Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · 6d

Super congratulations @alexholehouse.bsky.social ! Super excited for you and your research directions! Congrats!!!

Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · 14d

So thrilled for you! Congratulations, @luciastrader.bsky.social !

Lucia Strader @luciastrader.bsky.social · Aug 25

The lab is moving to the Salk Institute! We are thrilled to join an inspiring community where we will continue to explore plant growth and development.

Deep gratitude for the years of support and collaboration at Duke/NCSU/UNC.

www.salk.edu/news-release...

Plant biologist Lucia Strader joins Salk faculty to study plant growth signaling - Salk Institute for Biological Studies

LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute will welcome plant biologist Lucia Strader as a new professor and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology in October 2025. Strader is an interna...

www.salk.edu

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Jeremy Schmit @schmitbiophysics.bsky.social · Sep 2

"What does this curved line mean?"
Like palm reading for your phase boundary.

Plus, when is your condensate actually an oligomer (or vice versa)?

A new preprint from the Schmit Group, in collaboration with Jonathon Ditlev, Les Loew, and @ani-chattaraj.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Biomolecular phase boundaries are described by a solubility product that accounts for variable stoichiometry and soluble oligomers

The solubility product is a rigorous description of the phase boundary for salt precipitation and has also been used to qualitatively describe the condensation of biomolecules. Here we present a deriv...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · Aug 27

If you are a researcher whose lab uses FlyBase, consider a tax-deductible personal contribution. A lot of $100 contributions would help bridge the gap until we can set up a user fee system, and even $10 donations send the folks there the message we're behind them. Please share

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 24

New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated.

[Gift Link]

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

Opinion | America First? Not When It Comes to Your Health.

www.nytimes.com

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Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · Aug 16

Fun times! Thanks @drhougs.bsky.social

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 13

Update on NIH funding through July (August 1 budget start dates)

Non-competitive renewal awards by month for fiscal year 2025

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$A bar graph of the fraction of NIH non-competitive renewal awards received by month showing that fewer awards that expected to being given.$

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

D. Allan Drummond @dadrummond.art · Aug 1

Happy RNA Day to those who celebrate! 🧪 It’s AUG 1: the day we Met 🤓

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Ardem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · Jul 31

BIG NEWS:

“Senate appropriators on Thursday approved an FY26 Labor-HHS bill that included a slight bump in funding for the NIH, with a strong 26–3 bipartisan vote.”

Thank you to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee on both sides of the aisle!

www.axios.com/pro/health-c...

Senate appropriators approve Labor-HHS bill with NIH bump

The vote and lawmaker comments show that most senators aren't going along with the White House's proposed 40% budget cut to NIH.

www.axios.com

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Mike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · Jul 23

“With these considerations, we expect to fund through the 4th percentile.”

There it is, in black and white, the destruction of cancer research in the US.

Edwin Antony @professorantony.bsky.social · Jul 23

Funding policy for 2025 from NCI. Was just released: 4 percentile…maybe!
www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

Funding Policy - Research Grants

NCI funding policy for research project grant (RPG) awards reflects the funding goals of the institute, NIH, and HHS.

www.cancer.gov

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Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · Jul 22

Yes I believe so, although the announcement is not planned for a couple more months: grants.gov/search-resul...

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grants.gov

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Tanja Mittag @tanjamittag.bsky.social · Jul 9

New paper on transcription factor phase separation published from my colleague Aseem Ansari's and my lab: Reconciling competing models on the roles of condensates and soluble complexes in transcription factor function authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Nicholas Fitzkee @fitzkeelab.bsky.social · Jul 2

As someone who has greatly benefited from the NSF MRI program, I'm sad to see that the 2025 submission window was canceled. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program:

www.nsf.gov

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Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · Jul 1

@jeremymberg.bsky.social to share to others - this is a forecasted NIGMS MIRA funding opportunity for established/new investigators as I know people have been asking (FOR-GM-27-002) - due date appears to be late Jan 2026: grants.gov/search-resul...

