Scott_Boyd_Lab_Stanford

Anyone that has been around a lab knows that the trainees really drive the research, while most professors just sort of guide the ship. Most innovation comes from our trainees.

Old professors like me will be able to survive these cuts, but our young scientists and our future will be destroyed.

NIH grant cuts will axe clinical trials abroad — and could leave thousands without care US agency’s new policy could abruptly end studies of infectious diseases and cancer, leaving researchers scrambling for funds.

Researcher Amita Gupta has spent more than a decade planning and running a $70-million trial to study a new tuberculosis drug, enrolling ~6,000 participants in 13 countries. It might all have been for nothing.

That's because a new NIH policy has abruptly cut off billions to trials abroad. 🧪

Check out this news story that @nature.com wrote describing our recent preprint where we tested our H5 mRNA vaccine in calves.

The data look good and we are currently testing the vaccine in lactating cattle...more to come!

YouTube video by Neil Halloran Defeating a Virus That Killed Half a Billion People – The Plea

Wonderfully good video about the beauty of science and humanitarian motivation working together to defeat diseases and save people. youtube.com/watch?v=ybVZ... 🧪 #NIH #CDC #WHO #BMGF #NIAID

Trump Is Poised to Accept a Luxury 747 From Qatar for Use as Air Force One

So this is not a problem?...But we can't even buy an NIH researcher a cup of coffee because of conflicts of interest!? The hypocrisy is insane. Investigations into universities, but at the White House all gifts and straight up crypto-bribes are fine. WTF www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/u...

Light-microscopy-based connectomic reconstruction of mammalian brain tissue - Nature A technique called LICONN (light-microscopy-based connectomics) allows mapping of brain tissue at synapse level and simultaneous measurement of molecular information, thus enabling quantification of c...

Brain tissue artificially expanded to show how neurons wire together @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Video shows doctor with measles treating kids. RFK Jr. later praised him as an ‘extraordinary’ healer | CNN A Texas doctor who has been treating children in a measles outbreak was shown on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic a week before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and prai...

“This image from video posted on the Children's Health Defense [RFK Jr.’s anti-vax nonprofit] website on March 31 shows Dr. Ben Edwards with a measles rash on his face, while working in a makeshift clinic in Seminole, Texas.” www.cnn.com/2025/04/19/h...

Biomedical Research: Keeping America’s Edge in Innovation | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

The Senate Committee on Appropriations is holding a hearing on Biomedical Research: Keeping America’s Edge in Innovation on April 30 at 10:30am ET, chaired by Senator Susan Collins 🧪

www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/bio...

I can’t exaggerate how badly this will affect our field, also internationally since many missions are jointly funded with eg ESA and JAXA. We are basically pinning our hopes on congressfolk to fight for all the regions that will lose jobs, since the science isn’t winning any arguments. 😢🔭🧪

Butterflies on a blue sky

THREAD

The numbers are in. @bsky.app research sharing volumes vs X Formerly Twitter

In March 2024, on most days, Bluesky hosts more posts linked to research published in 2025 than X.

By quite a lot.

Release the Kraken...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics
1/11

Multiple sclerosis requires Epstein-Barr virus infection as an underpinning, exhibits self-directed antibodies to EBNA1, the virus's nuclear antigen, representing molecular mimicry. This combines with/ genetic risk factors (Figure, compared w/healthy controls)
@pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....

NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs

Many outstanding medical researchers at NIH threatened by non-renewal of contracts:
www.science.org/content/arti...

They give the US new discoveries & the economic benefits of doing the risky first steps toward innovative cures.

Harming medical research is a self-inflicted national injury.

Univariate-Guided Sparse Regression In this paper, we introduce ``UniLasso'' -- a novel statistical method for sparse regression. This two-stage approach preserves the signs of the univariate coefficients and leverages their magnitude. ...

I am happy to announce our new paper "Univariate-guided sparse regression". It's a new lasso that leverages the signs and magnitude of univariate coefficients .
Sparser and more interpretable than the lasso. We're excited! arxiv.org/abs/2501.18360
R: github.com/trevorhastie...

This is heartbreaking. But not an unfamiliar feeling for my science colleagues and my own lab who burnt the midnight oil 24/7 studying COVID immunity to understand how to protect American lives during the pandemic. Nonsensical, performative betrayal. No one will actually benefit and people will die.

The First Diagnostic Immunome A Big Step Forward By Sequencing B and T Cell Receptors Plus A.I.

