Tim Rhoads

Our work detailing the metabolic roles of serum for cancer cell proliferation is now out at JBC, @asbmbjournals.bsky.social!

Congrats to Oliver and Eric and many thanks to the editor and reviewers for a thoughtful and efficient review process.

See here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Repost! Please apply by October 15th for full consideration.

Folks whose jobs, postdocs or grad school fellowships or applications were cut short--drop them a line

Regionally mapped astrocytic responses to cortical and white matter stroke show differential roles in astrocyte-induced vascular remodeling Stroke is a major cause of disability. Astrocytes respond to stroke in a gradated manner, but details of that response and its consequences for tissue…

Thrilled to share this work from my postdoc with Tom Carmichael, available online @ Neuron! Long story short: we find even more evidence that all reactive astrocytes are not equal, and we can take advantage of those differences to improve repair after stroke.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

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

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Alternatively Spliced Citrate Synthase Supports Colorectal Cancer url: aacrjournals.org/cancerres/ar...

Have a look at our views on a recent, very interesting paper on alternative splice variants of citrate synthase.

Some problems have simple solutions. This new “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is one. The answer is simply saying no.

Simple does not mean easy. But Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt, Univ of AZ, UPenn, USC, UT Austin & UVA must understand what they’ll lose if they sign on.

Anyone else working on a NIH grant due sometime soon (like me)? Here’s some guidance👇🏽

Text reads Keynote Speaker Wesley Sundquist, Professor and department of biochemistry co-chair, University of Utah. There is a photo of Sundquist and the background is a scientific image behind a blue, pink and orange gradient.

#ASBMB26's keynote speaker is Wesley Sundquist: Co-chair of the department of biochemistry at @uofubiochem.bsky.social, ASBMB fellow and one of Time's 100 most influential people of 2025. Don't miss his speech at ASBMB 2026!
ow.ly/SxoY50X454R
#HIV #StructuralBiology #ProteinDesign

Very excited about next week's RNA Maxigroup seminar from Kristen Lynch @upenn.edu ! Thanks to @rnasociety.bsky.social , @uwbiochem.bsky.social, and the CMB program for sponsoring!

This comic is becoming increasingly realistic.
m.xkcd.com/3056/

a cartoon of donald trump with the words be prepared above him ALT: a cartoon of donald trump with the words be prepared above him

When I was at NIH and shutdowns loomed, it was discovered that the administration was planning to shut down PubMed. The head of NCBI called the powers that be and pointed out that this would threaten patient safety

Who knows what will happen now

Just in case, remember Euruope-PMC
(europepmc.org )

We have an open post-doc position in my group to study mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation using biochemical reconstitution and cryoEM.

Please get in touch if you are interested in joining this amazing team! 🔬🧬🤩
#RNA #cryoEM

Ben Garcia stands in front of a bookcase lined with past printed issues of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, which have green covers and gold lettering. He is holding one of the journals open to his 2007 article "Organismal Differences in Post-translational Modifications in Histones H3 and H4."

Full circle moment!

While visiting ASBMB for a Maximizing Access Committee meeting, @garcialabms.bsky.social spotted one of his early JBC papers.
www.jbc.org/article/S002...

Do you remember the thrill of your early publications? Share below!
@asbmbjournals.bsky.social #asbmbJBC #TeamMassSpec

The NSF GRFP is now limited to undergrads and first-year grads The solicitation for the 2025 submission dates for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is out, with the first deadline of November 10 for life-sciences disciplines. The big news is that el…

The NSF GRFP is now limited to undergrads and first-year grads drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/t...

FAQ: Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Get answers to frequently asked questions about the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), covering eligibility, application requirements, document uploads and review criteria.

It is somewhat ambiguously worded, but second years were definitely eligible prior to this upcoming application cycle. But you can only submit once as a grad student (previously this could be either in your first year or second year).

www.nsf.gov/funding/info...

