Jessi Lang

Finally on. Trump suggesting autism researchers lied, withheld information, one of the worst things to ever happen, went from 1:10,000 to 1 in 12 (boys in CA). No autism in folks who don't take vaccines (amish). Going great so far!

I hope in future years, CDMRP restores funds for OCRP and other programs. This is defunding of cancer research, and also focuses on our veterans. But this will be an uphill battle. Please contact your state representatives to let them know you would like your dollars to continue funding research!

DOD CDMRP funding in future years is expected to be greatly reduced, including a 67% reduction in OCRP program funding in the next fiscal year. This is really unfortunate, as the grant funds available through OCRP are the only federal ovarian cancer-specific funding opportunities.

This award is a great chance to learn from the mentoring team structure, including my direct mentor, Dr. Manish Patankar, as well as the program leaders Drs. Ken Nephew and @rdrapkin8-penn.bsky.social. I'm looking forward to accelerating networking with the ovarian cancer research community!

Image of dome-shaped drop of matrix with embedded ovarian cancer organoids in the bottom of a well of a cell culture plate. In the background is DNA and molecular structures. Text reads "Awarded OCRP ECIA - Living Models of Ovarian Cancer"

My lab recently received a Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) Early Career Investigator Award, which started July 1st! We are excited to expand our work on molecular profiling of ovarian cancer organoids.

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

Devastating NIH cuts to infectious disease research, eviscerating our nation’s capacity to fight emerging infections and pandemic threats. From @sanders.senate.gov report out yesterday www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

Billions can be hard to grasp. It is perhaps easier to consider how the grinding erosion caused by inflation affects the spending power of "a grant".
From the Archive:
drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/u...

“Science is a smart, low cost investment. The costs of not investing in it are higher than the risk of doing so… talk to people about science.” - @kevinochsner.bsky.social makes his case to the field #sans2025

NIH cancels its first and largest study centered on women The Women’s Health Initiative has produced numerous influential findings

Well the NIH has cancelled the Women's Health Initiative, the largest study of women in history

It has been running continuously since 1991 and has provided massive key knowledge about diseases in women

Unreal

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

My worries are not just for this autism study (though I am worried), but moreso for the slippery slope that leads to eugenics and discrimination broadly. #handsoff

I wish I could also withdraw consent for the government to use my EHR data for this study but, as far as I know, there is no mechanism to do so.

Because I don't know what the government is going to do with it, this part of the agreement scares me "Sharing Your Information:
... Sometimes, we are required by law to share information for legal purposes, or public safety."

@samsungmobileus.bsky.social, under Samsung Washington Consumer Health Data Privacy Statement allows you to withdraw consent to share data, but opting out only prevents selling of data essentially for ad purposes.

RFK, NIH: Who are you giving access to? Is use of the data limited to certain uses? Most people consenting to an IRB-approved study would be able to access this.

RFK Jr.'s autism study to amass medical records of many Americans The autism study is planning to link confidential data "with broad coverage in the U.S. population" in one place for the first time.

I'm giving up my smart watch. Deleted my data. There is zero transparency here on how the government is using our health data.
www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-...

It's time to delete your smart watch or health/fitness wearable data if you have not already. Even if you are not autistic.

www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-...

An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it's time to write - PubMed An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it's time to write

A few quotes I love from this article about writing: "There’s no such thing as thinking", "Writing. Is. Thinking.", "Without writing there is no thinking and no real opportunity for exchange in the marketplace of ideas."

See this chart for one stark example: NIH funding has dramatically slowed down.

Grant awards are down *$3 billion* so far, compared to same time period last year

I asked the White House to explain.

“This is not a researcher entitlement program,” said an official, defending their new approach.

The Department of Defense funds me from their Ovarian Cancer Research Program. Valuable science that doesn't get much attention in NIH study sections that are not cancer-specific gets attention in these programs. This is terrible.

Baldwin Leads Forum on Trump and Musk’s Cuts to Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease Cures YouTube video by Senator Tammy Baldwin

There is a forum on the NIH happening right now at the US Capitol, hosted by Senator Tammy Baldwin. You can listen in here (and rewind to the beginning): www.youtube.com/live/JofqSdW...

Wow, a lot has happened in the last 62 days, hasn't it?

@baldwin.senate.gov, so happy to have a senator who fights for the medical research I do each day! Thank you

I see senior citizens having public librarians help them schedule a haircut online because places don't even schedule appointments over the phone now. So many will be hurt by this.

The NCI grant supporting the Columbia comprehensive cancer center was terminated. Tell me how terminating support for cancer research helps the economy.

taggs.hhs.gov/Content/Data...

Cancer attractors on the epigenetic landscape. Mathematically, the epigenetic landscape can be extended to regions that represent gene activation configurations (in pink) that exist in theory but are never realized during development and in physiological tissues (green traces descending the hill in the gray regions). The unused regions (pink) contain unoccupied attractors—the cancer attractors. Under abnormal conditions cells can, upon massive perturbation of their gene expression profile, enter such cancer attractors that lack a path to the normal mature cell type attractors (bottom)—and thus are “maturation-arrested” and, if associated gene activation configurations are compatible with cell viability, can become cancerous. Mutations rewire the gene regulatory network (GRN), thus altering the dynamics, which can result in lowering of the barriers (hills) that prevent cells from leaving the physiological regions, facilitating the occupation of cancer attractors.

"The end of the genetic paradigm of cancer" - a provocative piece in @plosbiology.org from Sui Huang, Ana Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein: "We expect that the diminishing returns from the ceaselessly growing databases of somatic mutations... may soon reach a pivot point" journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Seven of my colleagues and friends at Columbia Law have written a compelling (and, in my view unanswerable) response to the unprecedented Title VI demand letter that the Trump administration recently sent to Columbia University:

balkin.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-ti...

If so, they are picking some really messed up topics in these times to test us on. My dept's IT support said it was phishing. I don't think a reminder to be cautious of cybersecurity hurts!

I got the monkeypox exposure email yesterday, and an ICE email today with the same structure. Be careful clicking things out there! The phishers and scammers are now preying on our vulnerability.