Brittany "Never Tell Me The Odds" Lasseigne, PhD

A summary of NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya's comments during his visit to UAB today for a town hall style presentation:

-Important for scientific work addressing our nation's health problems to be done in the same communities where those problems are concentrated

My department @utoronto.ca (www.utm.utoronto.ca/biology/) is hiring a molecular biologist in any field (e.g., ecology, evolutionary biology, etc.). Please encourage any excellent finishing PhD students, postdocs or assistant professor to apply here:
jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Mississa...

Great thread, worth a read.

Justice Department Releases Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Justice released Guidance to ensure that recipients of federal funding do not engage in unlawful discrimination.  In particular, it clarifies that federal antidis...

New from DOJ.

This is as close to a definition of "DEI" for purposes of grant terminations that the Trump Admin / Republicans have offered so far.

In short: they claim any consideration of race or sex (or religion or nationality)--**or proxies for them**--is unlawful.

Lawmakers to NIH: Use it or lose it.
14 Republican Senators—including key appropriators—are urging the White House to release NIH FY25 funds without delay, warning that stalled spending could harm future research budgets.
Read more: www.ascb.org/science-poli...

Group Leader - Genome Biology Unit Are you ready to lead groundbreaking research in Genome Biology? Join us at EMBL! We are seeking a motivated scientist to lead an independent research group addressing exciting and original biological...

To all post-docs: The Genome Biology dept ‪@embl.org
has an Independent faculty position. Fantastic place to set up your lab –great package: core funding, fantastic Ph.D. students, cutting edge core facilities & great colleagues. Closing date Sept 19th
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

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.

Trump administration halts, then releases, NIH research funding The decision temporarily froze $15 billion in federal funding, according to one senator. It came as Trump officials wrestle over federal spending levels.

A senior leader at one NIH institute said: “At my level we are legitimately trying to figure out how to keep funding high-impact science given what we expect will happen.”
The senior leader added: “Our grants people are barely holding it together because they are at the center of this chaos.”

Glad to see the update to the @wsj.com article that the plan to cancel billions in funding was cancelled. But, this science funding whiplash sure is exhausting! Keep speaking up, it is working 💪🏽

Given that OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President, this should read

"after intervention by OTHER top White House Officials."

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.

Yet another stop to awarding research grants. This is disastrous folks

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.

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

Everyone call tomorrow. Vought needs to be outed as the extremist he is. Chances are those 14 republicans already knew this was coming when they addressed the letter to HIM last Friday asking him to use the appropriated funds for FY2025.

Tenure-track faculty search of the UCSF Biochemistry & Biophysics Department is open for applications!

We are looking for creative, innovative scientists asking fundamental questions in any area of biology.

Join our vibrant, collaborative, and supportive community!

aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05702

Question: will clinical studies be unduly impacted by the multi-year funding policy? Patient recruitment etc is monitored closely yearly at RPPR time, so NIH would presumably lose their ability to monitor clinical study progress. Just a thought.

@drugmonkey.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social

I’m thinking today about all the women doing DEI work in universities, and how all of our canceled grants and shuttered initiatives means that not only are we losing the time we’ve already put in, we’re now even more behind our male peers who stayed focused on their research.

PO just confirmed that our 5th percentile R01 is not getting funded. Past NCI Payline at 4 percent. Cant believe it.

@jamesheathers.bsky.social once did an interesting model to see what payline was required for researchers to spend more of their time on research than writing grants.

From memory, it was around 11%. At 4%, you have to on average write 25 grants to get one funded.

May the odds be ever in your favor.
4% payline at the NCI.

www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

This 4th percentile funding cutoff for the NCI is so very catastrophic. Assuming a 4th percentile payline corresponds to a ~5% success rate, it would take 27 grant submissions to have an 80% chance of getting just one funded. At the current submission cap of 6 apps as PI/year that means 4.5 years

Private funder HHMI pauses postdoc fellowship As HHMI pauses Hanna Gray fellowship applications, opportunities for young scientists shrink further, making them look overseas.

"to run a contest that you end up not funding as a private organization at this time is… both extremely wasteful of these people’s time, and just devastating in terms of morale."

I spoke with @aniloza.bsky.social at STAT today about HHMI's decision not to fund this round of Hanna Gray applicants.

Fellowship For Indigenous Women in Tech — Last Mile Education Fund

Are you an Indigenous woman in an undergraduate degree program in a computing-related field? Are you able to demonstrate financial need? The Fellowship For Indigenous Women in Tech is the program for you!
www.lastmile-ed.org/fellowship-i...

Addgene is Stopping Use of X (formerly Twitter) Addgene will no longer be posting, monitoring, or responding to posts on X. You can find us as @addgene.bsky.social on Bluesky or as @addgene on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Hey, science folks of Bluesky! Addgene has announced that it is fully committing to leaving X. They are taking a hit in their social media visibility to do this, but they have good reasons (blog.addgene.org/addgene-is-s...), as many of us do. Please give them a follow: @addgene.bsky.social

The Billionaires Spending a Fortune to Lure Scientists Away From Universities Arena BioWorks is promising big paydays to nearly 100 researchers from Harvard, M.I.T. and other prestigious institutions.

👀

Please Repost!

Tenure track Assistant Professor position in Disease Ecology in my Department at UCR!

This is a great time to join our growing department.

Deadline is Jan. 22, so please check it out.

aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF01846

We’re searching for Biology Dept Head here at Oregon! Please share careers.uoregon.edu/en-us/job/53...

Do you know outstanding undergraduate researchers who could use up to $750 in travel funding to present research at the Spring ACS National Meeting or PITTCON?

Please encourage them to apply for the Kolthoff awards! Deadline is Jan. 8, 2024.

acsanalytical.org/kolthoff-tra...

This article nicely links accusations of scientific fraud to toxic lab culture. We all know the incentives are bad, but PI behavior can be worse. www.science.org/content/arti...