J. Barker Lab

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship - College of Medicine

We are recruiting for our Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship! Please encourage the talented UGs in your life to apply to join us for a 9 week, 💰paid💰 research experience in Philly this summer!

Applications close Jan 12, 2026.
drexel.edu/medicine/res...

Neuroscience PhD applications — Stories of WiN Dr. Nancy Padilla-Coreano chats with Dr. Ben Giasson, the director of the neuroscience PhD program at the University of Florida, to demystify the PhD application process.

It's PhD application season. If you are applying for a PhD in neuroscience or biomedical field or are mentoring someone who is applying, please check out our @storiesofwin.bsky.social episode with advice! www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

if only I could outsource my deep thinking and collaborative problem solving to a machine I'd be able to get my pcard reconciled on time

ICE spotted in Philly, near 9th and Wolf. This is fucking awful.

southphillyfridge.com/shop

Photo of a black sweatshirt with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. The foreground has a green monster refrigerator, with a mouth and tentacles, with the text "feed the fridge" in orange and purple

I am just saying that community fridges are great, consider supporting ones in your community. But also consider this one in South Philly, where you can support with a donation AND this excellent spooky season merch.

hcb.hackclub.com/donations/st...

That very MUNDANE action that you don't take because you are too busy fantasizing about being a superhero instead would actually DO something for someone. Your fantasy does not.

University leaders: [terminate programs, close campuses, cave in to political pressure from demagogues]

Faculty, students, staff: you’re killing the university

Management consultants: looks like you got a real comms challenge here

Sex Differences in Low-dose Ethanol Effects on Motivated Behavior and Limbic Corticostriatal Activity Background: In 2023, the World Health Organization declared that there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption. It is becoming increasingly clear that even at lower doses, ethanol exposure impacts bo...

New preprint from work led by @curranalfaro.bsky.social !

Tina looked at the impacts of chronic exposure to low-dose ethanol on brain and behavior and id'd altered cFos engagement in NAc circuits and sex specific effects on sensitivity to changes in reward value.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Federal funding is not worth Penn’s independence | Editorial Signing on to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education offered by the Trump administration would end the school's ability to determine its own future.

OPINION: "Signing on to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education offered by the Trump administration would end the school's ability to determine its own future." — The Inquirer Editorial Board

So you want to support living marginalized banned authors but your local banned books week displays and events are full of famous dead people?

Not to worry: your helpful non-binary bookseller is here to help!

A thread!

“Toilet paper is offered for free in public bathrooms. Tampons and pads should be too."

Phlow Philly is a citywide initiative addressing period poverty by installing free-vend dispensers in public spaces and distributing 4,500 period kits.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/rsBn50X4kmB

Also, this was part of a special issue on Alcohol Use and Pain Interactions, edited by @jeffbphd.bsky.social - bunch of great stuff here! www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Effects of ethanol on mechanical allodynia and dynamic weight bearing in male and female mice with spared nerve injury - PubMed These data indicate that while ethanol has antiallodynic and antinociceptive effects in male and female mice, the doses and time course of these effects are distinct. Studies investigating the relatio...

This paper describes outcomes in males based on our previous findings of sex differences in ethanol effects on allodynia, but we are in parallel working on a follow up data set in females...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36521835/

Final version of this work is now live! Mitch developed this model and found that a history of chronic neuropathic pain in the SNI model facilitates pain-induced reinstatement of ethanol CPP in male mice.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A flyer advertising Philly Science Action Social. Happy Hour for Philly's Science Community. Friday, Oct 3. 4:30-6PM National Mechanics. 22 S 3rd St #24, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Connect. Share. Build Community.

This Friday! 🍻🔬

Join us at National Mechanics for a science happy hour!
📅 Friday, Oct 3
⏰ 4:30–6:00 PM
🎉 10% off drinks
🤝 Connect with Philly’s science community

Then head to the FREE First Friday poster session at the Science History Institute!
🔗 tinyurl.com/3z8sh4ax

Nixon Lab is hoping to recruit a postdoctoral fellow interested in alcohol-microglia and/or alcohol-neural stem cell interactions in recovery from alcohol-induced brain and behavioral damage/dysfunction. Open fellowships on our NIAAA-funded T32! Please spread the word!

