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Reposted by Buck Samuel 🪱🦠🧬🔬

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 12d

I signed. I was supported by a GRFP during my thesis research and its award reinforced that I was a scientist during my training.

Jason Williams @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social · 13d

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io

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Buck Samuel 🪱🦠🧬🔬 @microbeminded.bsky.social · 12d

I signed and was supported by this program as a graduate student myself.

Jason Williams @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social · 13d

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io

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Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · Aug 30

More foundations should do this:

"Funding is exclusively available to applicants who have already received federal funding (e.g., from the NIH, CDC, NSF) for their health equity research, but have since had their funding rescinded due to federal administrative actions"

www.rwjf.org/en/grants/ac...

Rapid Response: Reinvesting in Racial and Indigenous Health Equity Research

The purpose of this call for proposals is to meet the current moment by supporting timely, actionable health equity research that has been interrupted by shifts in federal funding.

www.rwjf.org

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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · Aug 27

CDC is no longer surveilling outbreaks caused by campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. What could go wrong?

Ian Weissman, DO @drianweissman.bsky.social · Aug 27

The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses.
As of July 1, a critical surveillance program is monitoring for only two pathogens instead of the usual eight.
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses

As of July 1, a critical surveillance program is monitoring for only two pathogens instead of the usual eight.

www.nbcnews.com

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Aug 13

This EO, combined with the retirement of Noni Byrnes at CSR/NIH, makes me very concerned about peer review at the NIH

AAUP @aaup.org · Aug 13

“This [executive] order further weakens our nation’s ability to conduct and support scientific research across various fields by replacing experts with ideologically driven political stooges who have no expertise and no business making decisions on academic research.”

—Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

Trump Order Puts Politics Above Peer Review, Researchers Say

The executive order says senior appointees must review grants, and it demands awards be easier to terminate. Research groups say it undermines science.

www.insidehighered.com

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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · Aug 8

‘Impossible to rebuild’: NIH scientists say Trump cuts will imperil life-saving research

Researchers say scientific community is in state of whiplash and accuse president of trying to ‘destroy’ vital work

www.theguardian.com

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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · Aug 8

“This appears to be the administration's response to Congress: An attempt to place a major roadblock to any new funding and establish the structure that will formally exert the ideological control that it wants.”

Great reporting from @jtimmer.bsky.social

arstechnica.com/science/2025...

New executive order puts all grants under political control

All new funding on hold until Trump administration can cancel any previously funded grants.

arstechnica.com

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 7

Well, this is a huge Executive Order power grab...

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

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Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Aug 7

I am honored to be selected as an ASCB fellow! SO much thanks to those who nominated me and provided letters of support!

And congratulations to the other Fellows selected! 🎉🥳🎊

American Society for Cell Biology @ascbiology.bsky.social · Aug 7

Meet the 14 scientists named 2025 ASCB Fellows! Honored for excellence in research, mentorship, and service, they’ll be recognized at Cell Bio 2025 this December in Philadelphia.

Read more: www.ascb.org/society-news...

Fourteen Visionary Scientists Named 2025 ASCB Fellows - ASCB

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is proud to announce the election of 14 outstanding scientists as 2025 ASCB Fellows—a prestigious honor recognizing their exceptional contributions to cell...

www.ascb.org

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Nature Microbiology @natmicrobiol.nature.com · Aug 1

#NatMicroPicks

Engineering Peace in the Gut Microbiome ☮️🔧🦠

BACTRINS, a microbiome engineering platform that precisely edits gut pathogens by inserting therapeutic payloads and neutralizing virulence genes, transforming them into allies.

@natbiomedeng.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Precise virulence inactivation using a CRISPR-associated transposase for combating Enterobacteriaceae gut pathogens - Nature Biomedical Engineering

A self-transmissible CRISPR-associated transposase system encodes a nanobody payload to treat Shiga toxin infections.

www.nature.com

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Guillaume Méric @gmeric.bsky.social · Aug 5

>80% microb species detected by metagenomics are undetected by metaproteomics; because existing workflows rely on incomplete reference DBs, underutilize spectral data and don't robustly incorporate FDR control.
Here, a new workflow (uMetaP) seems to improve everything.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ultra-sensitive metaproteomics redefines the dark metaproteome, uncovering host-microbiome interactions and drug targets in intestinal diseases - Nature Communications

The gut microbiome is key to health, yet its protein functions remain largely unexplored. Here, the authors present uMetaP, ultra-sensitive metaproteomics workflow that combines the timsTOF Ultra and ...

www.nature.com

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · Aug 4

Excited to have our new mini review on Microbiome Metabolism out today in I&I as part of the @asm.org New Voices in Microbiology collection! Check it out!

🧫🧪

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Infections as ecosystems: community metabolic interactions in microbial pathogenesis | Infection and Immunity

Microbial communities are present on nearly every surface of the human body. These microbiomes exist as dynamic ecosystems that are influenced by heterogeneous nutritional and chemical landscapes, the...

journals.asm.org

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Daniel Drucker @danieljdrucker.bsky.social · Jul 31

Here the authors propose that gut #microbiota derived peptides exhibit potential for prevention and treatment of human metabolic disorders www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Polypeptides synthesized by common bacteria in the human gut improve rodent metabolism - Nature Microbiology

Two polypeptides synthesized by common bacterial strains in human gut microbiota lower body fat and blood glucose and increase bone density, improving the metabolism of rodents.

www.nature.com

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Sean Gibbons 🦠💩 @gibbological.bsky.social · Jul 31

You can get an accurate estimate of total bacterial biomass from stool metagenomes by simply normalizing by host read count, without needing any additional measurements.

