Open access link below..check out our new article on all things retrotransposons in the brain!

On our way to Aspen for the @McKnightFdn annual meeting! Stoked for a weekend of excellent science and community.

Beginning this fall, we will be offering a new undergraduate degree in Neuroscience. Housed in both @UofUCSBS and @uofu_science, the program will also be connected with our nationally recognized graduate @UtahNeurosci program. attheu.utah.edu/feature/wher…

Happy birthday to me! (Now when to find actual time to build it is another story)

Political appointees vetting science funding? Trump is doing to science what the Right accused previous administrations of doing. But in previous administrations, there was no political control of research grant approvals. Grant proposals were evaluated through peer review: the research community decided which proposals had merit. Bye-bye Vannevar Bush, hello Trofim Lysenko. Bye-bye meritocracy, hello political favoritism. From The Guardian: "A set of sweeping policy changes unveiled by the White House would leave officials appointed by Donald Trump vetting every public grant issued to universities and nongovernmental organizations on the basis of their fidelity to “American values”, as defined by the president, triggering widespread concern."

60 minutes was a bastion against misinformation and political bias. So sad to see it’s dismantling, but on par for our post-truth times. Who will fill this vacuum?

Sometimes..you just need to have a beer on the deck after the storm clears…

Pharma CEO silence is complicity in the destruction of U.S. science. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has poured gas on the foundations of science. Pharma CEOs should demand that President Donald Trump take away the matches. For more than a year, the Trump administration has been weakening the institutions that made the United States the global leader in biomedical innovation. This week, Vought revealed that the objective is not merely to shrink the federal research enterprise, but to make it subservient to political and ideological objectives. Vought’s proposed rule would require senior political appointees to review and approve every discretionary federal grant before it is awarded, explicitly barring them from deferring to peer reviewers, and would mandate that all grant programs align with the president’s policy priorities, rather than scientific need or expert consensus. It seeks to introduce ideological tests on applicants and institutions that receive grants, bar most international scientific collaboration, and allow political appointees to cancel grants at any time without providing an explanation. The proposal also would allow agencies to make grants that haven’t been publicly announced, opening the process to corruption and favoritism. If implemented, the proposal would represent the most serious assault on U.S. science since World War II. Even those who agree with the Trump administration’s views on social and political issues should be alarmed. Future administrations with very different views may not abandon the temptation to wield control over scientific funding to advance ideological agendas. More at biocentury.com/article/65961… (no paywall).

New OMB rule would move science funding from experts to political appointees, and let agencies cancel grants mid-project. Wrote up the plain version how to comment before July 13. open.substack.com/pub/letthe…

A very small subset of what immigrants have done for the USA : Albert Einstein (Germany) — His physics theories led to nuclear energy and the atomic bomb, ensuring US military dominance in WWII and beyond.Enrico Fermi (Italy) — Built the first nuclear reactor. Without him, the US doesn't get the bomb before anyone else. John von Neumann (Hungary) — Invented the basic architecture that every computer on earth still uses today, from your phone to supercomputers.Sergey Brin (Russia) — Co-founded Google. Came as a child refugee. Built the company that organizes the entire internet. Wernher von Braun (Germany) — Designed the rocket that put Americans on the moon. Jensen Huang (Taiwan) — Co-founded NVIDIA, the company whose chips power the entire AI revolution. Currently the most valuable company in the world.Andy Grove (Hungary) — Refugee who became CEO of Intel and made it the world's dominant chip company, powering the PC revolution.Albert Sabin (Poland) — Created the oral polio vaccine that wiped out one of the most feared diseases in history. Elon Musk (South Africa) — Built SpaceX, which now launches most US rockets including military and NASA missions, and Tesla, which forced the global auto industry toward electric vehicles.

Love the message but right now the NIH is being destroyed. I’m sitting on a 3% scored grant on Alzheimer’s disease and still don’t know if it’s getting funded! @PattyMurray @SenatorCollins

It’s been a while since I engaged with the racist and history revisionists. The comments 🫠. A bunch of pseudo accounts spewing hatred. Thanks X! It’s now legal immigrants that are “takin our jobs” (I’ve been a US citizen for 8 years)

The attacks on science in the US are multifaceted. I came to the US on a student visa and had my own share of issues with immigration, but nothing like folks are facing now. To the legal immigration haters...bringing in the best of the best from the world made the US a power.

I am chairing a session at 6th annual @ASICmeeting Call for Abstracts: Join leading scientists, clinicians, and innovators at the Sixth Annual American Society for Intercellular Communication Meeting @ASICmeeting #EVPs #ExtracellularVesicles #ExtracellularCommunications

Had an amazing time visiting UW this week! Gorgeous campus and a lot of fun science convos with faculty and trainees. Thanks for the invite Adrienne!

AI is gonna put scientists out of a job! 😅

Friday night family nature walk behind the house. ♥️