New paper from the lab! 🎉 In this new story, we venture into the fascinating world of macrophage immunometabolism. Beautiful work led by Joan Blanco I Fernandez the lab’s very first PhD student & macrophage expert! Have a look for more! 👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Mitochondrial profiling across macrophage states reveals inhibition of IL-4/IL-13 reprogramming by the integrated stress response

Mitochondria drive cellular reprogramming by integrating metabolism and signaling. In macrophages, mitochondria are central to immunometabolic responses to external cues, but the extent to which they ...

science.org

#icymi

Drug Monkey@drugmonkey.bsky.social · 3d ago

NIH RFI on plans to stop using percentiles to select grants for funding drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/n...

It is NOA day! 🎉 I feel blessed and excited to receive the K99/R00 from NIH NIGMS! Thanks to everyone who has supported me and continues to support me on this journey. I appreciate you all! 🙏🏾✨🧪 @uofubiochem.bsky.social @rutterlab.bsky.social

Postdoc in Nuclear RNA Biology at Aarhus University! Interested in mammalian nuclear RNA production and turnover? Come join Torben Heick Jensen’s team in Aarhus 🇩🇰 www.au.dk/om/stillinge...

Postdoc position in Nuclear RNA Biology - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet

Ledig stilling ved RNA-biologi og -innovation, Aarhus Universitet

au.dk

My view is that this proposal coming out now cannot be considered in a vacuum. It should be considered a tool to subvert peer review of NIH proposals. The statements in the RFI about impact scores are actually correct- they are imperfect measures. But reporting them maintains transparency.

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 7d ago

‼️NIH is proposing to change NIH Peer Review outcomes. Instead of impact scores they propose 3 categories: "Most competitive" "Competitive", or "Not discussed" This RFI link will accept your comments/feedback on this proposal until 10/13/26. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵

We are hiring a tenure-track position (organic and/or biochemistry) this fall! Head to the link below for more information. Come join us! I am not on the search committee, but I'd be happy to answer questions. employment.gonzaga.edu/jobs/assista...

Assistant Professor, Chemistry - Gonzaga Main Campus, Washington, United States

Title: Assistant Professor, Chemistry Area: College of Arts and Sciences Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry Telework Availability: On-campus Position Employee Classification: Tenure Track Faculty ...

employment.gonzaga.edu

Our new story on how FGF23 regulates the genome and how both FGF23 and PTH control #vitaminD in kidney is finally up after years of work. Available on #researchsquare preprint server while under review: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1... @uwmadison.bsky.social @uwmadisonnutrisci.bsky.social

Someone needs to FOIA the citizenship/visa-status data on K99/R00 awardees

Spread the word! Registration is open for The Physics of Life at the Nanoscale meeting at the Aspen Center for Physics, Jan 3-8, 2027! This is an evolution of the popular Single Molecule Biophysics meetings (SMB). As always, there is a two step registration. Registration closes on Sept. 15, 2026!

Scientific careers are rarely linear, and mine is a good example. I am grateful to @natmetabolism.nature.com for publishing this series and making space for the many different paths, timelines and ways to build a scientific career. rdcu.be/fysBT #Drosophila #CareerPathways #WomenInSTEM #ScienceSky

Career pathways, part 20

Nature Metabolism - Academic careers are shaped by scientific discovery, professional networks, mentorship and the challenges of balancing research with personal and professional responsibilities....

rdcu.be

If you send me an automated zoom/teams invite without having communicated with me in advance to arrange schedules or to see if I’m free or interested in meeting with you, I will assume you want to be my enemy.

and drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/n...

NIH seeks input on capping grant awards

The NIH has posted a request for input on a proposal to limit the number of grant awards a given PI may hold at any one time. NOT-OD-26-086 Request for Information: Proposal to Cap the Number of Si…

drugmonkey.wordpress.com

Can AIs actually reason, or does that involve some wishful thinking? https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-reasoning-right-for-the-wrong-reasons-20260731/

New preprint from the lab, co-led by Youmian Yan and @lianjiejerrywei.bsky.social! 🧵 at some point in the near future, but until then, check out our work uncovering mechanisms allowing the dual targeting of mitochondrial proteins using our favorite, PPTC7, as a case study.

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 3w ago

Combinatorial sequence elements fine-tune mitochondrial protein import to facilitate dual localization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.31.742112v1

It's an RNA World. We just live in it. Happy World RNA Day!