This week was the 1st publication using our immune cell sequencing to accurately make medical diagnoses. It has enormous implications, as I've reviewed here erictopol.substack.com/p/the-first-... @scottboydlab.bsky.social @science.org @anshulkundaje.bsky.social @maximzaslavsky.bsky.social

In the meantime, there is a link to the pdf on our lab website:
med.stanford.edu/scottboydlab...

We appreciate the interest shown toward this work: www.nature.com/articles/d41... ; www.statnews.com/2025/02/20/m... ; med.stanford.edu/news/all-new... ; @erictopol.bsky.social and others.

We'll get this up on PubMed Central shortly.

Deep thanks to our many collaborators and all research participants. #immunology #science 🧪 @science.org @sarahhross.bsky.social

NIH funding was the lifeblood of this work, as it is for almost all biomedical discoveries and therapies in the U.S. @niaidnews.bsky.social

A figure showing a model for using BCR and TCR sequences to classify immunological disorders.

Attempting to read the language of B cell and T cell receptor sequences to diagnose immunological diseases:
Our new paper, led by the outstanding Maxim Zaslavsky @maximzaslavsky.bsky.social sky.bsky.social with help from me and Anshul Kundaje @anshulkundaje.bsky.social.
Link: buff.ly/3QvxSVf

Destructive, cruel and directly harmful to the health and security of America. The physical, real world of viruses and other pathogens doesn’t care about politics and won’t spare us.

This is so smart. @petebuttigieg.bsky.social , thoughts ?

And if you see this. A reminder. This is not Twitter. You can engage here and have thoughtful discussions !

We all look forward to reading your thoughts

NIH-supported research saves lives: here are two "poster" human beings to prove it.
Emily Whitehead: cured of her leukemia by CAR-T developed at Penn.
Victoria Gray: major symptoms of her sickle cell disease resolved following CRISPR gene editing - path paved at Boston Childrens, UW, UC Berkeley.

Case 1:25-cv-10338 Document 1 Filed 02/10/25 Page 4 of 59 6. In 2017, during his first administration, President Trump made a budget proposal that would have reduced the indirect cost rate for research institutions to an across-the-board, categorical rate of 10%. Congress unequivocally responded to ward off such a change to the calculation of indirect cost rates. In 2018, Congress enacted an appropriations rider prohibiting HHS or NIH from spending appropriated funds "to develop or implement a modified approach to" the reimbursement of "indirect costs" and "deviations from negotiated rates." Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-141, 132 Stat 348, § 226. That rider has remained in effect through every appropriations law governing HHS to this day. See Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Pub. L. No. 118-47, § 224. 7. On February 7, 2025, NIH nonetheless issued a guidance document pronouncing that all indirect cost rates for NIH grants would be reduced to 15%, in Notice Number NOT- OD-25-068, Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates (the "Rate Change Notice"). This reduction applies not only to new grants but to existing grants, and becomes effective on February 10, 2025, just one business day after the Rate Change Notice issued.

The 22 state AGs note that in 2017, Trump proposed a similar across-the-board rate cut, but Congress rejected it.
In 2018 & every year since, Congress has enacted an appropriations rider forbidding NIH from pursuing an across-the-board rate cut.

22 states sue to block Trump administration cuts to NIH research payments Attorneys general sued the Trump administration to block a NIH decision that would slash grant payments for research overhead

#BREAKING - 22 states sue to block Trump administration cuts to NIH research payments

Why should the public care about the freeze on the NIH? Aside from the need for scientific pursuits to make our society better…
-For every dollar we invest in NIH research, there is a $2.5 return.
-Research dollars help fund universities that employ non-academics. (1/)

Scientific advancements aside, this is economically irresponsible

Every $1 spent by NIH generates $2.46

For example, in 2023, $47B in NIH spending generated ~$93B

Halting NIH spending will LOSE the US a lot of money (and talent)

Accepting bribes are inherently a conflict of interest so dumping that norm was critical for what’s ahead.

An adorable flying fox feeding on a flower

Deforestation & climate change are driving bat viruses into us.

Excellent reporting by @janeqiu.bsky.social @sciam.bsky.social and the photos are omg so cute www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

Picture of a plaque assay (purple field with clear holes) showing gorgeous poliovirus plaques

My replies are perpetually full of anti-vaxxers these days telling me about polio vaccines.

Not shockingly, most of what they are saying is wrong. Luckily, I trained with Vincent Racaniello & he taught me a few things about poliovirus.

So let’s discuss the king of the Picornaviridae👇🏻