Xilma Ortiz-Gonzalez MD PhD

Any resemblance with academia is pure coincidence

We're pediatricians. We see how ICE is harming children. | Opinion Liam Ramos is one of more than 1,700 children to have been put in family detention centers since 2025. We call for these centers to close.

As pediatricians, we’re speaking out on the harms of aggressive immigration enforcement and detention on children. Our kids deserve safety and protection.

See our piece in USA Today:

Top of the photo in white text reads: "BREAKING OVER 680 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES MEMBERS, INCLUDING 10 NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATES, ENDORSE IMPEACHING RFK JR." Below that in black text is a statement reading: "We, the undersigned Members of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, writing in our private capacities, endorse the Articles of Impeachment introduced in the House of Representatives on Dec 10, 2025 by Representative Haley Stevens." Below that is the red "STAND UP FOR SCIENCE " logo. Below that is a link in white text reading: "standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr".

BREAKING: Over 680 members of the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering have endorsed articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.
(1/2 🧵)

Thanks RFK. 😫

Yeee!! Congrats

Because of technical issues with the SciENcv website, NIH is extending a period of leniency accepting old format biosketches through May 2026 (see FAQ #5):

grants.nih.gov/faqs#/common...

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

The scale of the loss is unimaginable.
www.science.org/content/arti...

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

The heartbreak is that we all know those nurses: the ones who don’t compartmentalize to the hospital, but are always caring for the people around them.

Minnesota is the best of us.

Graphic helps visualize how MYF funds FEWER grants despite the increase in budget approval by Congress. https://www.researchamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ACT-for-NIH-Multi-Year-Funding-One-Pager_October-2025.pdf

🧪IMPORTANT! This graphic explains how science all over the US is funded. Congress approved a 2% increase in the #NIH budget for FY 26.

Buried in the bill-
Shift of ~40% of grants to MYF. This will still result in a 35% DECREASE in the NUMBER of grants funded per yr.

Russel Vought is behind this.

#MLK

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents just launched flash bang grenades at protesters in front of federal building in Minneapolis—causing massive explosions. "It's terrorizing, this isn't the America I served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy," tearful protester tells us.

WE'RE LIVE NOW ⬇️

Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators. ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.

Know who profits from ICE's cruelty. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/ice-businesses-boycott-campaign/

So which lawmaker is going to write the Renee Good Act to disarm ICE? @thedemcoalition.bsky.social @aoc.bsky.social @robertgarcia.bsky.social @raskin.house.gov @crockett.house.gov @edmarkey.bsky.social @warren.senate.gov ?

Border Patrol officers arrived at a Minneapolis high school while students were leaving and tackled, sprayed chemical irritants, and handcuffed parents and teachers.

Public high schools in Minneapolis have canceled classes for the rest of the week following the incident.

This. A government agency who is able to kill anybody with impunity is able to kill any of us with impunity

Doctors who care for children’s brains know this: Childhood vaccines save lives. They significantly reduce serious illness and death in children and help protect entire communities. 🔗 Read our full statement: https://ow.ly/qU4O50XSeSm

Appeals Court Upholds Prohibition on Trump’s Medical Research Cuts

A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration could not make drastic cuts to the federal funding supporting much of the country’s medical and scientific research, reaffirming a lower court’s ruling from early last year.

An email from NIH Director Bhattacharya stating that the removal of Walter Koroshetz was at the direction of the Department of Health and Human Services.

We see that Bhattacharya's opinion is highly valued within HHS.

"Dr. Koroshetz's performance as Director has been exceptional; however the Department of Health and Human Services elected to pursue a leadership transition."

Not even the integrity for anyone (e.g. RFK, Jr.) to claim responsibility.

This settlement is the best case scenario for these applications at this point.

Pushing back matters but real damage still done by illegal actions by the current NIH leadership.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this settlement happen!

I believe this meme speaks for most in healthcare, science, public health, global health, research, and anyone wanted a return to precedented times.

Great pre-doc opportunities at @econ.uzh.ch in Zurich for aspiring PhD candidates from low- & middle income countries or with a refugee/asylum seeker background.

Predoctoral Program Global Talent Common Application: www.facultyhiring.oec.uzh.ch/auth/Apply/0... Please share widely in your networks!

Thanks Amelia!

Expanding the Early Childhood Manifestations of ITPR1 Heterozygous Variants Beyond Congenital Ataxia and Gillespie Syndrome | Neurology Genetics Background and ObjectivesHeterozygous ITPR1 variants have been previously linked to multiple human disease phenotypes, including congenital ataxia and Gillespie syndrome. Previous reports have describ...

Out today! Taking the diagnostic challenges from clinic into the lab bench to learn from our rare disease patients
Thanks to David Yule and his team for partnering with us in this project
www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/...

New paper from @zhixingchen2.bsky.social's lab!

It turns out that, in addition to its very low phototoxicity, PKmito Deep Red (PKMDR) directly reports on mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) in live cells through its lifetime!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sometimes I sit and think about what it means that our nation has so completely tied health insurance to working and that is:

“If you can’t work and aren’t independently wealthy, you can just go ahead and die!”

And it’s so messed up.

Proud to contribute to this effort to expand our knowledge of the underlying mechanisms for CASK with a great team