Kary Oetjen

“Please get the truth out about our son.”

Read and share the statement from the parents of Alex Pretti, the VA ICU nurse who was shot and killed by border patrol.

IFN-brite: A new interferon reporter from our lab designed by Dr. Sarah Anderson is bright and pan cellular

It really is that bad. Grant funded science, supposedly a key piece of American exceptionalism, was already a huge headache. Now it’s looking nearly impossible.

Postdoc Kyle Ferchen figured out how to integrate CITE-seq, TEA-seq and InfinityFlow to link cell surface markers, gene expression, and chromatin accessibility to underlying gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Clusters, gene expression and GRN edges are searchable here: altanalyze.org/MarrowAtlas/...

These voters want to overturn Missouri's new gerrymandered congressional map A Missouri group is working to overturn the map that gives the state one more Republican seat in Congress. If they get enough signatures, the map cannot take effect unless Missourians approve them.

A Missouri group is working to overturn the map that gives the state one more Republican seat in Congress. If they get enough signatures, the map cannot take effect unless Missourians approve them. n.pr/42HDimE

NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.

My op-ed just came out discussing how NIH leadership is failing early career researchers and, importantly, how we can push back and take our future into our own hands.

No Kings As the president escalates his authoritarian power grab, the NO KINGS non-violent movement continues to rise stronger. We are united once again to remind the world: America has No Kings and the power ...

I wanted to share my reasons why I think it is of paramount importance to attend a No King’s protest on October 18, and to make the case to everyone you know to do the same.
a thread...
www.nokings.org

The image is an X post by user Joshua Reed Eakle from 20 hours ago, stating: "The end of due process for immigrants is the end of due process for citizens. Few understand this." The post includes a profile picture and a verified badge.

I understand this. Please tell me you do, too.

ER doc here! This is a lie. Wait times are up because the American healthcare system is an unsustainable business model and a for-profit national healthcare system just doesn’t work. These problems will continue to get worse until we change that system. It literally has nothing to do with immigrants

Pledge To Collect Signatures to Protect Missouri's Congressional Maps · People Not Politicians - Missouri Sign up to receive more information about upcoming events to collect signatures with the People Not Politicians campaign.

People Not Politicians - Missouri is collecting signatures to require voter approval of redistricting legislation in Missouri. Use this link to sign up: www.mobilize.us/pnpmo/event/...

PBS passport

The Supreme Court is about to decide whether political appointees can cancel ongoing medical studies that have already been vetted by top scientists and doctors.

Background: The National Institutes of Health is by far the largest health research organization. And it is effective - NIH supported 99% of recently developed treatments. The current Administration has interrupted biomedical science across all fields, including for example research on vaccines, Alzheimer's, cancer, and equitable healthcare delivery.

Background: One major threat to NIH research is in the hands of the Supreme Court. The Administration asked the Supreme Court to pause an order requiring NIH to reinstate illegally cancelled medical studies. A Reagan appointed Judge found these cuts were arbitrary and capricious - meaning the development of future cures was stopped without reason. @SaveHealthResearch Sho 3

1/ SCOTUS is poised to let the Trump/Vought administration terminate NIH grants WITHOUT REASON. 🚨🧪

Act now, #shadowdocket decision coming any day now (Action call in 2nd post)

Explainer: open.substack.com/pub/sciencea...

Shareable graphics from:
www.instagram.com/p/DNQ1k9vufj...

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

I try to stay optimistic but it’s getting harder to encourage marginalized folks in science & academia when we’re actively shown that we’re not wanted. Programs that supported us for decades are being destroyed. Grants necessary for us to have a fighting chance are terminated.

Its heartbreaking. 💔

Economic loss due to NIH budget cuts by congressional district, scienceimpacts.org/fy26

The #SCIMaP team announces a major update: an analysis of the economic impacts of the White House's NIH FY26 budget.

Bottom-line, we estimate $46B in total economic loss, 202K lost jobs, and impacts in communities nationwide.

