ZeigerLab

Private money cannot replace public funding of science Who should pay for American science? In the current political climate, many are looking to the private sector to compensate for cuts in public funding. At the Harvard School of Public Health—particula...

My latest:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Next column will address needed guardrails for private funding of science, esp. in light of #Epstein/ #Summers etc.

Walter Koroshetz Joins the Dana Foundation as Senior Advisor

We’re thrilled to welcome Walter Koroshetz as a senior advisor starting March 1. The former director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke will help guide Dana’s science funding collaborations and support for early-career scholars and practitioners. #neurosociety #neurosky

re+active education's FND Weekend Course The FND Weekend Course -- 16 hours/1.6 CEUs An intensive weekend of live, hands-on interdisciplinary training with the re+active team In 2026, you can join us on: 📍 August 22–23 at Houston Methodist,...

I’m excited to be learning from Julie Hershberg, PT, DPT, NCS during a 2-day, hands-on Functional Neurological Disorder training in North Houston.

🗓 Aug 22–23, 2026
📍 Houston Methodist – The Woodlands/Conroe

Join me in expanding care for people with FND.
www.reactiveeducation.com/fndweekendco...

Going to be a good one!!!

Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke | Keystone Symposia Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke, January 2027, in Breckenridge, with field leaders!

Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke - Jan 19–22, 2027 | Breckenridge; Organizers: William A. Zeiger, Mary Teena Joy, and Florence Bareyre. keysym.us/KSNeuralPlas... - Exciting new conference on neurorecovery! Per organizers, lots of slots for talks/ panels/posters.

Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke | Keystone Symposia Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke, January 2027, in Breckenridge, with field leaders!

Working with a great team to organize @keystoneSymposia.bsky.social Neural Plasticity and Recovery after Traumatic CNS Injury & Stroke, this January! Join us to explore emerging research in Breckenridge! keysym.us/KSNeuralPlast27 #KSNeuralPlast27

🔬🧠 Releasing the 1.0 version of #Suite2p and THE PAPER w/ @marius10p.bsky.social! Now with GPU acceleration. Want to use Suite2p but don’t have 100,000 neuron recordings? We show you how to get those with a standard 2p microscope #neuroscience #imaging #neuroAI www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Trump administration drops its appeal of court order blocking $1.2-billion UCLA settlement The Trump administration dropped its appeal of a major higher education case in which a federal judge blocked its $1.2-billion settlement proposal to UCLA over alleged civil rights violations. But it ...

NEW: The Trump administration has dropped its appeal of a federal court order blocking its $1.2-billion settlement demand to UCLA over alleged campus civil rights violations: www.latimes.com/california/s...

For those in California, please consider signing the petition to support a $23 billion initiative for the California Foundation for Science and Health Research

www.fundcascience.org

It was a great event! Really enjoyed meeting some families excited to learn about science on a Saturday morning.

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

Trump administration cannot slash NIH research funding, court rules District Judge Angel Kelley last year blocked the cuts, and on Monday the appeals court agreed.

The district court injunction that prevented NIH from capping indirects at 15% was upheld today on appeal!

www.reuters.com/world/trump-...

A view of London Northwest of the Thames from the London Eye.

Happy New Year from London. Let’s see how 2026 starts off…maybe we’ll just stay awhile longer….

Commentary: The UC faculty just won a big court victory over Trump. But why didn't UC join their lawsuit? The UC faculty went to court to fight Trump's funding cutoffs and won. Why has the university system tried to negotiate instead?

Admin at UC have claimed various reasons why they aren’t fighting in court, but they simply are afraid to take on the Feds, believing antagonism will somehow make a terrible situation worse. Thing is, it can’t be much worse, and you can’t placate a bully.

On official UC letterhead: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA James B. Milliken President Office of the President 1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607 universityofcalifornia.edu CAMPUSES Berkeley Davis Irvine UCLA Merced Riverside San Diego San Francisco Santa Barbara Santa Cruz MEDICAL CENTERS Davis Irvine UCLA San Diego San Francisco NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES November 18, 2025 Dear Chancellors: I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive. As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California. Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines. Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership. [continued on next image]

