Cecilia Noecker

The breakdown of new awards by mechanism.

F30 (Predoc, MD/PhD)

FY2025: 196
FY2024: 253

F31 (Predoc, PhD)

FY2025: 670
FY2024: 1054

F32 (Postdoc)

FY2025: 216
FY2024: 350

6/12

Black in Micro Week 2025 Early Career Research Symposium held on October 15, 2025, from 9 AM to 12 PM EST. Presenters include Katelyn Nicole Ward, Larisa Chila Kiki, Mallory Evans, Savannah Nicole Lewis, Enycé Fairbanks, and Khadijat Oluwapelumi Adefaye. It features six research presentations by early career scientists from various universities, covering topics such as drug repositioning for fungal infections, bacteriophage adaptation to silver ions, inflammasome responses to LPS, NK cell dynamics in malaria, organoid modeling of bacterial toxins, and protein disorder in Hepatitis E virus.

Early Career Research Symposium featuring Aureliana Filomena Chambal Chilengue, Hassan Abbas, Nazik Elmekki, Immaculata Chika Ede, Audrey Randall, and Justin Durunyamunwu. Topics include tuberculosis transmission analysis using reference-free clustering, gut microbiota comparisons in ulcerative colitis, fitness determinants of Phocaeicola vulgatus, wound biofilm modeling, the role of Parabacteroides distasonis in type I diabetes, and microvascular modeling in dengue virus research.

Early Career Research Symposium showcasing presenters howcasing presenters Nadia Holness, Deus Kamya, Trinity Moore, Caitlin Wiafe-Kwakye, Drea Darby, and Teni Shosanya. Topics include the role of Staphylococcus aureus in skin inflammation, the impact of Candida albicans on oral epithelial cells, the role of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron in gut inflammation, the effect of Enterococcus faecalis on colorectal cancer, the influence of Streptococcus pneumoniae on lung immunity, and the use of Escherichia coli in synthetic biology applications.

Early Career Research Symposium with additional presenters. Presenters include Katelyn Nicole Ward, Larisa Chila Kiki, Mallory Evans, Savannah Nicole Lewis, Enycé Fairbanks, and Khadijat Oluwapelumi Adefaye. It features six research presentations by early career scientists from various universities, covering topics such as drug repositioning for fungal infections, bacteriophage adaptation to silver ions, inflammasome responses to LPS, NK cell dynamics in malaria, organoid modeling of bacterial toxins, and protein disorder in Hepatitis E virus.

Our Research Symposium is almost here! On Oct 15, come celebrate 25 #BlackInMicro scientists from around the globe. Pre-register today to attend: tinyurl.com/BIMW25. To help keep #BlackInMicro alive, Donate here: tinyurl.com/GiveBiM (all links in bio)

Half of microbial eukaryote literature focuses on only twelve human parasites Abstract. Although microbial eukaryotes comprise the majority of eukaryotic phylogenetic diversity and inhabit nearly all ecosystems globally, most researc

Half of microbial eukaryote literature focuses on only twelve human parasites

-in #ISMEJournal by Joanna Lepper, @hbrappap.bsky.social and @oliverio.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

"all universities have to do now is do nothing—no accepting the compact, no counter-offers, nothing—and the government will be left with no more power to coerce and control the First Amendment-protected activities of major American universities than it has today." balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Proud to announce the project I've been working on 🏳️‍⚧️🧬

Had hoped to have more ready, but the events of the last week stressed the importance of speaking up against fascism NOW

I'd appreciate your support in spreading the word, esp if you work in life sciences research, healthcare, or biotech

Israel’s navy seizes last flotilla boat as army levels Gaza City Israel's army issues 'final warning' for hundreds of thousands of people to flee main urban centre as attacks escalate.

Israel's army issues 'final warning' for hundreds of thousands of people to flee main urban centre as attacks escalate.

Efficient sequence alignment against millions of prokaryotic genomes with LexicMap - Nature Biotechnology LexicMap uses a fixed set of probes to efficiently query gene sequences for fast and low-memory alignment.

Interested in aligning your long sequences or small genomes against huge reference databases containing millions of prokaryotic genomes ? A new tool has been released that can do this efficiently - LexicMap - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Crown Fountain is a wonderful installation in which water from two large columns which show faces of Chicagoans floods a court with an inch of so of water. When it opened, the city was surprised by how many families would come to let their kids splash in it. Including mine.

The continued presence of National Guard in DC, the hundreds remaining in California, and whatever the hell this is are all, independently, reasons why Trump should not be in office.

Trump is an essential element of all this, obviously. But that alone is not why we are here.

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...

Comment period ends on Monday for a proposed rule change that would terminate student visas after 4 years. It also puts limits on exchange visitors and reps of foreign media, and shortens the length of time at the end of the visa from 60 days to 30 days.

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

Economic loss from the White House's NSF FY 2026 Proposed Budget

New from #SCIMaP - analysis of the White House’s Proposed FY 2026 National Science Foundation Budget.

