Clarissa Durie

I’m happy to. Want to message me a good email address?

a man says call your senators with his hands folded Alt: a man says call your senators with his hands folded

Calling all scientists-join @faseborg.bsky.social on their August recess advocacy challenge. You don’t need to be a member to participate. Congress doesn’t seem willing to cut science funding as deeply as the White House wants but needs to hear from you 🧪 www.faseb.org/journals-and...

"Nature has learnt that, as a result, some staff members are screening candidates’ social-media presences to check whether they have expressed negative views about the Trump administration or been involved in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts...at their institutions." 🧪

Excellent work, Christina! Thank you so much for sharing with your community.

#McClintockLetters

Thank you so much to all #McClintockLetters participants!

Please share your published piece with us so we can feature you: forms.gle/HmKcky11RJxX...

Anyone who is still working on their piece or needs help finding an outlet, please reach out to us!

#SciComm #Scientists #SaveNSF #DefendResearch

Researchers have a radical plan to thwart Trump's war on science: Talking to people Faced with federal funding cuts, scientists are learning to communicate about what they do — and why it matters.

It’s part of this initiative: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' will devastate science research and funding Without federal support, researchers will not be able to do the work that has kept America at the forefront of scientific progress.

I wrote a letter to my local paper! You can read it here. www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/gues...

Keep in mind: these are AWARDED grants, with Notice of Awards. The federal government is not honoring existing contracts with this university, refusing to reimburse for costs charge on awarded grants.

Text reads "Congratulations to the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows" followed by the Leading Edge logo and www.leadingedgesymposium.org. Below are the headshots and names of the 40 new Leading Edge Fellows. They are Cel Welch Lianna Wat Maria Toro Moreno Sarah Talley Xulu Sun Ines Sturmlechner Virginia Savy Amelie Raz Kali Pruss Caterina Profaci Sarah Pierce Melissa Pamula Kehinde Odufowora Patricia Nano Ariana Musa de Aquino Nour El Houda Mimouni Kathleen Martin Brea Manuel Mable Lam Miri Krupkin Elaine Kouame Megan Kirchgessner Sumin Kim Shubhangini Kataruka Geraldine Jowett Andrea Jones Leanne Iannucci Emily Heckman Allison Girasole Florencia Fernandez Chiappe Tonie Farris Hannah Elam Erin Doherty Xiaoyun Ding Maria Bustillo Julia Brunner Debadrita Bhattacharya Lorena Benedetti Ashley Anderson Krisha Aghi

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows! 40 outstanding postdoctoral fellows doing pioneering research in a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines.

Learn more about these exceptional scientists:

www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows

To be clear, if this bill passes, it will end all scientific research & medical training in the US. It will close hospitals. It will be economically devastating. Millions will lose their jobs.

Call your representatives & tell them to vote fuck no on 15% IDC rates & the rest of this horror show.

"Look for private foundation funding..."

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants.

Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Wow!
Women are principal investigators (PI) in approximately 1/3 of federal grants.
But when you look at nearly 1400 terminated grants at NSF, those led by women as PIs count for nearly 2/3!
Rampant sexism when getting these grants, rampant sexism when losing them…

Comment Template COMMENT SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or RIN for this rulemaking. Please arrange and identify your comments on the regulatory text by subpart and section number; if your comments relate to the supplementary information, please refer to the heading and page number. All comments received will be posted publicly without change, including any personal information provided. To ensure that your comments will be considered, you must submit them on or prior to May 23, 2025 at online to the Federal Register. Before finalizing this rule, OPM will consider all comments within the scope of the regulations received on or before the closing date for comments. OPM may make changes to the final rule after considering the comments received. COMMENT STARTER: The example below is meant to get you started with your own comment. Feel free to use it with only minimal changes, to go a different direction, or anything in between. Because OPM has to consider each comment, unique comments add value to the process but all comments relevant to the proposed rule and grounded in thoughtful analysis or real experience are helpful. [DATE] RE: Public Comment in Response to Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service [Docket No. OPM–2025–0004] I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the effort to reclassify specific fe

All right, scientists. 🧪

The Trump administration is trying to break scientific expertise in the civil service. This will affect #NIH program staff. Red 🚨.

It's your job to submit comments by 5/23 saying that's a terrible idea!

This group has info: www.friendsofbls.org/comment-temp...

NIH insiders: Trump is ‘dismantling and destroying everything’ After just 100 days, agency scientists say U.S. health institutes are demoralized and have lost essential staff and funding

“However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.”

Read, share, respond. Call your representatives.

The health and well-being of Americans & America's innovation economy are at stake.

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

With the data from NIH Reporter from yesterday, I can now look at the loss of funding up to April 1st budget start dates.

It totals $1.62 B for non-competitive renewals.

This is less than last month as some more awards have been made (late).

1/n

Correct. NIH, and the cancer and other medical cures it generates, is being burned to the ground.

And we’d add: with that goes the whole US tech and biotech economy. Silicon Valley is in the US not elsewhere because of NSF, ARPA, NIH.

That word isn’t getting out widely.

Hands off our science protests today across the country

It's Hands Off Day!

Make sure you review protest safety before you hit the streets today: standupforscience2025.org/protest-safe...

Find an event near you here: handsoff2025.com?SQF_SOURCE=s...

And don't forget to share your signs and tag us on socials!
#HandsOffOurScience @indivisible.org

Screenshot of the headline of an article from WWNO Public radio on Feb 14, 2025. It says Louisiana Department of Health officially ends all vaccine promotion, events WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Rosemary Westwood f in Published February 14, 2025 at 12:18 PM CST

Screenshot of the headline of an article from WWNO Public radio on March 28, 2025. It says Louisiana Surgeon General shares vaccine info after 2 babies die from whooping cough WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Rosemary Westwood in Published March 28, 2025 at 4:31 PM

Started/Going. Two infants died of pertussis in Louisiana, where last month the state’s surgeon general banned health department staff from encouraging vaccination.

NIH has rescinded its scientific integrity policy. Hard to see this as anything other than clearing the way for shoddy research on things like vaccines. Regardless of the rationale, it's bad news for public health.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Analysis of Terminated NIH Grants with Word Clouds

First, using the titles of grants not to Columbia...

Gender and DEI predominate

“The result is going to be the systematic removal of women and people of color from the act of research. At the end of this, we’re going to end up with an academy that is more white, more wealthy, more male, more cisgender, and it’s going to reinforce the same problem.”

Got my dashboard a bit (more) organized. Ready to update and add more content.

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

Hello Philadelphia! I’m Dr. Eartha Mae Guthman. I’m a Philadelphian, a trans woman, a neuroscientist, and a proud card carrying union member with UAW. I first worked in a lab 15 years ago. I fell in love then and there with the scientific method, and I've worked as a scientist ever since. Today, I want to talk to you about how this administration’s attacks on trans people and trans health research harm us all. When I began transitioning seven years ago, I was terrified! For my safety. For my scientific career. Would my colleagues find me credible? Would they see a scientist who happened to be trans, or would they only see me through the lens of my transness? I decided then, regardless of the outcome, I would dedicate my life to improving healthcare for trans people. For the past seven years I’ve worked towards this goal. I’ve spent holidays inventing new tools to study the brain and behavior. I’ve spent weeks going to work after dark, sitting with my mice to run overnight experiments, and then coming home, crossing the Delaware with the sunrise. I’ve been fortunate to have achieved success in my work: I’ve published over a dozen papers, including guides on how to develop animal models for hormone therapy; I’ve been awarded highly competitive NSF and NIH grants; I’ve been appointed a fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies and at other academic organizations.

And, about a year ago, I received the best news of my career: I had been awarded a prestigious NIH grant to not only fund my research at Princeton, but to provide me funding to start my own lab. In my lab, I want to ask questions about how hormones impact the brain to influence mood, the body, and behavior. I want to apply this research to design better hormone therapies– yes, for gender affirming care, but also for birth control, menopause, endometriosis, PCOS, the list goes on! My goal, set so many years ago, was within my grasp. I had put in the work and sacrifice, taken the risks, and it had all seemed worth it. But my dream grows less likely by the day because of Republican efforts to reverse decades of acceptance for various minorities. Through anti-DEI and anti-trans executive orders and laws, the administration seeks to restore hierarchies centered around race and gender, resegregating America. A textbook example of fascism and fascist takeover of institutions.

Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-trans executive orders censor me and those like me. At the State of the Union on Tuesday, Trump complained that NIH wasted money on “transgender mice”, directly attacking the work my colleagues and I do. Wednesday, a White House press release called trans health research “fraud” and “waste”. Yesterday, Nature reported that the administration has bypassed congressional control of the budget to terminate ongoing grants related to trans healthcare. They report that the NIH will terminate hundreds of already awarded, active research grants if they support DEI or trans people in any way. I don't know how or if I’ll get paid next month, and I don't know if I’ll actually get the funds that congress has already awarded me to start my lab. I don't know what's going to happen to my career, and I'm really fucking furious. I've dedicated my entire adult life to this work. But to Trump and his supporters, I am not a scientist who should be judged for the work I do, who happens to be trans. To them, I am trans, and therefore cannot contribute to science because I’m inherently biased and unfit.

But I'm here speaking to you now because this moment is about more than just me. Under the guise of this anti-trans and anti-DEI moral panic, Republicans are weaponizing the state to attack all science. Their actions prevent us from making life-saving discoveries across all fields. They see science as a tool to control people and carve their desired reality into our bodies and minds, not as a way to understand our beautifully complex world. But we can stop them. Because we are many, and they are so, very, very few. Right now we need to give our legislators hell until they start standing up for us. Push universities to establish contingency funds for researchers whose active funding is terminated. And keep showing up, keep protesting. Keep standing up to cruel bullies and fascists. Don’t comply with unjust orders or demands, fight back! Fight for a world where the next scientist like me is seen for her contributions to science and human health, not seen only as trans. And lastly, fight for a world that loves and values trans people.

My speech for the Philly #StandUpForScience Protest.

Everything I do is for my community 💜✨

Stand up for science rally in Jefferson City Missouri. Clarissa and a colleague along with many others are in front of the state capitol building holding signs in support of science. These are on yellow poster board. One reads “Innovation needs protection” and the other reads “defunding science defunds our future.”

Standing up for science in Missouri @standupforscience.bsky.social

Navy background with white text that says "2 days until stand up for science"

2 DAYS until we STAND UP FOR SCIENCE!

More information on local sites available at www.standupforscience2025.org ☀️

#standupforscience2025

Here are some data documenting the funding "pause" pulled from NIH Reporter. Current results (FY25) (Red) are compared with results from FY21 (first year of Biden Administration) and FY24.

Note that data from Reporter lag behind release of NoAs by ~1 week.

I will be tracking this going forward.

Mass layoffs of IRS agents who catch tax evaders.

Once more, Elon Musk's very sincere crusade to cut "waste and fraud" out of the federal government just so happens to weaken government power over billionaires like him.

What an incredible string of coincidences we've had here.

Nature Story "Revealed: NIH research grants still frozen despite lawsuits challenging Trump order"

(with non-paywalled link)

archive.ph/7h6Im