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Reposted by Maria Bustillo

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · Aug 23

The community of Drosophila researchers is amazing, mutually supportive and collaborative. Right now a key resource for our community, @flybase.bsky.social , is threatened by the cancellation of its NIH grant and is seeking community help in raising short term funds 1/n 🧪 please share

Dear Fly Community,

In May 2025, the NIH terminated all grant funding to Harvard University, including the NHGRI grant that supported FlyBase. This grant also funded FlyBase teams at Indiana University (IU) and the University of Cambridge (UK), and as a result, their subawards were also canceled.

The Cambridge team has secured support for one to two years through generous donations from the European fly community, emergency funding from the Wellcome Trust, and support from the University of Cambridge. At IU, funding has been secured for one year thanks to reserve funds from Thom Kaufman and a supplement from ORIP/NIH to the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center (BDSC).

Unfortunately, the situation at Harvard is far more critical. Harvard University had supported FlyBase staff since May but recently denied a request for extended bridge funding. As a result, all eight employees (four full-time and four part-time) were abruptly laid off, with termination dates ranging from August to mid-October depending on their positions. In addition, our curator at the University of New Mexico will leave her position at the end of August. This decision came as a shock, and we are urgently pursuing all possible funding options.

To put the need into perspective: although FlyBase is free to use, it is not free to make. It takes large teams of people and millions of dollars a year to create FlyBase to support fly research (the last NHGRI grant supported us with more than 2 million USD per annum).

To help sustain FlyBase operations, we have been reaching out to you to ask for your support. We have set up a donation site in Cambridge, UK, to which European labs have and can continue to contribute, and a new donation site at IU to which labs in the US and the rest of the world can contribute. We urge researchers to work with their grant administrators to contribute to FlyBase via these sites if at all possible, as more of the money will go to FlyBase. However, we appreciate that some fu…

https://wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase:Contribute_to_FlyBase

Our immediate goals are:

1. To maintain core curation activities and keep the FlyBase website online

2. To complete integration with the Alliance of Genome Resources (The Alliance).

Integration with the Alliance is essential for FlyBase’s long-term sustainability. For nearly a decade, NHGRI/NIH has supported the unification of Model Organism Databases (MODs) into the Alliance, which we aim to achieve by 2028. Therefore, securing bridge funding to sustain FlyBase over the next three years is crucial for successful integration and the long-term access to FlyBase data.

At present, our remaining funds will allow us to keep the FlyBase website online for approximately one more year. Beyond that, its future is uncertain unless new funding is secured. We will, of course, continue pursuing additional grant opportunities as they arise.

Given the uncertainty of future NIH or alternative funding sources, we are relying on the Fly community for support. Your contributions will directly help us retain the staff needed to complete this transition and to secure ongoing fly data curation into the Alliance beyond 2028.

We at FlyBase are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from the community during this challenging time. Your encouragement has strengthened our resolve and underscores how vital this resource remains to Drosophila research worldwide.

Sincerely,
The FlyBase Team

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A. Sánchez Alvarado @planaria1.bsky.social · Aug 6

Evolution’s eye game is wild, but mollusks take it to another level

CRISPR in apple snails gives us a new model to dissect how nature rebuilds complex organs like the camera-type eyes we humans possess

It turns out Evolution doesn’t just innovate, it rewinds, remixes, & regenerates

rdcu.be/ezw0t

A genetically tractable non-vertebrate system to study complete camera-type eye regeneration

Nature Communications - Accorsi et al. show that the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata has eyes similar to humans and can fully regenerate them. They then developed genetic tools to establish these...

url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com

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Maria Bustillo @mbustill.bsky.social · Jun 19

Congratulations Maik! Looking forward to digging in to the new additions to the story!

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Maria Bustillo @mbustill.bsky.social · Jun 19

Bravo @maikbischoff.bsky.social et al on a gorgeous (literally!🔬) story!

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Maria Bustillo @mbustill.bsky.social · May 28

Thrilled - and so honored - to be among the most recent additions to this incredible group of scientists!

Leading Edge Fellows Program @leadingedgeprogram.bsky.social · May 27

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows! 40 outstanding postdoctoral fellows doing pioneering research in a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines.

Learn more about these exceptional scientists:

www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows

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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · May 16

It's a demoralizing time to be a US scientist but that is part of their strategy. My friend Jeff Dangl just emailed our faculty reminding us that NSF and NIH grant review panels are still being held and staff there want us to keep submitting. Stay engaged and keep fighting! 1/n

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · May 16

Bruce Springsteen opened his tour in England with a forceful denunciation of President Trump. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”

Springsteen, in England, Blasts Trump Administration as ‘Treasonous’

www.nytimes.com

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Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · May 3

Alexis Madrigal on KQED interviewing Ed Yong. This was recorded more than a month ago, but w/ all the latest outrages coming from RFK Jr., it's worth reminding ourselves what happened under Trump 1.0. 1.2 million U.S. deaths, highest per capita of any rich country. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

Ed Yong on the Pandemic’s Legacy on Science Research and Reporting | KQED

As part of our series looking at the legacy of the pandemic five years on, we talk to Ed Yong about how COVID changed our relationship with health news, reporting and research.

www.kqed.org

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Apr 4

They are resegregating academic science

Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · Apr 4

An important point getting overlooked:

When NIH cancels "diversity" grants (e.g., diversity supplements, Fs, Ks, etc), they aren't canceling the grants based on *what* the grant studies.

They're cancelling them based on *who* is doing the research. And that disallowed "who" is anyone not white.

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60 Minutes @60minutes.bsky.social · Apr 28

The National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, has fired 1,300 employees and cancelled more than $2 billion in federal research grants. https://cbsn.ws/4daiCrv

How cuts at the National Institutes of Health could impact Americans' health

Cuts and layoffs to the National Institutes of Health threaten medical research around the U.S., agency insiders warn.

cbsn.ws

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Apr 28

Here is a link to 60 Minutes NIH segment...

www.cbsnews.com/news/scienti...

Scientists fear Trump administration cuts to NIH could impact the health of Americans for generations

Former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, who abruptly left his NIH research lab in February, fears aggressive downsizing could impact Americans' health.

www.cbsnews.com

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Maria Bustillo @mbustill.bsky.social · Apr 28

A gorgeous (first of many!) paper out of the Brooks Lab (@tomorrowbot.bsky.social): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Neural tube closure! Wnt signaling! Cell proliferation! Quantitative microscopy! What’s not to love?

Canonical Wnt pathway modulation is required to correctly execute multiple independent cellular dynamic programs during cranial neural tube closure

Defects in cranial neural tube closure are among the most common and deleterious human structural birth defects. Correct cranial closure requires the …

www.sciencedirect.com

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Nihil Dev @nihildev.bsky.social · Apr 21

Ever wonder how many lives have been saved by NIH-funded research - including your own? Enter any medical condition and instantly see how your tax dollars transformed science into survival.

www.ourhealthroi.com

Our Health ROI

Explore how your tax dollars fund life‑saving medical research.

www.ourhealthroi.com

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Maria Bustillo @mbustill.bsky.social · Apr 10

Eric! Congratulations on a beautiful story! (downside of a social media hiatus is missing the news while it was fresh...but I just stumbled upon the revised (!!!) preprint - exciting!)

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