David Baltimore passed away this weekend. A pioneer of molecular virology who won the Nobel prize in medicine & physiology for his discovery of viral reverse transcriptase. This essay he wrote in 2018 reflecting of his 60yr career in science is a great read.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

I care for children in the hospital on inpatient & consult services.

Most weeks there are at least a few kids admitted with vaccine preventable diseases.

Often in children who can’t get vaccinated themselves.

15 years in pediatrics and I’ve never seen a single one admitted with vaccine injury.

nice to be spotlighted by @isscr.org this month! The ISSCR is a great community for scientists, clinicians, patients, and the public -- check out www.isscr.org to learn more about stem cell initiatives +learning, public syllabi and the new Stem Cell Medicine CME course. www.isscr.org/isscr-news/m...

one small consolation of being a 60+ year old investigator is the ability to submit to 𝘔𝘈𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌 family journals — sure they’re low impact (for our knees) but they have an early bird special if you submit between 4:00 and 5:30 on weekdays

Wow

Karolinska Institutet is recruiting 20 outstanding early-career researchers for assistant professor positions

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Atul Butte, a visionary scientist, educator and leader whose work reshaped biomedical research and health care. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Dr. Butte’s family, colleagues, trainees and collaborators. ucsfh.org/4n25xVH

I’m proud to have presented and contributed to the curriculum in the open-access ISSCR course, Stem Cell Medicine: From Research to Patient Care, jointly provided with Harvard Medical School! This resource is a major milestone for the field at such a pivotal time. Learn more: invt.io/1bxb3fzpy35

To all of the young scientists feeling scared and unsure, stand strong and know many of us will keep fighting for science and your contributions. Don't give up. We got this.

Crazy how long this conversation has been going on

There are few things as cost effective as Narcan, especially in a country where (entirely preventable) opioid overdoses have been a leading cause of death for years. For every 6 kits distributed 1 OD is prevented. The $56M in this grant trained >66K people and distributed >282,500 kits in 2024 alone

I received a surprising and disturbing request from NIH on Friday. They wrote to cancel a subaward to Hong Kong on one of my grants. (This was disturbing but not surprising.) They also ordered us not to interact with our collaborators in Hong Kong on any work under the award:

TV watching recommendations

The lead story on 60 Minutes tonight is about NIH and concerns about damage done and continuing during the current administration.

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congrats @christinahomer.bsky.social all of that BSL-3 time paying off! Dr. Homer is a great example of leadership and excellence training as a physician-scientist (soon) translating to **superstar** faculty! 🎉🎉🎉

congratulations Christina Homer on your publication! another one from this outstanding @hhmi.org Hanna Gray Fellow and physician-scientist at UCSF!! @christinahomer.bsky.social

A tragic turn of events for understanding the health of 50.5% of our population. This has been a landmark study and such a waste to end it early and disassemble the massive infrastructure built to yield new insights into women's health.

Virus expert Melanie Ott talks about the ongoing measles outbreak, explains how vaccination can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s, and shares other positive “side effects” of vaccines.

Read more: gladstone.org/news/virolog...

For the last 3 yrs, I was the director for the Science of Science program at the NSF. We funded projects on science communication - science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, citizens engagement & participation in science. 🧵

The notice and COMMENT PERIOD OPENED TODAY AND CLOSES MAY 23.

Anyone who would like to register an objection or comment should go to this page and click on the green “public comment” button at the top:

www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

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🙏 We need your help 🙏

The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.

We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:

NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...

NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

w/ @noamross.net

NEW: In agency after agency, the U.S. government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of policies.

By @alecmac.bsky.social

The NYT wants you to think universities became dependent on government. This is false.

The government invested in the national research infrastructure by competitive grants to universities. The taxpayers built this. It got us to the moon. Won the Cold War. Created Silicon Valley. Made the McRib.

The post- World War II US investment in R&D is one of the greatest economic and national security engines in history. As I said to @revkin.bsky.social a decade ago, “the budget is policy”. We should expand R&D, not shrink it. Broaden participation not restrict it. archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blo...

This reminded me of an experience I had when I was EiC at Science. Through a friend, I was introduced to members of the CO2 Coalition. This is a group that promotes the idea that CO2 is good for plants and, therefore, good for the planet and that demonization of CO2 was inappropriate.

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After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology.