Dr. Stephanie Marroquin

The 2025 GRS/GRC on Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction was absolutely amazing! I made so many great new connections and was blown away by the research. With that said, I’m also very happy to be home again, sipping delicious coffee alongside my sweet kitty! Excited for 2027 MAST!

Michael Patnode with Rachel Washburn, Jessica Aycock, and Mason Clark, winners of GRC MAST poster awards from Cell Press and FEMS

Congratulations to 2025 GRC Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction Poster Award Winners!! 🎆🥂🙌 Thank you @cp-cell.bsky.social and @femsmicro.org for sponsoring!

From,
Your secret judges 🤫

We are now over 2/3 full for the 2025 Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction GRS! Apply to join us July 19-20 (through 25 for GRC) at Salve Regina University! It’s going to be a great meeting with amazing science and people!Please re-post!! #MAST

Science Advances’ special issue on women’s health highlights a growing wave of research focusing on women’s unique biological and psychological experiences. Articles cover a range of studies from the interplay between menopause and Alzheimer’s risk to the menstrual cycle’s influence on the brain-heart connection. It also describes the opportunities pregnancy provides to research aspects of both physical and mental health. By prioritizing women’s unique physiological and psychological experiences, research can expand the frontiers of knowledge in ways that benefit everyone.

A special issue on #WomensHealth in #ScienceAdvances highlights a growing wave of research focusing on women’s unique biological and psychological experiences.

Learn more: scim.ag/3R59fPe (THREAD 🧵)

We are now halfway full for the 2025 Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction GRS! Apply to join us July 19-20 (through 25 for GRC) at Salve Regina University! It’s going to be a great meeting with amazing science and people! Please re-post!! #MAST

While Black History Month is still happening, I want to give you a little insight into different coping strategies Black people take to survive. For instance, I used to be introverted, which must be shocking for those who know me. Here's what happened...

We are almost halfway full for the 2025 Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction GRC and GRS! Apply to join us July 19-25 at Salve Regina University! It’s going to be a great meeting with amazing science and people! Please re-post!! #MAST

Happy Black History Month from the Black Microbiologists Association

Happy BHM! Celebrating our history and taking pride and joy in the contribution of Black Americans to this society has been and will continue to be a form of resistance

Many people, including academics, don't understand what F&A is for. Please share to help.

1) Translate to "overhead" in common business accounting:
60% IDC => 60/160 = 37.5% overhead (low!)

2) Infographic explaining what it's for, linked here:
www.cogr.edu/sites/defaul...

Detailed and concise 1-pager explaining what F&A does and how it underlies the competitive advantages of American sciences.

F&A pays PEOPLE and allows universities to be the anchors of regional economies that they are!

🔗 www.cogr.edu/sites/defaul...

Spots are filling up for the 2025 Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction GRC and GRS! Apply to join us July 19-25 at Salve Regina University! It’s going to be a great meeting with amazing science and people! Please re-post!! #MAST

Same here :( it’s what got me pumped to get started on the rest

I honestly believe our most powerful position in a toxic time that feeds on cynicism, apathy,& despair is to genuinely care and act for a better world.

Cynicism is our enemy. We should check it, incl. on the left. It’s not intellectually superior. It’s the virus they’re trying to infect us with. NO

We submitted this grant today. It holds the dreams and promise of supporting a future that is under attack, but not lost. Helping, serving, and welcoming people are ideals that can't be taken away from me. If what we wrote doesn't even get reviewed, the message stands and that is worth fighting for.

Thanks Lilly!

The MOSAIC K99 link is now dead

Ditto 🙃

Somewhere in the U.S., there’s a scientist staring at their NSF/NIH grant application wondering why they bother. This post is for you. Science and society both need you. Hang in there and know there is a whole community supporting you.

Also, remind me to NOT submit a grant for cycle 1 in the same year a new administration is coming in…

Officially changing my MOSAIC K99 application to a Parent K99 because my NOFO (PAR-24-225) is gone. Luckily, I was jaded enough to start making two versions of documents since last Friday. It’s been a struggle to stay focused and motivated through this, not going to lie.

I’ve been struggling so much. My MOSAIC K99 NOFO is officially gone so I have to pivot application to Parent K, due next Thursday.

I can’t access PAR-24-225 anymore, it says page not found. Guess I have to switch over to the parent K now.

This isn't mine at all, but the Magic School Bus TV cartoon, which inspired untold millennials including myself, originated as an NSF grant 🧪

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

We write to you on behalf of the scientific community to raise serious concerns about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nominee for the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We represent the Coalition for Life Sciences, an alliance of scientists and scientific organizations focused since 1990 on (1) promoting policies and practices that foster innovative, impactful research and training in the life sciences, and (2) ensuring that public policy is informed by sound scientific evidence. The leader of the Department of Health and Human Services needs to make evidence-based decisions supported by validated scientific data. Adherence to such data-driven policymaking has made America the gold standard for biomedical discovery and public health policy. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not use scientific evidence in developing his positions and, in fact, often denies substantial bodies of scientific research to sow doubt over health interventions long established to be safe and effective. Some of these positions have already cost lives by influencing individual behavior. Providing him with a platform to embed them in US policy would have sweeping consequences, putting potentially millions of American lives at risk.

