Blandine

I can't resist posting this picture of my beautiful 6 days-old angels 😍😍😍😍. Maternity life! Their first hug since being separated at birth for NICU treatment

I am very happy to announce that maternity has now officially started with the premature birth of my 2 beautiful girls. 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Complex regulatory interactions at GDF5 shape joint morphology and osteoarthritis disease risk Objectives To reveal causal level osteoarthritis (OA) disease biology by targeting regulatory interactions at GDF5. Methods By investigating different GDF5 regulatory regions (R2, R3-5, R7-R9, R18...

1) Despite the chaos, I am very pleased to present the terrific research conducted by my post-doc @clarissacoveney.bsky.social. acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities You may never have considered yourself to be one. Why would you? But if you’re reading this, there is more than a likelihood that you are one. If you’re a

On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullsh*t jobs in universities.

"Corporate academia is subverting academic life. It’s destroying academia from within."

🧪👩🏼‍🎓

academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Excited to share our work on the small but mighty microRNA-126-3p in @naturecomms.bsky.social! We found this microRNA is elevated in four knee osteoarthritis cohorts and show in an animal model that it reduces the severity of knee osteoarthritis - at least in part via angiogenesis. rdcu.be/ebycj

• Skills and learning. Universities in the UK play a crucial role in equipping graduates with high level skills. The UK is facing a shortage of 11 million graduates by 2035, when 88% of new jobs will be at graduate level. • Opportunity. The expansion of the higher education sector has afforded more people the opportunity to realise their ambitions, with 33% of the disadvantaged students progressing to university. • Economic growth. Higher education makes £130 billion contribution to the UK economy, supporting over 700,000 jobs in regions across the UK. R&D is one of the long-term Registered Charity No. 233176 sources of UK competitive advantage and growth and every £1 invested in university research and innovation returns £10 for the UK economy. Soft power. Over 50 world leaders received higher education in the UK and by educating large numbers of international students we develop our relationships around the world.

In light of the major cutbacks at universities - especially in the arts, humanities and social sciences - we have written to the Chancellor to make the case for investing in research and higher education through the Spending Review
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/56...

1. A thread about the value of doing "slow science": When I was in grad school I heard this (likely apocryphal) story about one of my favourite scientists: Barbara McClintock.

I’ve seen some posts recently, about the value of basic research, in light of funding cuts and demands that research have immediate economic justification.

Let me collect some info here, in a thread, about why it’s a bad idea to attach those sorts of demands to funding. 🧵 🧪 ⚛️

We should push back at AI's resource extractivism in ways that go beyond environmentalism. My article out tomorrow on computerweekly.com ("Labour’s AI Action Plan - a gift to the far right") joins the dots between AI's environmental harms, social harms, and entanglement with far right ideologies.

Our paper on nurturing a #PositiveResearchCulture within your #research #team published by @wellcometrust.bsky.social gives useful tips for your lab. As well as making you a good team leader, nurturing culture pays off in building your science: 1/11

wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-3...

New MRC application submitted! Thank you to my wonderful co-applicants. I can't wait to work with you all! @clarkinbonebiol.bsky.social @sarahsnelling.bsky.social Katherine Staines, Ruby Chang and Alessandra Carriero.

Expert's Dilemma: the more specialized you become, the less open you are to creative solutions from other fields. But the more you explore other fields, the more you risk losing credibility in your home field.
Interdisciplinary work is still not really embraced by academia.

a woman flexes her arm in front of a salon line logo ALT: a woman flexes her arm in front of a salon line logo

Great team if we get it!! Not on purpose, but an all girls team 😀

I have been preparing a grant application for the last month (yes, over xmas), submission due this week. I have now spent almost 3 days just reducing the number of words to fit the strict 2,800 word limit.. kind of feels like a massive waste of time.

Women in the U.S. experience a higher prevalence than men of many chronic conditions, but research has yet to fully explain these differences.

Our recent report examines how to advance research on chronic conditions in women: https://buff.ly/3VV1gaG

kermit the frog and miss piggy are kissing each other in a muppet show . ALT: kermit the frog and miss piggy are kissing each other in a muppet show .

If you send me an invitation to review on Dec 24 and a "reminder" on Dec 25, there's a chance I won't even try to come up with alternative reviewers after clicking "Decline"...

About time Frank! Good to have you here, and happy Xmas! 🎅

Merry Xmas everyone!!

Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty Women faculty are more likely to leave their jobs than men, most often due to workplace climate, rather than work-life balance.

Women leave academia at higher rates than men at every career stage, and attrition is especially high among three groups: tenured faculty, women in non-STEM fields, and women employed at less prestigious institutions, a #ScienceAdvances analysis finds.

My peer review of peer review:
1. "Community standards" typically devolve rapidly into stock critiques.
2. I don't think it's a "dialog" when one participant has a gun to the other's head.
3. The cost of wasted time due to silly revision experiments is very high and not a good use of research $$.

Yes! All of these!!

A hypothesis is a liability - Genome Biology

genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

A small piece every day, keeps Type2Diabetes and weight gain away. I am so very pleased with my taste for dark chocolate after-dinner ☕! www.bmj.com/content/387/...

Different menopausal hormone therapies significantly affect cardiovascular disease risk, with tibolone linked to higher heart-related complications.

by Johansson T, Karlsson T (...) Johansson Å et 5 al. in BMJ #MedSky

📖 read the article: https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2023-078784

If you're interested in the extracellular matrix of soft tissues and the role ECM plays in osteoarthritis then this systematic review is for you!

boneandjoint.org.uk/Article/10.1...

One of the most surprising lessons for me during my 30 years of doing science is how it's essentially impossible predict what major scientific breakthroughs will emerge or where they will emerge from. But the way we fund science is mostly based on the assumption that we can make such predictions.

#WomensHealth research has historically been underfunded and overlooked.

Learn about our new report reviewing the state of women’s health research and assessing funding needs at @NIH on December 5: https://buff.ly/3ZBKluP

Big Tech in the UK Dorothy Bishop’s attempt to get The Royal Society to oust Elon Musk has crystallised political dilemmas of sweeping consequence

Today I argue that the fusion of Big Tech and politics in the Tony Blair Institute is causing trouble for both The Royal Society and Keir Starmer.

Seen this many times. But many academics will never understand this or will just pretend they don't understand this. They'd rather train PhD students to be machines.

"Fecal microbial load is a major confounder in microbiome studies."

Fecal microbial load is a major determinant of gut microbiome variation and a confounder for disease associations. #Cell @cellpress.bsky.social

Open Access
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...