George Chen

Wow, a new low. This seems like F&B just phoning it in.

NIH Unified Funding Strategy Objective peer review, and HHS- and NIH- specific priorities, and a standardized, transparent process for incorporating NIAID-specific priorities will guide funding selections.

New NIH funding strategy has been formalized.

I really do hope scientists understand what this means for the future of science (funding) - it's not subtle.

www.niaid.nih.gov/about/unifie...

Self-owning in the name of maintaining political power.

The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left “We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.

“But we can fight back. The biggest lesson the four of us have learned over this past year is that what feels impossible and overwhelming when you’re sitting by yourself can begin to feel achievable and urgent when you are working with others that share your values.“
🧪

Happy New Year! Time to go through 52 random things I learned last year, very little of which is practical information but might help you win bar trivia some day.

what else is there to say

An email to NINDS staff from Walter Koroshetz announcing that his reappointment request has been denied.

More news (not good) from NIH

The renewal request from National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Director Walter Koroshetz has been denied.

I guess the NIH_leadership™ needed another position to fill with their time-tested recruitment process.

Excited to have been able to contribute a tiny bit to this monumental work by Nick, Troy, and Florence! #neuroskyence 🧪

Let’s talk about AI art.

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
― Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

So glad all those 'assurances' he got during the confirmation hearings were legally binding /s

What a terrible, misinformed opinion that further tarnishes WaPo's formerly excellent reputation.

Ketanji Brown Jackson Stops Just Short of Saying the Supreme Court Is Breathtakingly Full of Shit “Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”

Justice Jackson is basically reporting live from inside a garbage fire

www.ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/nih-c...

Strongly feel the suits at TDA need to be forced to book and take a trip at Disneyland like a normal family. Learn firsthand how all these changes have made the experience worse and worse. I don't see a reason why anyone would stay on site over nearby hotels now.

Rare mutation in autism risk gene connects family with researcher An email to renowned autism investigator Dr. Daniel Geschwind is leading to new science.

Story out today from @uclahealth.org on one of my projects in lab studying rare neurodevelopmental disorders using patient stem cells and brain organoids. UCLA #ResearchPowersProgress 🧪 www.uclahealth.org/news/article...

🧪 #HandsoffNIH

Hundreds of millions of dollars suspended for cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's research (among many, many other equally important diseases and endeavors) and for what? What is the point of all of this? Help me understand how this makes our country better, stronger, and healthier in any way.

the USA built a system of higher education so good that smart/rich people from across the world came here, spending billions to learn here, subsidizing education for Americans while spending money to live in our cities and towns. our government arbitrarily decided we should stop doing that

Federal agencies hiding out in a bunker

Congratulations!

Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE Support NIH Staff Now!

🧪 #NIH

You may have seen this morning that employees at NIH wrote an open letter to the Director (cheekily called the Bethesda Declaration). You can read it and sign a supporting letter here.

www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

Please consider signing and forwarding on.

Conan O'Brien and Tom Hanks are the first that come to mind.

New project: From stereotypes to breakthroughs, Hollywood's history with Asian and Asian American characters is complicated.

This AAPI Heritage Month, dive into the data that reveals whether that's changed: pudding.cool/2025/05/aapi...

A baby surrounded by medical devices is being held up by someone with gloved hands. A headline reads: "Baby Is Healed With World's First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment." Photo courtesy of Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania.

Breaking News: A baby with a rare disorder made medical history by receiving the first custom gene-editing treatment. The technique used has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases. nyti.ms/4j49xBy

Brain tissues, assemble! Inside the push to build better brain models With organoids, assembloids and a growing toolkit of bioengineering tricks, scientists are stitching together models of the developing human brain — and pushing the limits of realism and control.

A technology feature in Nature explains how organoids, assembloids and a growing toolkit of bioengineering tricks are helping scientists stitch together models of the developing human brain, pushing the limits of realism and control. 🧪

Thrilled to share 2 reviews from the lab:
🧬Annual Review Functional Neurogenomics
annualreviews.org/content/jour...
🧠Current Opinion high-throughput analysis of corticogenesis
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Thanks to my labbies and the field—we were honored to showcase your work! #WeAreHiring

A human-specific enhancer fine-tunes radial glia potency and corticogenesis - Nature HARE5, a human accelerated region enhancer, modulates cortical development by influencing neural progenitor cell behaviour, leading to an enlarged neocortex with increased functional independence betw...

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats, very exciting work! I loved hearing about it at the recent Gordon meeting! Look forward to learning about more HARE functions!

To: The Republican Senate caucus, including Senators Mullin, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, Blackburn, Tillis, Lankford, Tim Scott, Rick Scott, and Sullivan (see quotes below) Dear Senators: Earlier this month, the Trump administration confirmed ordering NIH and HHS to eliminate 35% of all contracts', amounting to a $2.6 billion cut to NIH?. We write to inform you that these cuts will damage vital clinical care and medical research, conducted at NIH and funded by NIH at centers across the country. Despite what the Trump administration's political employees claim, there is no way to implement these cuts without damaging the NIH mission to understand biology and to understand, prevent, and treat disease and improve human health. All Americans are touched by diseases like stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer's that NIH works to prevent and cure. NIH has been a worldwide beacon and powerful leader in this research. Currently, this work is under attack from the Trump administration, notably but

"Dear @senmullin.bsky.social, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn..[and 6 others]"

"These hastily-executed NIH contract cuts will damage medical research for diseases like cancer&dementia..."
"It would be taking the side of cancer to do nothing to stop [the cuts]"

Letter sent to R Senators: