Christine Dunham
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dunhamlab.bsky.social
Christine Dunham
@dunhamlab.bsky.social
Structural biologist, biochemist | Prof @EmoryChem
| Protein synthesis, RNA, toxin-antitoxins |

https://dunham.emorychem.science/
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Wow! Yay! The Senate just rejected Trump’s proposed science cuts, voting 82–15 to boost funding for NOAA, NASA, and the NSF. The bill already passed the House 397–28. Strong bipartisan support for science still exists.
US Senate passes bill to boost federal science spending after White House sought major cuts
The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to approve billions of dollars in funding for federal science agencies, rejecting deep cuts proposed by President Donald Trump in space and other areas.
www.reuters.com
January 16, 2026 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Number of people who go bankrupt every year because of medical bills or illness-related work loss:

🇦🇺 0
🇨🇦 0
🇩🇰 0
🇫🇮 0
🇫🇷 0
🇩🇪 0
🇮🇸 0
🇮🇪 0
🇮🇹 0
🇯🇵 0
🇳🇱 0
🇳🇴 0
🇵🇹 0
🇪🇸 0
🇸🇪 0
🇬🇧 0
🇺🇸 530,000

There’s a lesson there.
January 1, 2026 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
Must say, while interviews with established PIs with deep cuts to their funding are important, the principal and longest term effects are on the trainees. An entire generation wiped of confidence.
December 23, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Protect the academic freedom of faculty at the UNC system, and challenge the unreasonable demand of admin to require instructors to publicly post their syllabi, by signing on to the petition below👇

@unc-ch-aaup.bsky.social

@uncgaaup.bsky.social

@ncaaup.bsky.social
Protect Academic Freedom, Our Faculty, Our Communities
Faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members: The UNC System is preparing to cave to political pressure from the Heritage Foundation, the Oversight Project, and the James Martin Center by ...
actionnetwork.org
December 23, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
All of these bootlegged copies of the 60 Minutes segment flooding my feed (saying, ‘Watch it quick! Before it disappears!’) makes me feel like I’m in the Soviet Union and just got some black market foreign newspaper I need to hide under a floorboard in my house.

This is where America is now
December 23, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Here is the link for Helene's preferred charity. Family requests donations to the fight against pancreatic cancer in lieu of flowers
letswinpc.kindful.com
Let's Win Pancreatic Cancer | Kindful
letswinpc.kindful.com
December 22, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Helene was so giving to others about her battle, and went through to make it into maybe the top 1% of survivors of pancreatic cancer, before succumbing Dec 19, 2025 all while losing her father to it. She supported @letswinpc.org and the family asks for you to consider supporting them as well.💔
December 22, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Reminder that the head of the NIH is an economist who has never conducted NIH-funded research, spent years doing paid speaking engagements for far-right extremist groups, & is best known for a study where he committed serious ethical violations & ended up wrong by greater than an order of magnitude.
I wouldn't describe Jay as "man in the middle" unless I were making sort of human centipede analogy.
December 23, 2025 at 5:58 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
ASCB President Mary Munson awards Francis Collins the ASCB Public Service award, noting this is the first time it’s been awarded for defense of science #cellbio2025
December 6, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
I had a great day on the hill yesterday with ASBMB advocating for funding for research and training in molecular life sciences
Thank you to the @asbmb.bsky.social for standing up for science and scientists!
#ScienceServesUsAll #ASBMBAdvocates
ASBMB Hill Day | ASBMB leaders had a great morning meeting with Senate offices! Next up: the House of Representatives to continue emphasizing how federal funding supports world-changing science.

Join ASBMB in highlighting the value of basic research: lnkd.in/eZ9N2Ku2.
#ScienceServesUsAll
December 5, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
JUST IN: Democrats have flipped the mayor's office in Roswell, Georgia, in tonight's runoff.

GOP Mayor Kurt Wilson conceded earlier tonight to Mary Robichaux, the Dem challenging him.

(This is a city in the Atlanta suburbs, the 9th most populous city in Georgia.)
December 3, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
I am so happy that Nancy Hopkins gets to see Summers finally getting (figuratively) curbstomped.
December 2, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”
November 15, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Thank you to our sponsors for the GA RNA Salon @rnasociety.bsky.social and Lexogen- we hosted Dr. Francesca Storici for our annual symposium yesterday @dunhamlab.bsky.social @ghaleilab.bsky.social
November 15, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
November 13, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Can confirm. I am okay and more motivated than ever to speak up.

Nothing scares this administration more. Their power lies in our silence.
NIH program officer @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social has been placed on admin leave, sources say.

Norton has been outspoken about the Trump administration's dismantling of science, and she signed the Bethesda Declaration.

Bhattacharya has said that "science is dead without free speech".
November 14, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Her sister wrote my favorite essay about her. She points out that RF would have been famous even if she'd never looked at DNA

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Remembering my sister Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 aged 37 years. Sympathy and feminism have combined to give us her familiar image as a downtrodden woman scientist, brilliant but neglected, a heroine t...
www.thelancet.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
When people celebrate the individual genius of folks in science, they should also
mourn the collective loss of genius of folks who were actively discouraged or disadvantaged from a career in science because of the same person(s)
November 7, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
We're disappointed to see Ben Barres's powerful book "The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist" among the ~400 titles removed from the Naval Academy Library. Needless to say, we're proud to have published his book and will keep it — and his memory — alive.
The Coming Out of a Transgender Scientist
"I know that I am making the right decision because whenever I think about changing my gender role, I am flooded with feelings of relief."
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
April 8, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Gave a talk at my parents’ retirement community to describe how science is done, and what is at stake. There was a ton of interest, and anyone can do this. Get the word out about how science affects everyone. I’m happy to share slides with anyone who asks- just get in touch! youtu.be/BY_SFgi-Cig
Kara Marshall PHD-History of Science in America - Trilogy at Tehaleh 04/27/25
YouTube video by Steve Lawson
youtu.be
May 3, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Don’t forget-
Science
Sports
Rock&Roll
……
Misogyny is a helluva drug
November 7, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Yeah, who could have expected that rolling out a new requirement for official transcripts the week before the deadline would be an issue. Especially when there is no NSF staff available to answer questions because of the shutdown.
November 6, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
Excited to share my first PhD student’s @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social!

Tracking 5 dyes simultaneously Kavan Gor @embl.org tracks nascent #RNA folding during #ribosome assembly to correlate structural with functional information on single RNA molecules!

Check it out!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 1, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Reposted by Christine Dunham
October 31, 2025 at 1:20 AM