Paul Brennan

Cosmic Radio Interview with Dr. Joseph Heitman: Professor and Chair of Molecular Genetics and Professor in Medicine at Duke University and CIFAR's Co-Director for the Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportu... Join me on Cosmic Radio as we speak with Dr. Joseph Heitman. Dr. Heitman is a professor and Chair of Molecular Biology and Professor in Medicine at Duke University and CIFAR's Co-Director for the "Fun...

share.transistor.fm/s/ee922716 - nice interview with Joe Heitman on Fungi

“The data confirm our hypothesis…”

These sea turtles dance for joy when they magnetically sense it’s snack time.

Learn more on #InternationalDanceDay: scim.ag/42VqsSz

Flocking and active solid behavior of epithelial cells in our new study in @pnas.org
Great work of Y. Shen, J. O'Byrne and
@andreasschoenit.bsky.social and collaboration with A. Maitra and R. Voituriez!
| PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share our preprint on the molecular architecture of heterochromatin in human cells 🧬🔬w/ @jpkreysing.bsky.social, @johannesbetz.bsky.social,
@marinalusic.bsky.social, Turoňová lab, @hummerlab.bsky.social @becklab.bsky.social @mpibp.bsky.social

🔗 Preprint here tinyurl.com/3a74uanv

#SmoothMuscleCell Transcriptomic Atlas🤠

betsholtzlab.org/Publications...

Organotypicity 🫀🫁Colon Aorta

Zonation: A-V, Promixal-Distal Aorta, elastic vs muscular Artery

16 adult🐭 2780 SMC

Notch3➡️vascular SMC
Hhip➡️visceral SMC

#DevCell 2022
www.cell.com/developmenta...

it’s a perfect plan. we will fire everyone doing skilled work in science, technology and medicine and force them into factories making consumer electronics. this will enrich the country somehow.

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073

Why are NIH, NSF, and science grants important? Because it funds ground-breaking research like this!

Excerpt from Rutgers University Senate resolution calling for a Mutual Academic Defense Compact. The excerpt reads: "BE IT RESOLVED THAT, the Rutgers University Senate urges the President of Rutgers University to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, under this compact, all participating institutions shall commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund. This fund shall be used to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement;"

This exciting resolution from Rutgers University Senate is exactly the kind of model I think higher ed needs: a mutual defense pact of, in this case, Big 10 schools. They call for member institutions to create a joint defense fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

It's critical for everyone to remember what an Executive Order is. It is the President communicating orders to members of the executive branch. Policies to pursue, actions to take, etc. They are not laws. They are not close to being laws. They are formalized memos to employees. That's all.

This is utterly horrific. The person who will be conducting the wasteful HHS study of the nonexistent link between vaccines and autism is David Geier. This man is a fraud, having been disciplined for practicing medicine without a license a decade ago. You’ve probably never heard of him, but he and…

On #AI and the "threat" to #ScientificPublishing:

Read "Chaos in the Brickyard" (1963). It takes just 2 minutes. It's a 1-page letter in Science.

AI makes bricks. What we really need are edifices. Those come from people who choose only quality bricks to build their edifices.

#ResearchIntegrity

Great work by my colleagues in the Weinstein Lab!

Scientists have just cured pancreatic cancer in some patients with personalized mRNA vaccines. Pancreatic cancer. And this Trump administration wants to throw it all away.

They’re throwing away a cure for cancer.

Maps: Where Trump Voter Jobs Will Be Hit by Tariffs Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows

As President Trump escalates a trade war, countries are targeting red states with tariffs. See where jobs will be affected.

We were told mid-30s when kid#2 was born. What would be the next trikafta that won’t happen because research has been shut down?

Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization Since 1974 substantial gains in childhood survival have occurred in every global region. We estimate that EPI has provided the single greatest contribution to improved infant survival over the past 50...

Nothing will kill more children than the ongoing decimation of CDC, NIH, and USAID work to lift vaccine uptake in the US and world.

Child survival rose 75% in the last 50 years. Vaccines account for 40% of that. Measles vax alone was 60% of the benefit. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

In reality, the risks of side effects from a measles-mumps-rubella vaccination are vanishingly small, especially compared to the devastating effects of measles. 2 dosages provide 99% protection to disease.

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

Per Dr Atul Gawande, ex USAID: “All malaria supplies protecting 53 million people, mostly children, including bed nets, diagnostics, preventive drugs, and treatments – terminated.”

There are no words that sufficiently describe this level of cruelty and sadism.

CD301b+ dendritic cell-derived IL-2 dictates CD4+ T helper cell differentiation - Nature Communications A subset of migratory type 2 conventional dendritic cells marked by CD301b expression (CD301b+DC), are required specifically for the development of Th2 cells. Here authors show that at the mechanistic...

Excited to see this finally out!! We found IL-2 made by CD301b+ DCs critical for the Th2 fate decision of CD4T cells and skewing them away from the Tfh fate. They also seem to use their own CD25 to direct IL-2 to the cognate clone.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I started out our lab meeting today with a ~15 min summary of what the NIH does, indirects, current attacks on the NIH, and what we can do to fight.

Some of my lab members follow the news, some don't, but I think they were all highly interested in learning. Happy to send these slides to anyone

Revealed: NIH research grants still frozen despite lawsuits challenging Trump order The Trump administration is exploiting a loophole to keep a funding freeze in place, leaving researchers in limbo.

NEW: The Trump administration is exploiting a loophole to keep funding frozen at the NIH - a move that some legal scholars say is illegal.

Federal Register notices are blocked, so no grant-review sessions can be scheduled.

All the gritty details here, and a short 🧵:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

@stevestuwill.bsky.social you posted on 𝕏 on Dec 5, 2020 this stunning video - why not repeat on 🔵bsky ? (sorry, I did)...
"Time-lapse footage of a vampire amoeba: a microscopic organism that feeds on algal cells by breaking through their cell walls and sucking out their insides."
#ProtistsOnSky

Scientific advancements aside, this is economically irresponsible

Every $1 spent by NIH generates $2.46

For example, in 2023, $47B in NIH spending generated ~$93B

Halting NIH spending will LOSE the US a lot of money (and talent)

Climate change may be driving spread of a deadly fungus from U.S. Southwest Valley fever has exploded since 2000. Scientists are trying to figure out why (edited)

Fantastic story detailing the biology of Coccidioides and its growing, and potentially devastating, impact on people’s lives

www.science.org/content/arti...

Opinion | RFK Jr. Is a Vaccine Cynic, Not Skeptic. (Gift Article) My job is to ask tough questions of vaccine makers. That’s not what he is doing.

Great piece by Paul Offit

"When Mr. Kennedy says he wants vaccines to be better studied, what he really seems to be saying is he wants studies that confirm his fixed, immutable, science-resistant beliefs. That’s not skepticism."🧪⚕️