This means individuals in the following statuses at the time of application are eligible: Undergraduate in the final (senior) year of a bachelor’s degree program Bachelor’s degree-holder with NO enrollment in a graduate degree program (non-degree graduate coursework allowed) Individual enrolled in a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree program with at least three undergraduate years completed First-year graduate student in their first graduate degree program with less than one academic year completed in the degree program (according to institution’s academic calendar) Individuals enrolled in joint bachelor’s-master’s degree programs are considered graduate students. For GRFP, joint bachelor’s-master’s degrees are defined as degrees concurrently pursued and awarded. Not be a current NSF employee. Applications that do not meet eligibility requirements will be returned without review as being ineligible for a fellowship.

Announcing such a major change to NSF GRFP this late in the cycle is incredibly cruel. 2nd yr students (mine included) have been working so hard on their proposals despite ongoing uncertainty. They are driven and passionate about being outstanding scientists and helping those coming up behind them.

I hate this for the second years who had already been working on applications.

Also the USDA fellowship RFA has still not been issued for this year.

It is harder and harder to find fellowships to support the newest generation of scientists. 🧪

We are shortchanging our future.

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#ASBMB26 abstract submissions open on Oct. 6. Get ready to present your latest research among scientific leaders and peers.

Explore poster abstract categories, which include #cancerbiology, #microbiology, #neurobiology, #immunology, #proteins, #lipids & membranes and much more: ow.ly/ZX9g50WYoFH.

Graphs of funding curves for nine NIH institutes from fiscal year 2012.

Since there is some discussion that NIH institutes should not simply use paylines to determine which grants to fund, I thought I would share some old data.

These are plots of funding probability fas a function of percentile score for 9 institutes.

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Molecular basis of polyadenylated RNA fate determination in the nucleus Eukaryotic genomes generate a plethora of polyadenylated (pA+) RNAs[1][1],[2][2], that are packaged into ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs). To ensure faithful gene expression, functional pA+ RNPs, in...

How are RNAs sorted for export vs. degradation in the nucleus? In collaboration with @heick.bsky.social’s lab we (@clemensplaschka.bsky.social and @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social labs) discovered a direct mechanistic link between the export and decay machineries: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/x)

Have you wondered how nanoparticle protein coronas (e.g., Seer’s Proteograph XT) can help with glycoprotein enrichment in biofluids?

We were curious, too, and this new @riley-research.bsky.social pre-print led by outstanding postdoc @emmajays.bsky.social details our #glycotime investigations.

Rapid remodeling of NTP levels enables immediate translational adaptation to energy stress in yeast Bexley et al. report that rapid metabolic shifts mediate immediate, protective changes in RNA metabolism following energy depletion. In yeast, protein production is regulated by tuning enzymatic const...

I love an elegant paper that addresses an old question: what happens (to translation and gene expression) when glucose is removed from cells? Really nice work from the one and only David Tollervey.

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

I have heard through two sources that NIGMS is not funding R01 applications now and using its money for R35s. However, the only way for non-ESI people to apply to the R35 is to already hold an R01 creating a situation where if you're not in already you can't get in. Does anyone know more on this?

Wary of changes under Trump, 'citizen historians' are documenting the Smithsonian Historians and citizens who say they are concerned about the Trump administration's pressure on the Smithsonian are working to document exhibits, as they exist today, throughout the museum network.

Something genuinely positive because we all really need it right now www.npr.org/2025/09/22/n...

Now with comments... Lots of comments

(A long thread)

1/n

The New York Times piece today about US science is terrible and wrong—in many ways.

I could write a whole article about this, but as one example:

“To close observers, the original crisis began well before any of this…”
No. I’m a close observer of science, and this is incorrect.

Wisconsin researcher’s project cut short in NIH diversity purge • Wisconsin Examiner Trump administration attacks on diversity programs led NIH to cancel awards aimed at diversifying the research workforce.

UW-Madison grad student's NIH grant was terminated without warning, less than four months into the project. Supervising professor Lingjung Li: "We believe that different, diverse backgrounds can actually bring unique and different perspectives to make our research enterprise better and stronger."