My quote of the day The light obtained by setting straw men on fire is not what we mean by illumination. Adam Gopnik
Mike Lee
@theleelab.bsky.social
A laboratory of Systems Pharmacology at UMass Medical School. We study cancer therapies, and aim to understand how they activate cell death and how to make this work better. https://www.umassmed.edu/Lee-Lab
Still time to send an abstract and register for the FASEB Cell Signaling in Cancer meeting. There are many speaking slots available for proffered abstracts, along with a fantastic lineup of speakers. Join us in Kentucky! events.faseb.org/event/Cell-S...
The 2026 FASEB Meeting on Cell Signaling in Cancer will be held in Louisville, KY July 13-15. It's not too late to join us! The abstract submission deadline is June 1. To view the speaker lineup, submit your abstract, and register, check out our conference website: events.faseb.org/event/Cell-S...
NIH is not issuing awards. You may think that it's because they it is coming up with new directions of research...The apposite is true. Here is a graph showing how many fewer new funding opportunities that NIH has posted over time. -91%, a trend that started on Jan 2025.
Denis Wirtz@deniswirtz.bsky.social · 5mo agoFederal funding for US biomedical research is moribund. Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars). Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science. To what end?
Life Science Editors wrote a really great "Snippet" about our recent paper describing PDAR. @lifescienceeditors.bsky.social @cp-cell.bsky.social Why cells die without Pol II www.lifescienceeditors.com/2025/11/15/w...
Why cells die without Pol II - Scientific editing and writing experts - Life Science Editors
Scientific editing and writing experts for manuscripts and grants
lifescienceeditors.com
RFK Jr. has a less-than-zero understanding of how science works. "Make the proof" should be disturbing for anybody who cares about health, truth, or democracy. Join our fight to impeach RFK Jr. here 👉 www.standupforscience.net/quack-o-gram... #impeachrfk #impeachthequack
standupforscience.net
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 10mo agoRFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
🚨 BREAKING: James Comey posts a video statement following his indictment "My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump...But I'm not afraid. And I hope you're not either...And I'm innocent. So let's have a trial and keep the faith."
We used machine-learning tools in an attempt to recreate the method for cutting funding, and then applied it to past US NIH grants to reveal the broad-reaching consequences go.nature.com/4pBArFH
What research might be lost after the NIH’s cuts? Nature trained a bot to find out
We used machine-learning tools in an attempt to recreate the method for cutting funding, and then applied it to past US National Institutes of Health grants to reveal the broad-reaching consequences of such action.
go.nature.com
NEW: Nature trained AI to predict which NIH grants from 2014 would have been cut if the Trump admin had its way back then — and what science would have been lost to history. "The results show the damage that cuts in funding can do to research, and the unpredictable nature of the research process."
Nature@nature.com · 10mo agoWe used machine-learning tools in an attempt to recreate the method for cutting funding, and then applied it to past US NIH grants to reveal the broad-reaching consequences go.nature.com/4pBArFH
A nice Q&A with Nick Harper about the discovery of PDAR, and his road to becoming a scientist @umasschan.bsky.social www.umassmed.edu/dsb/dsb-comm...
I’m excited to highlight our latest paper, just published in Cell 🎉 We report the existence of a previously uncharacterized signaling pathway that is responsible for activating cell death upon loss of gene expression. 1/n 🧪 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
RNA Pol II inhibition activates cell death independently from the loss of transcription
When RNA polymerase II (RNA Pol II) is inhibited, the inhibition is sensed and signaled to mitochondria, leading to programmed cell death independently of the loss of RNA Pol II transcription activity...
cell.com
For who still thinks this can’t happen here… it’s already happening. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...
Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End
America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over.
theatlantic.com
"[A] sleeper issue is the proposed 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, in the White House’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year." Perhaps injecting some economic impact data may help awaken what should not be a sleeper issue... @prospect.org scienceimpacts.org/fy26
The American Prospect@prospect.org · last yr.Trump put the NIH on the chopping block. Now, it's up to five GOP Senators to save it. The future of U.S. science hangs in the balance. From Robert Kuttner: https://trib.al/jmuCKZq
Things have been challenging over these last few months, but we also had a lot to celebrate... Tiana and Mika joining the lab 🎉, Kelly passing her QE 🎉, Gavin publishing a paper and submitting another 🎉, Megan publishing a paper 🎉, Nick getting excellent reviews 🎉 ...so we did a paint nite.
Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it" by Colette Delawalla (@cdelawalla.bsky.social), Victor Ambros, Carl Bergstrom, Carol Greider, Michael Mann and Brian Nosek for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla
The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science
theguardian.com
Not that anyone asked, but during my tenure on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, under part of Obama-2 and all of Trump-1, we visited Military Bases domestically & abroad. At no time did any member of the Armed Forces I met say to me: “America needs less science funding.”
Grants on antibiotic resistance (and many other things) cancelled "due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." Every single Jewish org needs to stand up and speak clearly against this weaponization of antisemitism
Michael Baym@baym.lol · last yr.Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab
"People should not take medical advice from me" ~ the man directly in charge of medical advice for the United States
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · last yr.If you use your position as the head of HHS to ratfuck a country's vaccination programs and future vaccine development efforts, your opinions on vaccines are very definitely NOT irrelevant.
Set aside the headline, this is a good primer on the how the federal govt wanted higher Ed to take on a bigger research role, and funded the infrastructure to make that possible via merit-based peer reviewed processes. The research funding is not entitlements and cutting it comes w real costs
Chris Bail@chrisbail.bsky.social · last yr.
Yyyyyyeeeeessssssa!!!! We are finally standing up!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anna Gifty@itsafronomics.blacksky.app · last yr.Northwestern just announced that the university will meet the funding needs of any research that is being impacted by stop orders. LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO! #edusky #academicsky wgntv.com/evanston/nor...
What we saw today was two jumped up thugs and their bootlicking sychophants laughing at the US Constitution, the supreme court, and the idea that anyone can stop them from doing anything they want www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
The Constitutional Crisis Is Here
The Supreme Court told the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison. So far, the administration is pretending to comply while re...
theatlantic.com
🔥 @ninajankowicz.com: "Mr Taibbi said when he was first searching through the so-called Twitter files he didn't know what he was looking at. Well, he still doesn't. Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works."
Here, with breakdown by type of F award. These kinds of training grants are essential to support the academic workforce pipeline. These grants are paying the salaries of the ppl who do the work
Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · last yr.New F awards
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/o...
Opinion | Hillary Clinton: This Is Just Dumb (Gift Article)
The Signal group chat is only the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration.
nytimes.com
JFC, Fulbright scholar not accused of any crime, no immigration violation, no reason to expect any violence -- just Marco Rubio's whim -- and instead of summoning her first step is no-uniform / no-ID guys in masks and hoodies grabbing her off a public street.
Gravel Influencer@gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · last yr.Not sure if this has been shared here yet, but this is video of Rumeysa Ozturk's arrest posted by WCVB. It's terrifying.
Six masked agents in street clothes disappearing a Tufts Ph.D. student in broad daylight on the streets of Somerville. There is video footage out there every person should watch.