Susan Brill

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.

This is very exciting! A small clinical trial using gene therapy for Huntington's disease has been successful. microRNAs were used to edit the Huntington mRNA, stopping it making mutant protein that can damage neurons. Huge hopes now for treating such a devastating condition

Opinion | America First? Not When It Comes to Your Health.

🎁 Gifted link for non-subscribers:
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

Opinion | America First? Not When It Comes to Your Health.

The @NYTimes has done a fantastic job on explaining what the Trump administration’s savage
cuts to biomedical research mean: cures that won’t happen. Please share this widely. This is a catastrophe. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

Don't Be Foiled by RFK Jr.'s Rebuttal of the Danish Aluminum Study Scientists respond with data, not rhetoric

open.substack.com/pub/theunbia...

More video from the Francis Collins interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

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More on this @latimes.com by @niamhordner.bsky.social
www.latimes.com/science/stor...

Exclusive: Famed protein structure competition nears end as NIH grant money runs out Agency silent on funding renewal for contest that inspired creation of AIs that predicted how proteins would fold

Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP) — the competition to predict protein structure that helped fuel AlphaFold — will run out of funding from the NIH and UC Davis in a few weeks.

Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada Image Source: The Landing Resort

Mammoth Lakes, California Image Credit: Morgan G., TripAdvisor

Happy Canyon, BLM, Utah Photo Credit: Sara Löwgren via Flickr Creative Commons

Grand Teton, Wyoming Photo Credit: Tioga Tours

𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗪𝗢𝗨𝗟𝗗 𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝟯+ 𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗔𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗖 𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗦

If the bill passes, the Senate could authorize the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of public land across 11 Western states, threatening iconic areas like Lake Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes, Happy Canyon, and public forests near Grand Teton.

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The human capital flight from the U.S. is well underway.

75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving More than 1,600 readers answered our poll; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe and Canada.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If I were a grad student or postdoc, I would use my international network of colleagues to find a place where I could continue my research. The best young scientists are not going to give up on their drive for discovery. The US just loses a generation of scientists.

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

UNITED24 - The initiative of the President of Ukraine UNITED24 was launched by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be transferred to the official accounts of...

If, like me, you were apppalled and disgusted by Trump and Vance’s treatment of the noble and heroic Zelenskyy yesterday, and you want to show solidarity with Ukraine, there’s no better way than to give to help them, here is the Zelenskyy’s fundraising platform #DemVoice1 u24.gov.ua

Editorial: A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelensky It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up. In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrate...

"Trump and his government are now making sure Ukraine will lose this war. They are also choking their other allies in the process. But most importantly, they are betraying the interests of America, and making it weaker."

Trump and Vance just made Zelensky one of the most popular leaders in the world.

How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy (Gift Article) The operation was driven with a frenetic focus by the billionaire, who channeled his resentment of regulatory oversight into a drastic overhaul of government agencies.

How Elon Musk planned for DOGE: Our investigation found that he raised the idea in 2023, becoming fixated on gaining insider access to federal systems. By Dec., he chose USDS as a landing place, and future DOGE members began applying for jobs there. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/u...

It is worth paying close attention to the new bill "Dangerous Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act" introduced by Senator Roger Marshall.

If enacted, it will effectively stop all of virological research, including for vaccines.

www.marshall.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

🧵👇

Inside the Collapse at the NIH Administration officials pressured the NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.

"Memoli had no choice, he insisted: He was following the direction of three HHS officials—Dorothy Fink, then the acting secretary; Heather Flick Melanson, chief of staff; and Hannah Anderson, deputy chief of staff of policy—who told him, in no uncertain terms, that the pause was to continue..."

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You are right. But it's 2025. Talking about it as if it will happen is how politics works. It also forces right wing media to talk about it and if there is enough Dem proposed legislation, Trump and Elon have to respond to the Dems rather than vice versa

US science in chaos as impact of Trump's executive orders sinks in – Physics World US science hit by staff layoffs, slashed budgets, axed diversity programmes and cancelled conferences

Donald Trump’s second term as US President has begun with staff layoffs, slashed budgets, axed diversity programmes and cancelled conferences in what some see as a new "dark ages" 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/us-science...

Write a review of the place too. Tell them the REAL name, Gulf of Mexico!!!

Imagine if @aoc @sanders.senate.gov , every dem, SIMULTANEOUSLY held Town Halls where they allowed grant and contract recipients to explain to the country what it is they do and why it's important

Invite all media. Including RW podcasters. @spaces Flood the zone

Call it a Day Of Transparency

BREAKING: we just blocked Musk & Trump out of the Treasury systems!

Court order just secured — big win by us at @sddaction.bsky.social & our partners including @publiccitizen.bsky.social!

"The first rule of research administration is [generally scientists don't know much about it]" Time for that to change

Dear US scientists,

We've been hearing a lot of questions of the form
"Why aren't universities doing anything!? They need to speak out!"

We can explain.

It's bad news. We're on our own. But understanding why can help us all figure out our plan.

Read along in thread 1/x 🧪

“Hi Chris, this is Jill from Newsmax-“ continues on to ask me to appear on a Super Bowl preview segment My response - “Hi Jill, thanks for reaching out, unfortunately I have a strict policy of not working with people who back autocrats and dictators, let alone those are at this very moment in the process of destroying the constitutional separation of power that makes companies like you own able to function independently, as opposed to be government propaganda, so I’m going to have to regretfully decline.”

Sometimes you just have to say “fuck you” with a flourish

Also funding by NEH (for those of us in the squishy sciences)

Restricting the Freedom to Vote The SAVE Act would be one of the worst voting laws in congressional history.

Stop what you're doing & read this exceptional piece from @brennancenter.bsky.social's @mawaldman.bsky.social that explains how the pending SAVE Act will make it more difficult for Americans to vote, ending advances in online and mail in registration brennancenter.substack.com/p/restrictin...

If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov

And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

They need to hear from you.

“Friday night was the danger zone” Harry talks with Mark Greenblatt, one of the Inspectors General fired suddenly in the “Friday night purge” of the vast majority of Senate-confirmed IG’s. They discuss the origin, function, and nature ...

Breaking news: I did a long interview with one of the fired IG's, Mark Greenblatt of Interior. Excerpts have been posted at @thecontrarian.bsky.social, where I am a founding contributor, but the full conversation -- well worth your while if you have time -- is now a 1-on-1 at bit.ly/GreenblattTF

Opinion | Lessons on Authoritarianism From Around the World (Gift Article) Tyranny doesn’t happen overnight. Take it from the people who missed the first signs.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/o...

Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring Researchers facing

“The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating.” scim.ag/40ureTO