Brandon Chen, PhD
@brandontwchen.bsky.social
810 followers 710 following 30 posts
NCI K99 postdoc with Kivanç Birsoy | Inter-organellar metabolic communication, cancer metabolism
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Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
djcalebc.bsky.social
Beyond grateful to share that my main PhD thesis project, Targeting PIKfyve-driven lipid metabolism in pancreatic cancer (@lyssiotislab.bsky.social + Arul Chinnaiyan lab), has just been published in @nature.com!
brandontwchen.bsky.social
Congrats on this amazing work! Excited to read it as its final form!
brandontwchen.bsky.social
Happy to share our most recent review on mitochondria-organelle metabolic communication with Yatrik Shah and Costas Lyssiotis now online at Molecular Cell!

We explored aspect of lipid transfer, organelle membrane contacts, ROS, metabolites, and metals!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Mitochondria-organelle crosstalk in establishing compartmentalized metabolic homeostasis
Mitochondria serve as central hubs in cellular metabolism by sensing, integrating, and responding to metabolic demands. This integrative function is a…
www.sciencedirect.com
brandontwchen.bsky.social
Felt like I just finished the class yesterday! How can this years’ QI course already ending!!!!
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
doctorzen.net
Worst week for science EVER.

Sunday: ASM scrubs DEI mentions from website.

Tue: NASA scrubs DEI from website; ICE arrests a student on campus; NSF plans to cut staff; USAID halted.

Wed: HHMI kills diversity program; NIH trashes applications for diversity F grants.

Fri: NIH cuts indirects.
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
lyssiotislab.bsky.social
We are soliciting poster and short talk abstracts for the NYASciences Cancer Metabolism meeting. Just around the corner - join us for awesome metabolism in the Big Apple 🍎

Speakers: Kivanc Birsoy, Christine Chio, Marcia Haigis, Andy Intlekofer, Thales PapaG, Jared Rutter, Dan Wahl, Eileen White
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
nadlerlab.bsky.social
It’s incredibly hard to study lipids in biological membranes on the nanoscale. You need near-perfect information on both membrane ultrastructure and lipid density, which usually isn’t attainable. Lipid-CLEM brought to you by @mathilda95.bsky.social changes that.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
petemullen.bsky.social
Registration and abstract submissions are open for the Third Annual SoCal Metabolism Symposium at USC. Go to gero.usc.edu/event/third-... The abstract and early bird price deadlines are Feb 28th
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
jclandoni.bsky.social
Fresh new paper alert 🚨 by @marcellharhai.bsky.social @jourdainlab.bsky.social et al. expanding the inventory of potential #mitodisease genes and a herculean deep-dive into FAM136A across models and human disease! 🧪🧫🐭👂
Really happy to see it out and to have played a small part 🔬

#mito #sciencesky
jourdainlab.bsky.social
New preprint from the lab! 🚨

🧫 New galactose #CRISPR screening strategy
🎯 481 genes required for #OXPHOS
⚙️ #FAM136A in IMS proteostasis
👂Mito defects in #Menieres disease

