotion in zebrafish by disinhibiting cerebellar output. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
1/11 Excited to share my postdoc work from @schierlab.bsky.social and Rainer Friedrich! 🐟👃 How does the brain decide whether an odor is good or bad? In larval zebrafish, we find that odor preference is reflected in spatially cohesive neuronal domains of the olfactory bulb. 🧵
I am happy to announce that my penultimate post-doc paper (Erik Duboue lab/X) is finally out in Science Advances. This work stems from my first cavefish experiments, examining how dark-adapted cavefish larvae respond to changes in illumination. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Evolution of a central dopamine circuit underlies adaptation of a light-evoked sensorimotor response in the blind cavefish
Evolution shifts dopamine neuron responses in cavefish, reversing how light drives their behavior.
science.org
My summary of OMB's proposed Federal Financial Assistance rule was based on 22 years as an NIH Program Official and the damage I saw to science funding would be. I want to widen the lens now: scientists are not the only ones who should be alarmed. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/this-new-o...
This new OMB Rule Is Bigger Than Science. Much Bigger.
This image was generated by Google AI (Gemini)
elizabethginexi.substack.com
🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.
Several people have asked for possible content and structure for comments regarding the proposed OMB regulations. With some suggestions from others, I have posted on example (as a Word document) for downloading). jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g... I hope this is helpful.
jeremymberg.github.io
My PhD paper is out in Science Advances! We found that the adult zebrafish cerebellum encodes both positive and negative valence during GO/NOGO task learning, and teaching signals sent to Purkinje cell update internal models of task rules. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The cerebellum implements structured representation of valence to support adaptive behavior control
Cerebellar circuits identify danger and safety to guide flexible, adaptive behavior.
science.org
Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...
What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB 2026-10817)
What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice
elizabethginexi.substack.com
Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...
Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule
Russell Vought is going destroy American Science
elizabethginexi.substack.com
🚨🧪🧵URGENT INPUT NEEDED: NIH asks input for next strategic plan-including emphasis on non-animal models (NAMs) to replace animals. Per NIH insider, anti-animal responses now outnumber scientists 200-700x. Please please provide input. Deadline: May 26, 11:59 PM ET. grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
NIH Seeks Input on Framework for Next NIH-Wide Strategic Plan | Grants & Funding
grants.nih.gov
"Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial: Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later."
Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial
Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later.
nbcnews.com
It's out! Happy to present ITEC, a semi supervised algorithm with an extremely low error rate that can track cells in files of any size (think Terabytes!). We used it in many organisms, including zebrafish, to study how organs form and linked it to gene expression www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... +🧪
biorxiv.org
UAB is recruiting neuroscience faculty at two different levels - come join our vibrant neuroscience community!
UAB Comprehensive Neuroscience Center@uabneuro.bsky.social · 5mo agoThe UAB Heersink School of Medicine is seeking to recruit up to 16 new research-intensive faculty as part of a major strategic investment in neurosciences. Faculty will be housed in a brand new research facility at the heart of campus, which is scheduled for completion this summer.
I'm pleased to share our newest preprint, which was actually the very first project started in my lab. It took a long time to come together! We address the challenge of translating complex psychiatric genetics into biological mechanism. tinyurl.com/4w7hv8d8
We're hiring! The Hoffman lab at Yale is recruiting for Post-Doctoral Associate and Post-Graduate Associate positions available immediately. Join us! www.hoffmanlab.net/jobs #zebrafish #zebrafishjobs
Drug discovery for nervous system disorders is really challenging. We think early/rapid in vivo testing with zebrafish will accelerate the drug development cycle for conserved targets. Check out our proof-of-principle pilot study and virtual drug discovery pipeline (tinyurl.com/3whr23hs). #Skytorial
Pls Repost: I am putting together an edition of “Methods in Molecular Biology” focused on early development, encompassing gastrulation. I am making a list of potential authors for chapters. If interested, please contact me - An excellent opportunity for trainees to co-author with their advisors.
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT Please watch the workshop video and COMMENT by 5:00 Monday 7/14 This is the source of the "no more model organism only grants in NIH-funded research" decree.
@LaBonneLaB@labonnelab.bsky.social · last yr.Dear all, PLEASE add comments on the importance of model organism research at this link:
Public comments have been opened back up! Research with animals is critical for providing evidence-based knowledge in the pursuit of human health. Broadly reducing research projects with animals threatens public health and will greatly stall the development of new therapeutics for diseases!
FDA-NIH Workshop: Reducing Animal Testing
The FDA is hosting a workshop on reducing animal testing. The workshop is open to current FDA and NIH employees.
fda.gov
"There have been many funding cuts to cancer research, and it's playing out many ways. Here are a few stories from people I know. I spend time in cancer circles. I am an recliner advocate nowadays. Brooke is 24 years old, has a baby and a toddler, and has stage 4 B-cell lymphoma..."
UAB Neurobiology is hiring up to 4 new tenure-track faculty as part of 3 new open-rank searches. Come join our vibrant, supportive, and growing neuroscience community! uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/23916 uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/23944 uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/24010
Academic Joint Departments-Open Rank/Tenure-Neurobiology
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Heersink School of Medicine invites applications for 4 open-rank faculty positions in the Department of Neurobiology. We are seeking candidates who apply ...
uab.peopleadmin.com
We get news of an apparent breakthrough in pancreatic cancer — usually a death sentence, one of the cancers with the worst outcomes — and Trump and Musk are blowing up NIH and with it future cancer cures. The American people didn’t vote for this. Not even close to 49.8% did.
Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD@prasad.bsky.social · last yr.current status of American science in two posts: existential crisis vs transformative breakthrough a metastable state that will collapse into one future or the other
THIS IS HUGE! A cancer vaccine developed by Yale University and DFCI shows MAJOR promise. Results of an early-phase trial reveal ALL patients with ADVANCED stage kidney cancer had successful anti-cancer immune responses AND have remained CANCER-FREE approximately THREE years after treatment. 🧪🧵⬇️
One of the remarkable things about #NIH is how rigorously its grants, research, and employees are reviewed. NIH science and scientists are held to a high standard by external reviewers — via study sections and councils, or BSC/site visit reviewers. And the reviews have teeth. 🧪
Gerald Denis@gdenisboston.bsky.social · last yr.I’ve served as one of several invited external reviewers for evaluation of an intramural division. The process was rigorous, detailed, and we external reviewers were not afraid to give sharp feedback. Program leadership heard it earnestly; the quality of the intramural science was extraordinary.
New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s... 1/n
Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling (Gift Article)
Using an arcane law, officials have effectively delayed funding from the National Institutes of Health, leaving medical studies in jeopardy.
nytimes.com
The City of Boston is leading 40+ mayors, cities, and counties in an amicus brief against the Trump Administration's drastic and illegal cuts to federal research funding—cuts that will lead to immediate job losses nationwide.
Reaching out to all Americans through the media to explain how decreasing funding of the NIH will have irreversible harm for developing therapies for all diseases. Please spread the word to your families and friends and contact your congressional representatives. www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...
Science under siege: Trump cuts threaten to undermine decades of research
Sweeping layoffs, funding freezes and executive orders have provoked outcry among federal researchers and their university partners, who fear that science itself is under siege.
nbcnews.com