After learning more about the history and success of the program and weighing the thoughtful perspectives that have been shared, I have concluded that barring extraordinary financial setbacks, the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program will continue while the University continues to assess the program's structure as well as its long-term financial sustainability. As a result of our continuing consultation and review, there may be consideration of some changes to elements of the program including the total number of incentives supported, a number that has fluctuated significantly over the years, and how the awards are distributed among campuses. In the meantime, the University will continue to fund the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program and campuses may continue to take advantage of these incentives. We will have an opportunity to discuss any potential changes prior to adoption. As we look to the future, I will continue to engage with faculty leaders, program stakeholders, and UC community members about this important program. I especially appreciate the thoughtful perspectives shared in recent weeks by Academic Council Chair Palazoglu and Vice Chair Scott, the Council of Graduate Deans, UC faculty members, and you as our campus leaders. Sincerely, James B. Milliken President

WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)

Flyer for a social for Glial Interactions at SfN. Monday Nov 17, 9PM-close, The Smoking Gun, 555 Market St. Microscopy images of two astrocytes (top, red/blue) and an oligodendrocyte and myelin sheaths (bottom, white/red).

If you’re interested in the roles of glia in stroke and TBI, kick off #SfN2025 with a minisymposium on Saturday afternoon in room 6B!

@droligo.bsky.social and I are also hosting a glia get-together Monday night, sponsored by Avantor and @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social - all glia-inclined are welcome!

Judge blocks Trump administration push to fine UCLA $1.2 billion for alleged antisemitism A federal judge late Friday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from imposing a $1.2-billion fine on UCLA for alleged civil rights violations over antisemitism, its recog...

In a major win for UC faculty groups and unions that sued, a federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump from imposing a $1.2-billion fine on UCLA along with stipulations for deep campus changes in exchange for being eligible for federal grants: www.latimes.com/california/s...

Advances in the genetics and pathology of Lewy body dementia Lewy body dementia is a heterogeneous disease that is underdiagnosed and poorly understood. Pathologically, Lewy body dementia is characterised by the…

Very happy to have contributed to this new review on Lewy body dementia in @thelancetneuro.bsky.social led by Sonja W. Scholz. We highlight the latest advances in genetics and pathology. @liddelowsa.bsky.social Check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Anyone out there have any first hand experience with NIH reviews of an R01 with mostly mouse experiments? Curious to know how the guidance emphasizing NAMs is being implemented.

Knockdown of endothelial Serpine1 improves stroke recovery by attenuating peri-infarct blood flow and blood brain barrier disruption Focal stroke leads to complex changes in the cerebral microcirculation in surviving brain tissues that strongly influence recovery. Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1; encoded by Serpine1) is hi...

New finding from the lab. This surprised us since it went against the common assumption that increasing peri-infarct blood flow is best for stroke recovery. Congrats to Kamal and the team!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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...

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Anyone else get anxiety on Sundays just thinking about what you meant to accomplish and what you need to do during the upcoming week?

Here is the formal letter the NIH sent today to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk.

“These projects are fully reinstated, and the letter dated July 31, 2025 is rescinded without conditions. Funds will be made available immediately and are no longer suspended, terminated, or restricted.”

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

In the early years of my PhD I remember being asked if we'd ever treat or cure diseases like HIV or Huntington's. I remember saying maybe, but not knowing if I believed. Seeing research pay off as real impact on human lives is - incredible.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Federal judge orders Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA medical research grants A San Francisco-based federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore all National Institutes of Health grants to UCLA, roughly $500 million, that the government suspended in July.

BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA NIH grants. The same judge, Rita F. Lin, previously ordered all UCLA NSF grants reinstated. Lin has now nearly entirely reversed Trump's July de-funding of UCLA research: www.latimes.com/california/s...

Yes, that’s a human brain on a cafeteria tray. UCLA fair shows off science cuts under Trump UCLA's researchers go low-tech to plead their case to the public with poster boards and props. The Trump administration has suspended more than $500 million in research grants to the university.

We shared research about things affecting us all: addiction, autism, brain injury, dementia, mental illness. This work has been arbitrarily cut or delayed.
Thats a human brain on cafeteria tray. UCLA fair shows off science cuts. @sfn.org @standupforscience.bsky.social www.latimes.com/california/s...

Advocates urge Congress to boost Parkinson's research funding Advocates gathered in Washington to urge Congress to expand federal funding for Parkinson’s disease research at NIH.

parkinsonsnewstoday.com/news/advocat...

UCLA researchers host science fair to showcase work suspended by the Trump administration On Thursday evening, dozens of researchers hosted a science fair at UCLA to demonstrate the long-term impact of frozen grants.

More coverage of suspended science outreach efforts this week at UCLA.

laist.com/news/educati...

California’s $23 Billion Plan to Restore Federal Cuts to Scientific Research

“Supporters of the proposal said it would effectively create a state version of the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, two of the nation’s largest institutional funders of scientific and public health research.”
🧪 #giftarticle