Take-home: Slashing NSF by >50% will lead to ~$11 billion in economic loss and extensive job loss and reduced training opportunities in communities nationwide.

Report: osf.io/e8rnc

a 🧵

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...

ADD YOUR THOUGHTS ON LIMITING STUDENT VISA TO FOUR YEARS

Comment period ends September 29th

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

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Universities. Rural hospitals. Tech companies. Several sectors are going to be profoundly hurt by this. Not to mention the chaos of the moment as current H1-B owners scramble to get back to the U.S., cancel travel, etc. due to the uncertainty. An absolute mess. As intended.

“In some cases, the government appeared to rely on unverified tabloid reports about Khalil. In others, its claims were factually incorrect because of inconsistent timelines and mischaracterizations of his work history.”

I want our young people to know that there is a path forward, that a better world is possible. I don't want them to give up, to become cynical. They deserve to be young and full of optimism. They are owed a world that supports and sustains optimism.

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Such a delight to share our work on the evolution of a cheese rind fungus in @currentbiology.bsky.social.

This is the fantastic PhD work of @nicolasleonlouw.bsky.social and resulted from amazing collaborations, a wedding proposal(!), an undergrad course, & more!

🧵

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Happy Pythagorean Triple Square Day!

How to submit a written public comment Any member of the public can submit a written public comment to ACIP. The docket, identified by Docket No. CDC-2025-0454 [, will be opened to receive written comments on September 2, 2025. Written comments must be received by September 13, 2025, using the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. For access to the docket or to read background documents or comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov C. How to request to make an oral public comment The September 18-19, 2025 ACIP meeting will be a virtual meeting and will include time for oral public comment for members of the public. All individuals interested in making an oral public comment are strongly encouraged to submit a request starting September 2, 2025, to no later than 11:59 p.m., EDT, September 13, 2025, as there will be no opportunity to register for oral public comment later than September 13. If the number of persons requesting to speak is greater than can be reasonably accommodated during the scheduled time, CDC will conduct a lottery to determine the speakers for the scheduled public comment session. CDC staff will notify individuals regarding their request to speak by email by September 16, 2025. To accommodate the significant interest in participation in the oral public comment session of ACIP meetings, each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes, and each speaker may only speak once per meeting. Requests to make an oral public comment are open.

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY you can leave a public comment for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, which meets Sep 18.

Reports suggest they may falsely link vaccines to child deaths and restrict vaccines to ages 75 and up.

You can submit a written comment here:
www.regulations.gov/document/CDC...

Structure-informed microbial population genetics elucidate selective pressures that shape protein evolution An integrated analysis framework shows a strong association between within-population genetic variation and protein structure.

It's like you can see the interaction between ecology and evolution happening right in front of you. 💚🦠🧬
#mevosky #bluesci

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

I think it's terrible that Gen Z and Gen Alpha continue to live in a world where K-12 and college campus shootings are a normal part of life and that's all they've ever known and I think we should arrange things so that any kind of school or university shooting is impossible

History of Molecular Biology Collection This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

For people in a state that is asking for a prescription, try a CVS MinuteClinic.

Some MinuteClinic’s are getting around restrictions by having nurses on site who will give you a prescription during a visit. They ask to confirm if you are high risk but don’t ask for proof.

🐥If this Senate hearing with Bobby "The Quack" Jr pissed you off, send a message: Quack-O-Gram delivery begins on 9/15🐥

🐥 $3. Man in a duck suit. Rubber duck with "impeach the quack" message to YOUR Rep🐥

Link: www.standupforscience.net/quack-o-grams
#ImpeachTheQuack
@standupforscience.bsky.social

Commensal yeast promotes Salmonella Typhimurium virulence - Nature Commensal Candida albicans enhances the virulence and dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium.

Excited to share our new publication, out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41.... @kanchanj.bsky.social led this fascinating fungal-bacterial interaction project. We are grateful for our wonderful collaborators Brian Peters and David Underhill.

Opinion | Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC and Me I was fired after 29 days because I held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.

gift link to dr. susan monarez’s piece in the wall street journal this morning.

A black and white photo of RFK

9 former directors of the CDC penned an op-ed stating that what Robert F. Kennedy has done to the nation's public health system is "unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced"

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

I’ve spent two weeks thinking carefully about this, and I’m going to do my best to explain the theory of change for RFK’s removal, as I see it. That includes where impeachment fits, what to ask from House vs Senate, etc.

Stop the Anti-Vaccine Takeover of the CDC ⭑ 5 Calls The Trump administration is continuing to undermine public health and scientific integrity by firing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) …

Here is a script. Please, please call. We cannot sit by and we cannot let our representatives sit by as our nation’s public health infrastructure is destroyed.

CVS and Walgreens Clamp Down on Covid Vaccines in Many States

Updates on the pharmacy vaccine situation today: CVS is now requiring a prescription in 13 states and not offering shots at all in three others; Walgreens appears to be requiring prescriptions in 16 states, but not all the same ones as CVS. The lists of states are in the article. Gift link: