Elisa Franco

We don't know yet. This is a disaster, with hundreds of research groups being hit at the same time. UCLA is a public school, we are very frugal as it is and our endowment is small. How to support my team keeps me awake at night...

Trump freezes $200 million in UCLA science and medical research funding, citing antisemitism The Trump administration has frozen roughly $200 million in National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other federal agency-funded research at UCLA, citing allegations the school d...

200 engineering/life science/medical grants, including my lab's NIH MIRA, have been suspended. In case you are wondering, this means immediately stop spending = stop paying salaries for students & postdocs. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Switchable RNA motifs for dynamic transcriptional control of RNA condensates Abstract. RNA-driven phase separation is emerging as a promising approach for engineering biomolecular condensates with diverse functionalities. Condensate

We demonstrated how to make and dissolve #RNA #condensates through strand displacement using synthetic genes - excited to see this new paper out in @narjournal.bsky.social Collab w/ the Andersen group @esandersen.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

B) Some of the bands have odd “granularity” in the smears
D) In lanes M2+LIC and co+S+LIC the smears look very unusual

Synthetic Biology Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings & Courses -- a private, non-profit institution with research programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, bioinformatics.

2025 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Course in Synthetic Biology - apply!
Deadline: April 14, 2025
Financial Aid: Stipend awards are available.
Notifications: Applicants will be notified by May 15, 2025.
meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx...

Description Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

Unlike a lot of other universities right now, we are still hiring for new faculty here at Imperial in London
🎉🚨🇬🇧🫖
If you want to come and run a research group in the theme of bioengineering then apply to be my colleague before the end of April. www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

If you want to read more, this very engaging book walks you through his discovery process - highs and lows.

Unearthed notebooks shed light on Victorian genius who inspired Einstein Michael Faraday’s illustrated notes that show how radical scientist began his theories at London’s Royal Institution to go online

Michael Faraday was the father of electromagnetism. He changed our world experiment by experiment, without any formal education, and without ever writing equations - now you can check out his original "lab books"! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card

Bluetorial: Non-Competitive Renewal (Continuation) Awards

Normally, multiyear NIH grants are paid with awards each year, pending administratively reviewed progress reports. “NIH” has been slow in making these awards. This has led to $1.83 B being withheld from institutions through February 2025.

Seriously. If you are that good you shouldn’t have to work so much. Get over this BS bro culture.

They replied quickly to me - that's how I learned this trick :)

I had this issue too. Try with your NSF ID instead of UCLA authentication. Doesn't fix the problem but you should be able to login. Set up Google authenticator it's very easy.

Okay, nerds, buckle in!
It's time for some SCIENCE.

Back in the late 1960s, a scientist got some government funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Atomic Energy Commission to look for interesting bacteria living in extreme environments.

1/x

I've been having persistent issues logging into eRA today, anyone else?

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

The figure is a graphical abstract of the research article titled, "Metabolite-Responsive Control of Transcription by Phase Separation-Based Synthetic Organelles". Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssynbio.4c00633

The figure shows schematic outline of the OLS which is a single-objective, light-sheet imaging modality that provides illumination homogeneity, a large achievable FOV and superior background fluorescence rejection. OLS is suitable for SMLM and SMT measurements. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02594-6

The figure shows Crystal structure and elastic bending properties of bis(acetylacetonato)copper(II) ([Cu(acac)2]. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-025-02133-w

The illustration is a graphical abstract and shows Light-Modulated Self-Assembly of Synthetic Nanotubes. Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c05452

2025-02-23 Issue of #engineeredlivingmaterials feed:
biomed.news/bims-enlima/...
@biomednews.bsky.social
includes, metabolite-responsive control (h/t wilfriedweber.bsky.social), light-modulated self-assembly (h/t francolab.bsky.social), single-protein quant (h/t naturemethods.bsky.social), & more 🧪

US science agency reclassifies hundreds of workers as probationary, US lawmaker says National Science Foundation administrators reclassified hundreds of employees from permanent to probationary status in violation of labor contracts, according to a U.S. lawmaker and agency employee.

Deeply concerned about NSF. They fired more people than they needed and now leadership is illegally reclassifying employees as probationary. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

How can complex dynamics emerge from phase-separated matter? 🤔 Simple chemical reactions can trigger periodic or chaotic behavior in dense phases! Cool simulations by Dino Osmanovic 💥 w/ support by @sloanfoundation.bsky.social
#PhaseSeparation #Matter2Life
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

1/ I am seeing a lot of comments on the slashing of NIH support along the lines of “universities should just spend their huge endowments.”

I’m the last person to cheer on the institutional stratification rising endowments have contributed to. But let me explain why this is not a solution.

Sure. Is it acceptable for someone to make tens of billions in taxpayer money and also have the authority to decide what programs/people are unnecessary or suboptimal?

was it a single unelected friend infiltrating every single agency?

Happy #Valentine's day with some colorful #DNA #condensates that decided to assemble into a heart ❤️ 💚 ❤️ 💚 ❤️ 💚

thank you - reposted :)

🚨 New Preprint Alert! 🚨
Dose-response curves measure how cells react to inputs, but what about how long the input stays high? Our latest work shows that some circuits can flip the script of temporal dose: short stimuli can trigger sustained responses & vice versa!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

NIH to implement a 15% indirect cost rate. "This policy shall be applied to all current grants for go forward expenses from February 10, 2025 forward as well as for all new grants issued." Devastating for US scientific institutions.
Am I understanding this right?
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

If you’ve been directly impacted by a pause or cancellation of an NIH study session, we @forbes.com would like to talk to you

Director, Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

#UCLA QCbio qcb.ucla.edu is looking for a new director! recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10007 Please share

Foundations of Nanoscience

Abstract submission for FNANO is now open! They’re due Feb 1! Join us at molecular programming’s annual celebration of design, interfaces and applications (and also skiing) 🧬

www.fnano.org

Che bella animazione!

I do too for the same reasons, but after scoping your ideas and getting them funded, it would be great to have time to actually do the research. We are pulled away from research by dozens of other urgent daily tasks, including more grant deadlines, reporting, admin, teaching...