Can Senkal
@senkalce.bsky.social
870 followers 750 following 33 posts
Assistant Professor @VCU, @VCUMassey | Interests: Metabolism, regulation, and biological functions of sphingolipids in #cancer. Views are my own. Likes may not be endorsements.
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Reposted by Can Senkal
thesfpm.bsky.social
We want to congratulate our President, Dr. Tony Letai, on his appointment as Director of the NCI. This announcement marks an historic moment for cancer research. Dr. Letai has been a tireless advocate and visionary leader for functional precision medicine 🧵

www.nih.gov/news-events/...
Secretary Kennedy Swears in Dr. Anthony Letai as Director of the National Cancer Institute
Dr. Letai will serve as NCI’s 18th director.
www.nih.gov
Reposted by Can Senkal
benoitbruneau.bsky.social
thank you to all the NIH staff who stand by their duty and put in heroic efforts to get it done. I'll never forget it and will be eternally grateful.
jeremymberg.bsky.social
The fiscal year ends tomorrow.

Here are results from NIH Reporter downloaded an hour ago.

The total amount of funding committed for FY2025 at this point is 99.0% of that for FY2024. The same difference could be due to a variety of technical factors.

1/3
A graph showing the fraction of annual grant funding committed for NIH for fiscal years 2015 to 2025. The fiscal year 2025 lagged behind but then caught up over the last two months.
Reposted by Can Senkal
senguptalab.bsky.social
A huge shoutout to all the dedicated grants management specialists at the NIH who are working around the clock to push grants out before the Sep 30 deadline. And also to the POs responding to frantic emails.
Not an easy job under the best of circumstances and right now it's the pits.
Thank you!
senkalce.bsky.social
Some happy news to share: We received the NOA of our R01 today.
Reposted by Can Senkal
juanbonifacino.bsky.social
Excited to share our new review with @depaceraffa.bsky.social‬, @saikat2025.bsky.social‬, and Chad Williamson on the BLOC-1 and BORC complexes—key regulators of endolysosomal processes and linked to several genetic diseases. #NIH #Lysosomes #RareDiseases authors.elsevier.com/a/1lg4i8jWWJ...
Reposted by Can Senkal
tanentzapflab.bsky.social
The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.
Reposted by Can Senkal
asbmb.bsky.social
Ray Blind (@blindlab.bsky.social), an associate professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center & @vumedicine.bsky.social, investigates how ligands bind & change the activity of two nuclear receptor 5A, or NR5A, family members called steroidogenic factor-1 & liver receptor homomlog-1, or LRH-1.
asbmb.bsky.social
Find out how lipids and sugars in the cell nucleus are involved in signaling and gene expression and how these pathways could be targeted to identify therapeutics for diseases like #cancer ⏯️: youtu.be/KO_Z9rJmN2M?....
➡️More info: ow.ly/fHs050WELyB
#ASBMBBreakthroughs #asbmbJLR #cancersky #sciencesky
Nuclear second messenger signaling
YouTube video by American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)
youtu.be
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lydialynch.bsky.social
This was a labor of love requiring lots of teamwork over years, repeating in 3 locations! Thanks to all the lab over the years, giving their time generously to this team project, & our wonderful collaborators. The source of fat matters for anti-tumor immunity 🐄🐖🧈🌴🫒🥥
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
The source of dietary fat influences anti-tumour immunity in obese mice - Nature Metabolism
This study shows that animal-based high-fat diets accelerate tumour growth and impair anti-tumour response to melanoma in obese mice, whereas plant-based high-fat diets do not.
www.nature.com
senkalce.bsky.social
Congratulations!
Reposted by Can Senkal
natureportfolio.nature.com
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness. A study in Nature Communications identifies a role for the protein apolipoprotein M in AMD that may present a therapeutic target. go.nature.com/40jhrAA #medsky 🧪
This is figure 7, which shows ApoM-S1P as a potential therapeutic for early dry AMD.
senkalce.bsky.social
Yes, we need this.
drkevinrmcclure.com
Not feeding into the Bluesky debate but I would love to see more academics sharing papers on here. Revive the ‘ol “here’s a thread about this paper” thing. I think it’s good for the information ecosystem.
Reposted by Can Senkal
natcellbio.nature.com
💫NEW: Xu et al. show that S1P in HDL induces a calcium signaling cascade involving E-Syt1 that ultimately promotes the formation of contact sites between the endoplasmic reticulum and the plasma membrane, as well as HDL-derived #cholesterol transport.
👉https://rdcu.be/eqT5v
bit.ly/3FWGgv8
Sphingosine-1-phosphate signalling activates E-Syt1 to facilitate HDL-derived cholesterol transport - Nature Cell Biology
Xu, Meng, St-Germain et al. report that S1P in HDL induces a calcium signalling cascade involving E-Syt1 that ultimately promotes the formation of contact sites between the endoplasmic reticulum and t...
bit.ly
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cjbaumann.bsky.social
For everyone interested in how membrane thickness differs between and within organelles, by @deglushk.bsky.social, S. Böhm & M. Beck: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
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drugmonkey.bsky.social
I think this was a little slow to emerge this year, compared with prior years (?) but the NIH R01equiv funding patterns by percentile for FY2024 are available now. Have fun with your favorite IC.

report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/...
NIH Data Book
report.nih.gov