Michelle McCully

MARCH 7, USA TAKE BACK our SCIENCE RALLY! ALL ACROSS THR COUNTRY NATIONWIDE DAY OF ACTION SAVE SCIENCE. PROTECT HEALTH. DEFEND DEMOCRACY. standupforscience.net/march7

Let's hit the streets on Saturday, March 7th! The mission is simple: Save Science, Protect Health, Defend Democracy. Find a rally near you, start your own, or just get some friends together and have a pop-up protest! Links in bio, or visit standupforscience.net/march7

#science
#standupforscience

I’m looking to hire a research technician for my lab at Harvard & DFCI, who would primarily work in the wet lab expressing and characterizing designed proteins, starting this summer. A great role for a recent college grad looking for an immersive research experience before grad school.

Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people… |... Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people ca...

DOCTOR Rümeysa Öztürk has earned her PhD!!

@altfda.altgov.info challenged us to list #5Things that each of us Alts think have caused the most damage in our agencies over the past year. Each of the five items is chock full of sub-items…adding up to far more “things.” Here goes.

We should also note that these vaccines were limited to the most vulnerable populations or not approved at all due to these rare side effects (1 in 200,000). And now this detective work will help ensure future vaccines are even safer. Truly important work!

#goals @ncfdd.org

Preaching to the choir, but...

I'm giving an exam but have slept in, forgotten to make copies, forgotten to write it, etc.

When I was a student, never in a million years would I have suspected that my professors were having nightmares about the same exams as I was -- but from the opposite side!

Undergraduates Rosetta Commons Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) AI for Biomolecular Structure Prediction and Design Interns in this geographically-distributed REU program participate in research using…

Final stretch to apply for undergraduate summer internships in the Rosetta Commons! Come design proteins, develop AI and physics-based methods to model biomolecules, and impact health, materials, and sustainability! Application deadline is Sunday Feb 1.
rosettacommons.org/education/reu/

Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

Do what you can.

❤️‍🩹Take care of yourself.
🫂Take care of each other.
☎️Call 5calls.org
🧑‍💻Write democracy.io#!/thanks
🚫Boycott ICE: www.boycottcitizens.org/ice
✊Support MN: www.standwithminnesota.com

Vibrant color portrait of Jane S. Richardson, the visionary biophysicist and artist who revolutionized structural biology with her invention of ribbon diagrams. She gazes warmly at the camera with a bright, knowing smile that radiates quiet brilliance and decades of curiosity. Her silver-blonde hair woven with gentle waves. Large, elegant dangling earrings catch the light, and she wears a richly patterned brown blouse embroidered with intricate turquoise paisley motifs and delicate beadwork that echoes the molecular elegance she has spent her life depicting. Behind her floats a luminous, dreamlike backdrop of glowing molecular structures--interlocking hexagonal and ribbon-like forms in electric blues, teals, and greens--blending science and art in a single, living canvas.

Hand-drawn and hand-colored (by Jane Richardson) scientific artwork known as a Richardson ribbon diagram (or “ribbon model”), one of the iconic visual inventions of Jane Richardson that transformed the way we see and understand protein structures. A graceful, three-dimensional tangle of protein backbone ribbons twists and spirals through space, rendered in soft pencil lines and luminous watercolor hues. Smooth golden-brown coils represent α-helices that curl like elegant ribbons, while broad teal-green arrows trace the flat, pleated strands of β-sheets slicing through the molecule with directional purpose. Thin, looping golden threads connect the secondary structures, creating a delicate, almost dance-like choreography of biology’s hidden architecture. The entire form is framed by a simple olive-green mat and dark border, giving the drawing the quiet dignity of both fine art and precise scientific illustration—a timeless bridge between molecular reality and human imagination.

Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941

+ Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures)
+ MacArthur Fellow, 1985
+ Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991
+ President, Biophysical Society, 2012

#WomenInSTEM

Mutual aid fundraiser poster for Lyndale Community School

We've raised a lot of money for my school community neighbors.

And I predict all of it will be depleted by the end of this week.

If you're in a position to donate, please help: paypal.me/lyndalepto

(donations are tax deductible)

3/3

Here’s a preprint from the Keating Lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Foster Birnbaum and Amy E. Keating demonstrate that sequence design models, such as ProteinMPNN, are limited because they were trained only on native sequences.

Opinion: Stop Asking If People Want to Ride Bikes — Streetsblog USA "We shouldn’t be aiming to nudge a few percentage points in public opinion. Our goal should be to make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it."

“We shouldn’t be aiming to nudge a few % points in public opinion. Our goal should be to make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it. Help people visualize & demand a future where kids can bike to school, seniors can walk to stores, couples can bike to dinner.” @usa.streetsblog.org

Here for the right reasons

Computational design of conformation-biasing mutations to alter protein functions Conformational biasing (CB) is a rapid and streamlined computational method that uses contrastive scoring by inverse folding models to predict protein variants biased toward desired conformational sta...

Exciting new work from @aliceyting.bsky.social and coworkers @stanfordbiosci.bsky.social @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social

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

This is a drawing about the book I want to write. Alt text: Drawing with on the left a person with a megaphone and the text: “DOOM NEWS Superbugs on the rise, soon all bacteria resistant!?” And on the right a person with heart-shaped glasses and the text: “NEWS Evolution-proof drug discovered”. In the middle it says: “The news can be extreme. Better news about drug resistance. Evolution, data and how we are winning the fights against drug resistance”

I have started updating my website because I am no longer at San Francisco State.
I also wrote on my website landing page that I am writing a book about my favorite topic: evolution of drug resistance. That's my biggest goal for the year! pleunipennings.wordpress.com

here’s hoping 2026 is just one year

#JohnsHopkins @ucsfmedicine.bsky.social and @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social are not obliged to take back Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad & Jay Bhattacharya when they leave the administration.

So, DOGE, What Would You Say You Did Here? An exit interview

One of the best DOGE report cards I’ve seen is from @petridishes.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Imagine, if you will, that NASA updated its website to suggest gravity might not exist, prompting CalTech and CERN to release statements saying, "With great sadness, we can no longer recommend listening to NASA."

This is what's happening in epidemiology.

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

YouTube video by Science With Tom Rosalind Franklin vs. Watson & Crick - Science History Rap Battle

Seems like a good day to share one of my favorite videos on the internet 🧬

Cartoon of person dressed as a ghost, speaking to another person What are you supposed to be? “An unfinished course of antibiotics. I can lead to antibiotic resistance Aren't I terrifying?” And Beatrice was never invited to a Halloween party ever again. By Beatrice the Biologist

In honor of Halloween, one of my all-time favorite cartoons by @katiemckissick.bsky.social

#MedSky #IDSky #HappyHalloween 💊👻🎃

Mike Johnson: I Am Tuning Out the News Cycle to Focus on Self-Care Don’t ask me about the news. I am protecting my mental space.

STOP ASKING MIKE JOHNSON ABOUT THE NEWS! HE IS PROTECTING HIS MENTAL SPACE!

Public Citizen has an annual pumpkin carving competition. The Litigation Group won this year with this portrayal of the White House with the East Wing having been demolished.

Entries from other groups to come

chef's kiss 😘

Pres. Kornbluth articulates such moral clarity in this rejection of the proposed “compact”:

“the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone”

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Hooray!! Congratulations, well deserved! 🎉