⏯️Webinar replay: Everything you wanted to know about pre-mRNA splicing but were afraid to ask 🎤 Speaker: Aaron Hoskins, @uwmadisonrna.bsky.social Watch for an overview of pre-mRNA splicing and the cellular machine responsible — the spliceosome: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf2w.... #RNAResearch

Everything you wanted to know about pre-mRNA splicing but were afraid to ask

YouTube video by American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)

youtube.com

Early voting for the August 11 is open. We asked candidates in the 76th Assembly District (isthmus and northeast Madison) and the 17th Senate District (southwestern Wisconsin) for their positions on higher education, cuts in research funding, family leave and other important issues. profs.wisc.edu

RNA-seq tells us how much RNA is present in the cell. But to understand gene regulation, we need to easily measure the synthesis and decay rates driving this abundance. We introduce AIR-seq: analog intrinsic recoding sequencing. (1/6) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Analog intrinsic recoding measures RNA dynamics without chemical conversion

Steady-state RNA abundance measurements mask the synthesis and decay rates that shape gene expression. Analog intrinsic recoding sequencing (AIR-seq) repurposes the base-pairing properties of N4-hydro...

biorxiv.org

For those interested in applying for an R25 (PA-27-036) to support Summer UG Research, Postbac, or even masters students, additional information on NIGMS priorities and some FAQs can be found here: www.nigms.nih.gov/training/Pag...

Somewhere a university academic is being told to "do more with less" by someone whose job title didn't exist two reorgs ago.

Everyone says AI will accelerate science. I don't think it will -- at least not in biology, and at least not soon. New post where I explain why, and how the productivity paradox can be resolved: blekhman.substack.com/p/why-ai-wil...

Why AI will not speed up science (yet)

You can see AI everywhere except in the productivity statistics

blekhman.substack.com

New preprint from the lab, led by the ever-talented grad student Tessa Lochetto @tlochetto.bsky.social! We find that loss of our favorite phosphatase Pptc7 decreases lean mass, induces skeletal muscle dysfunction, and causes metabolic derangements in adult mice: doi.org/10.64898/202... /1

Sustained loss of Pptc7 triggers variable skeletal muscle dysfunction and diminished body mass through dysregulation of BNIP3

The mitochondrial phosphatase PPTC7 is required to sustain mammalian metabolism, as its global knockout (KO) triggers hypoketotic hypoglycemia and perinatal lethality in mice. However, the extent to w...

doi.org

ok my mid-career academic tweeps: if you were going back in time to start as an assistant professor again, what would you tell your younger self? would you do anything differently? anything you did that you think was an A+ decision? give us soon-to-be new PIs any & all advice!

super excited to share that I'm starting as an Assistant Professor at CU Denver this fall! my lab will be right in the heart of downtown Denver :) mattioli-lab.org i'm hiring! if you're interested in joining us to study how alternative isoforms contribute to cancer, please reach out

Very excited to share our lab’s 1st paper! In this study, we investigate how the ketone body BHB precursor BD shapes host-microbiota-immune interactions during enteric infection. shorturl.at/z9WXm Lead by the talented graduate student Wenxuan Dong in collaboration with the Caballero-Flores lab.

β-Hydroxybutyrate precursor 1,3-butanediol modulates enteric pathogen susceptibility and Th17 responses via commensal bacteria | mSystems

Diet is a key determinant of gut microbial composition and mucosal immune function, yet the microbial mechanisms linking diet-mediated metabolic changes to immune regulation remain incompletely unders...

shorturl.at

"You feel stretched to the point of breaking. The waves of emotions are rolling over you. I am here, your future self, to tell you that you are enough. You don’t break. You put one foot in front of the other, and you not only make it through, but you have fun." https://scim.ag/3SWodeP

Introns have a hidden regulatory role! 🧬🎉 Delighted to share our latest paper showing that inefficiently spliced introns and spliceosomal proteins direct RNA methylation, engaging RNAi to silence retrotransposons and regulate gene expression nature.com/articles/s41...

The NIH is an ENORMOUS bargain for the American people. Do folk think that private industry will do the background slog work for drug discovery for 250K direct costs?

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Scott Atlas, the champion of herd immunity as an Fox News commenter and the Trump Advisor during COVID, weighs in with a DEEPLY MININFORMED op-ed in the WaPo. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202... 1/7

Important thread

Kate Clancy@kateclancy.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What a great article not only on faculty workloads, but how little our salaries actually factor in to most university budgets. A few highlights. First, our salaries are falling: