Kevin Waldron

Grant rejected 27/11/2025

Grant successful 28/11/2025

The ups and downs of academic life: a story told in two Acts (from two consecutive days)

A cracking weekend in Annecy with a whole load of old friends and their families. Good times.

Even a >3 h delay to my flight back from Geneva can’t dampen my spirits.

The survivors

The team's medals

Waiting their turn

Warming up together

On Saturday, we gathered two teams from IBB-PAS to run the Relay Marathon #Ekiden in Warsaw. It was a good day for running, but it made for a sore Sunday (for me, at least). Thanks to all of our runners for a great team effort!

Finally, we're recruiting!
If you'd like to do a PhD using NMR structures to study the dynamics of a metalloenzyme, then you're in luck! Come to Warsaw for this project, in collaboration with Simone Ciofi-Baffoni's group at CERM, Florence: ibb.edu.pl/app/uploads/...

Another manuscript, with Paola Massari's group at Tufts, is now on BioRXiv. We characterised the copper storage protein from Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which is important in its periplasmic copper homeostasis but is also a potential vaccine candidate: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Last week we had a manuscript accepted, a collaboration paper with Xingxiang Chen's group in Nanjing. We studied the mechanism by which the fungal toxin fumonisin B1 (FB1) damages vascular epithelia cells. You can read the open access article here: doi.org/10.1016/j.cb...

Lots of new stuff to share today...

This photograph captures Sir David Attenborough seated outdoors on the rugged terrain of Skomer Island. Behind him, the ocean and coastal cliffs form a scenic backdrop under a clear sky. Sir David, dressed in a khaki jacket and light trousers, looks towards the camera with a gentle expression, exuding a sense of warmth, calm, and wisdom. Around him, puffins can be seen flying and perched on the rocky ground, illuminated in rays of golden sunlight as the sun sets behind the cliffs.

Happy 99th birthday to the man who gave voice to the wild. 🎉

Sir David Attenborough, thank you for a lifetime dedicated to the natural world, and for sharing its story with wisdom, wonder, and grace.

You've inspired generations to fall in love with nature.

Original 1925 jacket cover of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate a marvellous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period which reveals a hero like no other one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. .. It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again?" It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous er-tertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe. It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS The GREAT GATSBY FITZGERALD

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

-FS Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, published 4/10/1925.

Prediction:

Today (4/9/25) registered the greatest ill gotten gains from insider trading in history.

Yes, that's the job of a PI, I suppose.
I can't complain too much as I managed to avoid writing one for the last couple of years (bliss!), so it's about time I got back to the task.

a cartoon of a person typing on a laptop with the words 10 minute finger break below it ALT: a cartoon of a person typing on a laptop with the words 10 minute finger break below it

Grant number 2 submitted for this calendar year.
Two down, two more to go.
But for now, on to the manuscripts that have been backing up for the last couple of months.

Florence never fails to take your breath away

A great week at the IPNC conference in Florence. Learned a lot about this interesting group of bacteria which will help in our forthcoming project, and nice to meet a whole new community of researchers.

Termination notices going out this afternoon to more than 300 employees of the National Cancer Institute. Access likely ends today. Four weeks paid leave and that’s it.

Strong power move for Team Cancer.

Good morning to this man, and this man only #bbcqt

I think a lot of people assume it's all just coloured bottles of liquid in clear glass bottles. The noise of the equipment comes as a surprise.

Slightly embarrassing that they never made it into my lab in Newcastle, to be honest. I was only running it for, like, 10 years...

This weekend, my parents came to visit me in Warsaw, so I gave them a tour of the lab. Turns out it was the first time they'd visited any of my labs, which is weird. But I think they're now convinced that I really do have a proper job 🤷‍♂️

That’s nothing. I found 13 contracts awarded to SpaceX since December totaling $77M. 1/

Project 2025 is gutting medical funding that helped Russell Vought's own kid Its architect's daughter has cystic fibrosis—and benefits from a "miracle drug" backed by an agency he's attacking.

Incredible: Russ Vought’s daughter has cystic fibrosis and benefits from a “miracle drug” made possible by the National Institutes of Health—an agency Vought now aims to gut as part of the Project 2025 attack www.motherjones.com/politics/202... Scoop from @motherjones.com’s @metrauxjulia.bsky.social

The ABA supports the rule of law It has been three weeks since Inauguration Day. Most Americans recognize that newly elected leaders bring change. That is expected. But most Americans also expect that changes will take place in accor...

When the Bar is publicly stating your country’s laws are being destroyed right in front of you, things are… er, not great

www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...

Selective outrage of the right.

Of course it’s a coup Miss the obvious, lose your republic

Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic.
open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Deadline tomorrow, get your application in

Last few days to apply...

Your regular reminder Delft’s market square was a surface parking lot as recently as 2004.

A razor-thin coalition (19-18 votes) initiated a six-month pilot to help merchants realize cars don’t spend money, people do.

Years later, no one remembers the controversy or regrets the decision. *Sound on*

🧪
If I were Canadian PM I would immediately:

1. Create a new $15B science fund

2. Offer any credentialed US scientist funding for lab startup and replacement of NIH grants if they move to Canada

3. Immediate permanent residency

4. Citizenship after 2 years

Overnight a science superpower

Looking for a postdoc position? Want to apply your biochemistry skills to answer interesting evolutionary questions of how metalloenzymes evolve? Join my growing team in Warsaw at @IBBPAS. We're seeking a talented new postdoc to work on the superoxide dismutases.
ibb.edu.pl/app/uploads/...

One more week to get your applications submitted

Are you a graduate seeking a research post in Warsaw? Looking to gain experience working in a biochemical lab? Have good organisation skills, and want to be part of a team making fundamental discoveries? Join my group at @IBBPAS as a Technician studying metalloproteins.
ibb.edu.pl/app/uploads/...