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grants.gov

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jun 9

This morning, courageous NIH workers shared a document they are calling the “Bethesda Declaration” with Dr. Bhattacharya, urging him to reverse some of the actions that are badly misaligned with progress toward the NIH mission.

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a woman in a black and white dress is making a funny face .

ALT: a woman in a black and white dress is making a funny face .

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

@LaBonneLaB @labonnelab.bsky.social · May 19

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research

www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

There is no replacement (yet) for animal models in medical research

The NIH is “reducing animal use in research.” But there is no replacement for animal models.

www.statnews.com

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · May 23

To learn more about the story behind the paper, we caught up with first authors Yan Wu and Yiling Lan, and the corresponding author Heidi Hehnly @lovelessradio.bsky.social‬, an Associate Professor and Associate Director of the BioInspired Institute at @syracuseu.bsky.social

Yiling Lan (left), Heidi Hehnly (centre) and Yan Wu (right) in the zebrafish room at Syracuse University.

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Hurley Lab @jenniferhurleylab.bsky.social · May 30

Thanks to @npr.org and the Shortwave podcast for covering circadian research! It was very cool to be on the podcast and on All Things Considered. And Kudos to Chris Hall for the exciting work.

www.npr.org/2025/05/29/n...

www.npr.org/2025/05/30/1...

This week in science: hawks hunting, infrared contacts and immunity through the day

Berly McCoy and Regina Barber of Short Wave talk about a hawk's clever hunting strategy, contacts that allow wearers to see infrared light, and how immunity varies during the day.

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Vikram Paralkar @paralkarlab.bsky.social · May 24

Fascinating new paper explaining why nucleoli have heterochromatin stacked around them.

labsantoro.bsky.social @labsantoro.bsky.social · May 24

Very excited to share our latest work in #MolCell showing NPM1 stabilizing the association of nucleolus associated domains (NADs) and recruiting G9a to establish their repressive chromatin states. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Lucia Strader @luciastrader.bsky.social · May 23

Biomolecular condensates are critical for organizing cellular contents, but most studies focus on phase separation driven by salt, pH, or temperature.
But what if intracellular movement also matters?
Here, we explore motility-induced condensation in the cell.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Active transport enables protein condensation in cells

The force generated by active transport modulates protein condensation.

www.science.org

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Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · May 23

The power of collaborations! With @shaharsu.bsky.social, his PD @jessniblo.bsky.social and CALVADOS3 (thanks to @lindorfflarsen.bsky.social ) we show how STI1 (red) may engage with sequences that match transient helices within IDRs of Ub-binding shuttle protein Dsk2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · May 21

Behind every cure, every breakthrough, every treatment — is someone who needed it.

If NIH funding helped you, your research, or someone you love, your story can help protect it.

Share your “why” and help defend the future of NIH & science.

Fill out the form here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Share Your “Why” In Support of a Strong National Institutes of Health

United for Medical Research (UMR) is launching a campaign called "My Why" to highlight the critical role of NIH funding and its impact on the education and careers of researchers and scientists as wel...

docs.google.com

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Castañeda Lab at SU @castanedalab.bsky.social · May 21

I'm optimistic a new FOA for EI MIRA investigators will come in due time; the PAR 22-180 one was originally scheduled to expire May 17 (the day after the regular May 16 EI MIRA deadline).

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Reposted by Castañeda Lab at SU

Magnus Kjærgaard @proteinmagnus.bsky.social · May 21

🚨We have an opening for a postdoc to use protein design techniques to developing and characterizing binders against intrinsically disordered proteins involved in neuroscience.

Experience in protein biochemistry and/or molecular neuroscience preferred.

Share: 🙏

mbg.au.dk/aktuelt/ledi...

Postdoc: De novo protein design for neuroscience - Ledig stilling på Aarhus Universitet

Ledig stilling ved Institut for Molekylærbiologi og Genetik - Neurobiologi, Aarhus Universitet

mbg.au.dk

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