(you can see what they're up to here, if you're into that - www.jbarkerlab.com/lab-members )

Group of 10 smiling scientists posing for a photo. They have elected to all wear pink and black, though they deny that they were channeling the Barbenheimer energy of 2023.

Working on an acknowledgements slide for a talk, and just thought I'd brag on how adorbs my lab is!

My entire feed rn is

Senator: Do you think heart failure causes death

RFK: Senator, medicine doesn't work, we all need to be drinking raccoon blood

Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media...

Very few PhD students finish within 4 years. But international students will need to do that if US proposed visa rules change go through.

Sound reasonable to you?

Fed register is accepting comments for next month. Details at the link & comment button

www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

After conferring with DOJ, we'd like to provide the following guidance on the implications of last week's Supreme Court's decision. First, the Challenged Directives identified in the Rite to adamante o tune romain verated and cannot be applied to the identified plaintiffs in the two cases going forward. Second, for any terminated grant that has nc already been reinstated, NIH may stop all work toward reinstating those few grants, if any. Third, for those grants reinstated by NIH in response to the June judgments, we would strongly recommend against re-terminating such grants, because it will likely be viewed as a reapplication of the now-vacated Challenged Directives. We would also refer you to the Acting General Counsel's attached 6/25/25 opinion on the legal risks in terminating awards for nonalignment with priorities at this time. The Supreme Court's decision was an interim order while the cases proceed with the appeals of the phase 1 judgements before the First Circuit Court of Appeals. We will keep you posted on those proceedings. In the interim, please let us know if you have any questions.

BREAKING: per email sent to agency staff NIH will _NOT_ reterminate the ~900 grants which were reinstated.

"[W]e would strongly recommend against re-terminating such grants, because it will likely be viewed as a reapplication of the now-vacated Challenged Directives."

Just a reminder, the NOSIs for Research Continuity and Retention Supplements (childbirth, healthcare issues), and Re-Entry, Re-integration & Re-training Supplements, are ending Sept 9th. If you were thinking about one of them, apply soon. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

what a pr disaster for the powerhouse of the cell

Vox has a very good article explaining the mess that just happened at the Supreme Court. In the end, they are ensuring that no matter what happens to the canceled grants, there’s no chance of resolving fast enough to matter for the work or PIs. Struck a death blow www.vox.com/scotus/45886...

In March, the Trump administration announced a massive purge of workers at the nation's health agencies. We asked them how many workers were laid off, pushed out or left, and the admin refused to give us numbers. So we conducted our own analysis, a thread...

NEW: In March, the Trump administration announced a massive purge of workers at the nation's health agencies.

We asked them how many workers were laid off, pushed out or left.

They refused to give us numbers.

So we conducted our own analysis... 🧵

projects.propublica.org/federal-heal...

Rapid Response: Reinvesting in Racial and Indigenous Health Equity Research The purpose of this call for proposals is to meet the current moment by supporting timely, actionable health equity research that has been interrupted by shifts in federal funding.

ATTN: Robert Wood Johnson has money to support “canceled” research on racial-indigenous health equity

www.rwjf.org/en/grants/ac...

So many of my fellow scientists are deeply anti-intellectual at heart.

Hi, are you an academic biology lab in the Boston area? I am a lab manager at a local biotech and I will be getting rid of a lot consumables in the near future (as will many of my colleagues, unfortunately). If you would be interested in free consumables, please reach out to me!

Or

The application is for a diversity pipeline program (non-exhaustive list: MOSAIC, F31 Diversity, IRACDA, MARC, ARC, IMSD, ReWARD, B-INSPIRE, CPACHE, BRAIN Initiative, Cancer Moonshot Scholars Diversity Program).

7/n