The United States is the global leader in biomedical research, which has improved health on many fronts and generated a biotechnology industry that contributes nearly $100 billion each year1 to our economic and national security. One of the great successes of biomedical research is management of infectious diseases. In the 20th century, widespread vaccination removed infectious disease from the leading cause of death in the United States for nearly all age groups. This safe prevention strategy has saved millions of lives and trillion of dollars in the U.S. economy. Changing vaccine policy or even voicing counter-factual statements about vaccine safety will lower vaccination rates and lead to the widespread reemergence of deadly diseases like measles, typhoid, and tuberculosis and hasten the next global pandemic. We recommend you ask the following questions at Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation hearing. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The Finance Committee’s responsibilities include oversight of Medicare. • Do you support flu vaccination for older adults? o Estimates of economic costs are >$85 billion each year, of which two-thirds are attributable to adults over 65 and ~90% of annual deaths from influenza are in people older than 65. 2 • Do you support RSV vaccination for older adults? o A recent study found that prior to availability of the RSV vaccine, there were 4 million RSV cases in adults over 60 years of age and an economic burden of $6.6 billion each year.3 o Can you provide rough comparisons of RSV vs. influenza virus in terms of symptomatic disease, hospitalizations, and deaths among adults over 65? If the emerging avian influenza virus mutates to become transmissible between people, it is likely to hit seniors the hardest. What will you do as HHS Secretary to prepare for such a threat? • Will you support the development of a vaccine? • Will you promote the use of effective public health interventions? <incomplete, see image >

6. • lHow will you, as HHS Secretary, monitor infectious disease trends across our borders in the absence of WHO data and information? You have been quoted as saying that the NIH should stop research on infectious diseases for 8 years7 to focus on chronic, non-communicable diseases. • What are the potential costs to stopping research into infectious pathogens when they continue to evolve, when so many health costs are due to infections, when new causes of infectious disease are appearing and expanding their scope? • Without research, how will you defend Americans from the increasing threat from the novel avian influenza virus? What are the potential costs if that virus mutates to become transmissible between people? • Can you provide a summary of NIH’s investment in infectious disease research versus chronic disease (cardiovascular, metabolic, neuropsychiatric and other disorders)? 7. You are widely identified with promoting the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. • What would it take to convince you of the published conclusions of 5 randomized controlled trials, 1 controlled clinical trial, 27 cohort studies, 17 case-control studies, 5 time-series trials, 1 case cross-over trial, 2 ecological studies, and 6 self-controlled case series studies involving 14.7 million –children –– all8 of which have demonstrated that there is no link between vaccines and autism? • What are the likely consequences and costs of reducing the number of people who receive the following vaccines: (MMR for measles, mumps, and rubella; polio; human papilloma virus; hepatitis B virus; etc.) • Many have noted that your efforts to reduce the deployment of measles vaccine in Samoa 6 years ago led to over 80 childhood deaths from measles. How did that experience affect your views on vaccination? • You have been critical of the vaccine approval process. Who should be in charge of the design of clinical trialsfor vaccines during your tenure at DHHS? Who should judge whether they can be used?

To all constituents, journalists, and representatives interested in today’s hearings for RFK Jr, please read, consider, and ask the following questions of him.

On behalf of the Coalition for the Life Sciences cc: @needhibhalla.bsky.social

www.coalitionforlifesciences.org

While President Trump illegally pauses federal funding from Congress, the Senate must not be business as usual.

We do not consent to this lawless power grab.

Peoples literal livelihood at stake. What the actual fuck.

Microbiome science needs more microbiologists- A new commentary authored by myself and @abaumler.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Heatmap of NIH diversity supplements per state. From NIH Reporter.

In another detrimental turn of events, #diversity supplements on NIH grants are no longer a thing as of today - grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Right now, ~$65M goes to 750+ projects / people doing to #ScientificResearch in 45 of 50 states.

#academicSky #publicHealth #medSky 1/n

I’ve been working on my MOSAIC K99/R00 application since winter break... I am now making “Parent K99/R00” alternatives of all the documents in case it gets scrapped last minute 🫠 Apologies in advance to my LOR people if I frantically email a new PAR# days before the deadline 😓

This Thursday, I am hosting an event called CIENCIA EN ESPAÑOL for the community, not just scientists, to have researchers talk about their science in Spanish. There is a Zoom option, so please share it widely!