Excellent work by UW Master's student Gechlang Tang in @asm.org #mSystems Journal.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
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Metagenomic estimation of absolute bacterial biomass in the mammalian gut through host-derived read normalization | mSystems

In this study, we asked whether normalization by host reads alone was sufficient to estimate absolute bacterial biomass directly from stool metagenomic data, without the need for synthetic spike-ins, ...

journals.asm.org

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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · Jul 30

Are you an early-career biologist or ecologist who would benefit from an invited seminar? Would you like to come to UMaine next fall or spring to give a talk? Leave a brief comment with some info about what you do. I'm co-hosting our seminar series again, and am filling out our rosters.

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Buck Samuel 🪱🦠🧬🔬 @microbeminded.bsky.social · Jul 31

Could I be added too? My lab studies natural microbiome of wild Celegans.

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Piali Sengupta @senguptalab.bsky.social · Jul 30

For the life of me, I cannot fathom the rationale for any of this. Utter wanton destruction of one of the best research ecosystems in the world.

Liz Essley Whyte @lizessleywhyte.bsky.social · Jul 29

NEW
The White House is blocking the NIH from awarding new research grants for the rest of the fiscal year

Chokes off billions in research funding

Gift link www.wsj.com/politics/pol... with @nidhisubs.bsky.social

Trump Administration Puts New Chokehold on Billions in Health-Research Funding

The National Institutes of Health can’t award grants to outside researchers under a new White House restriction.

www.wsj.com

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Piali Sengupta @senguptalab.bsky.social · Jul 30

Well, none of us may ever get funded again but in the meantime, here's some new science!

Led by recent PhD Anjali Pandey w/ex-UG Maya Katz. Here we identify an asymmetric molecular mechanism that underlies symmetric context-dependent sensory plasticity in the AWC olfactory neuron pair in C. elegans

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Jul 29

A lateralized sensory signaling pathway mediates context-dependent olfactory plasticity in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.25.666858v1

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Maureen Barr @barrlab.bsky.social · Jul 30

Tomorrow SCOTUS quietly decides if Trump administration can illegally cut grants tied to DEIA. This and today's bombshell announcing no new NIH grants is an orchestrated assault. We need to scream from rooftops.

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jul 27

The Trump admin already got slapped down by Judge Young, who said he’d “never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable."

Now, Trump’s begging SCOTUS to let him cut NIH grants that focus on gender, race, and LGBTQ+ research anyway.

zurl.co/g2R1Q

Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to let it move forward with NIH grant cuts

A federal judge in June ordered the Trump administration to continue paying out roughly $783 million in National Institutes of Health grants.

zurl.co

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Jul 25

“Withholding or suspending these funds would jeopardize that trust and hinder progress on critical health challenges facing our nation. Ultimately, this is about finding cures and seeing them through to fruition.”

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

14 Republican senators urge White House to release delayed NIH funds

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) is leading the letter making the ask of OMB director Russ Vought.

www.politico.com

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Anne Grießhammer @ghammeranne.bsky.social · Jul 17

Seeing this published is even better than eating sweets! I am so happy and proud of whole @lisamaierlab.bsky.social, especially Lisa and @jdlcz.bsky.social who walked the funny/exciting/rocky road with me until the very end. Check it out!
#science #microbiome #health

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Non-antibiotics disrupt colonization resistance against enteropathogens - Nature

Non-antibiotic drugs from a wide range of therapeutic classes can alter the ability of gut commensals to resist invasion by enteropathogens, a previously underappreciated side effect of such drugs.

www.nature.com

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Dr. Ahna Skop @ahnaskop.bsky.social · Jul 16

Future of NIH in the hands of five senators.

Write to them if you are in
PA -McCormick
WV - Moore Capito
ME - Collins
AL - Britt
LA - Cassidy

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Abigail Ruth Freeman @abigailruthfreeman.bsky.social · Jul 16

A potent bacterium in the human gut can supercharge the effects of some cancer drugs in mice — and researchers are now planning a clinical trial to test whether it could do the same in people. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Found: a human gut microbe that makes cancer therapy more effective in mice

Cancer therapies called checkpoint inhibitor drugs, which ratchet up the immune system, work better when this bacterium is around.

www.nature.com

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Lucia Peixoto @sciencenlucia.bsky.social · Jul 16

It's an honor to be recognized for advocating for what you believe "that everyone belongs in computational biology and that all ideas are valued equally, recognizing that diversity of thought and background drives scientific excellence" doi.org/10.1093/bioi...

The 2025 Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award—Dr Lucia Peixoto

Every year, the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) presents the Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award in recognition of a society mem

doi.org

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jul 15

New Boston Globe story about NIH funding and its impacts

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/14/b...

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Today’s basic science is tomorrow’s game-changing invention. Trump’s cuts threaten both. - The Boston Globe

Thirty years is often how long science takes to mature from a cool discovery to something that is life-changing. But researchers worry those discoveries are about to come to a screeching halt.

www.bostonglobe.com

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