Interactive map and shareable report:
scienceimpacts.org/fy26

a 🧵

NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment - Nature Human Behaviour Nature Human Behaviour - NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Every $1 spent on NIH funding returns nearly $3 to the economy - an almost 200% return on investment💰.
Also 99% of drugs developed 2010-2019 were funded by NIH ‼️🤯
Cutting NIH funding not only hurts the economy but will hurt families and patients 😔💔

There’s been some “advice” coming from some quarters for scientists not to focus on DEI-related funding cuts.

I wholly reject this concept.

Cutting programs designed to reduce science and healthcare disparities is as detrimental to science as anything else, both morally and functionally.

Tumor-Infiltrating Clonal Hematopoiesis | NEJM Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) is an age-related condition associated with increased mortality among patients with cancer. CHIP mutations with high variant-allele frequencie...

Wow!!! 🤯 Amazing, @oriolpich.bsky.social, @charlesswanton.bsky.social, and team!

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

ImmuneLENS characterizes systemic immune dysregulation in aging and cancer - Nature Genetics Immune lymphocyte estimation from nucleotide sequencing (ImmuneLENS) infers B cell and T cell fractions from whole-genome sequencing data. Applied to the 100,000 Genomes Project datasets, circulating ...

🚀 Our paper introducing ImmuneLENS, a new tool that measures T and B cell fractions from WGS data. This builds on our previous method, T cell ExTRECT, that used a signal from V(D)J recombination to measure T cells.

Out today in @naturegenet.bsky.social :
doi.org/10.1038/s41588-025-02086-5
🧵👇

Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduc...

SCIENTISTS: The proposed Schedule F is out. It has potential to undermine or destroy merit-based science.

Rules/regulations have the force of law. This rule may put peer review in the hands of political appointees.

Make your public comment here: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

the word alert is in a purple circle ALT: the word alert is in a purple circle

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM

Implementation of Schedule F

This is what a lot of us have been worried about.

This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.

BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...

1/n

Stop the SAVE Act The SAVE Act would keep millions of people from being able to vote – and would shut countless eligible voters out of our democracy. Urge Congress to vote no now.

The SAVE Act would prevent millions of eligible voters from participating in our democracy, like married women, naturalized citizens, trans people, and people with low incomes.

Tell Congress: Vote NO on this bill and protect our right to vote.

🚨 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐏! 📢

We just dropped the price of all Dasatinib strengths by over 90% on costplusdrugs.com!

Why? Because our pricing model is simple:
When we get a lower price, you get a lower price.

🔗 www.costplusdrugs.com/medications/...

Preventing Measles in Immunosuppressed Cancer and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Patients: A Position Statement by the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Until recently, measles exposures were relatively rare and so, consequently, were an afterthought for cancer patients and/or blood and marrow transplant recipients and their providers. Declines in mea...

Preventing Measles in Immunosuppressed Cancer and HCT Patients: A Position Statement by @astct.bsky.social #measlesoutbreak www.astctjournal.org/article/S108...

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

I have worked with many untenured staff scientists & PIs at NIH. They are incredible colleagues who chose science in public service over more lucrative careers. Devaluing their commitment & professionalism is among the most cruel aspects of the DOGE purge

www.science.org/content/arti...

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts.

Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

2025 Study section tracking

Wondering if your study section cancelled? I update this sheet daily. As of today, 56/124 study sections that should have met since Jan 2, 2025 have "not met as scheduled." docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Prepping for going on service tomorrow by relearning what koplik’s spots look like

a poster that says if life gives you lemon make lemonade on it ALT: a poster that says if life gives you lemon make lemonade on it

ATTENTION (PLEASE SHARE)

If anyone has or knows of any positions that might be appropriate for the NIH staff members who were terminated, please post the information in this thread.

There are lots of talented and accomplished people who may be looking for new opportunities.

Why do you need to fund the institutions at all? Why can't you just fund the individual projects?

Because science doesn't work if everything has to be paid for one by one. Indirects are the mechanism our science funding system has chosen for pooling research money across individual grants.

3/