by @marcellharhai.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social

A short thread 1/5

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
brandontwchen.bsky.social
Really enjoyed writing this spotlight highlighting recent works from @keunwooryu.bsky.social at al in the Thompson lab along with @lyssiotislab.bsky.social and Yatrik Shah! Mitochondria heterogeneity FTW!
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Link below to the spotlight and the original @nature.com articles in the reference👇
cp-trendsendomet.bsky.social
ONLINE NOW! Subcellular mitochondrial heterogeneity enables opposing metabolic demands, by @brandontwchen.bsky.social, Yatrik Shah and @lyssiotislab.bsky.social, discussing the recent work by @keunwooryu.bsky.social et al.
Read it for free until March 19th at:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kWLq3jDgW...
(A) Oxidative mitochondria, in red, retain cristae to house the electron transport chain, comprising complexes CI, CII, CIII, CIV, and CV. Glutamine metabolism in the oxidative tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle fuels ATP synthesis. Oxidative mitochondria can be identified by the retention of CV expression. Reductive mitochondria, in blue, lose cristae and use reducing potential to drive reductive ornithine and proline biosynthesis from glutamine. Reductive mitochondria distinctly present with pyrroline-5-carboxylase synthase (P5CS) filaments. (B) Reductive mitochondria in which P5CS has been oligomerized into filaments are sequestered via mitochondrial fission, a process that can be mediated by dynamin-like protein 1 (DRP1). Mitochondrial fusion sequesters oxidative mitochondria. This process can be driven by mitofusin 1 and 2 (MFN1/2).
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
cp-trendsendomet.bsky.social
ONLINE NOW! Subcellular mitochondrial heterogeneity enables opposing metabolic demands, by @brandontwchen.bsky.social, Yatrik Shah and @lyssiotislab.bsky.social, discussing the recent work by @keunwooryu.bsky.social et al.
Read it for free until March 19th at:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kWLq3jDgW...
(A) Oxidative mitochondria, in red, retain cristae to house the electron transport chain, comprising complexes CI, CII, CIII, CIV, and CV. Glutamine metabolism in the oxidative tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle fuels ATP synthesis. Oxidative mitochondria can be identified by the retention of CV expression. Reductive mitochondria, in blue, lose cristae and use reducing potential to drive reductive ornithine and proline biosynthesis from glutamine. Reductive mitochondria distinctly present with pyrroline-5-carboxylase synthase (P5CS) filaments. (B) Reductive mitochondria in which P5CS has been oligomerized into filaments are sequestered via mitochondrial fission, a process that can be mediated by dynamin-like protein 1 (DRP1). Mitochondrial fusion sequesters oxidative mitochondria. This process can be driven by mitofusin 1 and 2 (MFN1/2).
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
schmittwitt.bsky.social
I got home from lab and immediately called and wrote to my representative and senators. I urge you to do the same.
washingtonpost.com
Breaking news: The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.
White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
ahmarilab.bsky.social
I decided to be more efficient in my doomscrolling & made my first starter-pack!😅

These are folks that IMO have been great sources of reliable info during the federal communication ban.

Please
1) tell me if you want to be taken off, and

2) give suggestions for others to add

go.bsky.app/KZnq7Qe
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
astrokatie.com
I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service.

“Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.
White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
rolanddunbrack.bsky.social
All NIH/NSF awards may be paused as of today. Money is disbursed annually, so if you have your money, you're OK for a while. My next R35 grant year starts Apr 1. I hope Trump doesn't read my X/bsky feeds that say he's a racist, a rapist, a cheat, & a traitor. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
davelevitan.bsky.social
From a source inside the National Cancer Institute:

“Everyone is scrambling to figure out how we’re supposed to work to serve the public when we can’t engage at all.”
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
Academic workers across the country are organizing to call on our congressional representatives on Thursday, 1/30, at 3pm ET / 12pm PT to demand these restrictions be lifted immediately.
There will be a training over zoom at the beginning of the event.
Join us!
form.jotform.com/250226137228...
Join researchers across the country in fighting restrictions on the NIH
Please click the link to complete this form.
form.jotform.com
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
jbyoder.org
Reiterating my call to fellow federally-funded scientists: Call your reps, tell them how this hurts science and everything good that comes from science

(Also non-scientists, and scientists without federal funding! But the more of us who can directly speak to the impacts of these freezes the better)
jonlambert.bsky.social
The National Science Foundation cancelled over 60 grant review panels today, effectively grinding funding of new projects to a halt.

The so-far indefinite pause comes as NSF grapples with the impact Trump's executive orders will have on their grantmaking process.
www.npr.org/sections/sho...
National Science Foundation freezes grant review in response to Trump executive orders
The National Science Foundation has cancelled all grant review panels this week. It's unclear how long the pause could last.
www.npr.org
Reposted by Brandon Chen, PhD
megankillian.bsky.social
I'm one of these 11,965, and with funding from the NIH and NSF, I've been able to recruit several more full-time employees to MI (many coming from other states!) since 2023.

@repdingell.bsky.social, please advocate for us in science, health, and research to continue supporting the michigan economy
habu333.bsky.social
I looked up Michigan NIH numbers.
Image of National Institute of Health numbers for the state of Michigan. $991 million invested. 11965 jobs supported. $2.42 billion in economic activity.