Pavak Shah

Our group at the Allen Institute is recruiting a technician and postdoc to work on light microscopy-based connectomics. Please DM me or share with anyone you think may be interested in this NIH BRAIN CONNECTS funded project.

Ice Diatoms Glide at Record-Low Temperatures - Eos New observations reveal how microscopic organisms move through polar ice and illustrate how they may have evolved to thrive in extreme environments.

Life knows how to keep going - even if it’s freezing -15 degrees C 🥶 outside. AGU just covered our discovery of ultra resistant ice diatoms gliding into a world record! 🧪🔬Enjoy the story here:

eos.org/articles/ice...

The #EMBOCelegans course comes back for another iteration! A great opportunity for a deep intro to C. elegans methods. Apply by December 8th!

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

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

a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it ALT: a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it

New preprint!

How are developmental cycles coordinated across cell types?

It turns out that, like Geppetto's cuckoo clocks in the GIF below, individual cell types are each performing their own little crazy routine, but all in sync with each other.

Certain extramural investigators have received NOAs this week listing the indirects at 15%. What's happening at your institution?

In my humble opinion, the embryonic cell lineage paper's longest lasting legacy is the shared aesthetic we in the worm community aspire to achieve in our work: beautiful, elegant, complete, and deeply conceptual.

Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy.

Fake Armies of the Night: Trump Unleashes Show and Awe on Washington Donald Trump’s D.C. takeover is the usual Trumpian blend of idiocy and cruelty — all optics, unless you are brown-skinned.

"The crowd’s anger grows, and I notice something that is becoming a trend. Trump’s troops retreat when citizens rise up. In a moment, the squad cars and SUVs pack up and leave, squealing tires, doing U-turns, and vanishing into the night.

Anger is an energy."

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Dear President Milliken, Regents, and Governor Newsom, As faculty members of University of California law schools, we endorse Governor Newsom's commitment to resist the Trump Administration's unlawful actions taken against the University of California, Los Angeles. The Governor is on firm legal ground. The Trump Administration's termination and suspension of federal funds has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in numerous ways. Governor Newsom and the University of California Regents will protect the vital interests not only of Californians but of all Americans if they defend the University of California's rights. The U.S. Department of Justice notified UCLA on July 29, 2025, that it had found that UCLA had "violated its obligations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Chancellor Frenk subsequently announced that "the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons" for federal grant terminations. UCLA faces losses of at least $584 million, funding that has supported vital research on matters ranging from treatments for pancreatic cancer to advances in online security. The Trump Administration has made no pretense of following the law. Title VI permits a federal agency to terminate funding only if it has found that the particular program receiving that funding has violated the law's non-discrimination provisions. Funding cannot disappear just because the agency's policy or political preferences differ from the institution's. Moreover, the agency can act only after following specific procedural steps. Importantly, Title VI requires a formal administrative hearing—a proceeding much like a trial-before the agency can terminate funding. At the hearing, the agency would have the burden of proving the university's alleged violations of Title VI before an impartial decision-maker. If the agency prevails at the hearing, the university or other interested persons could appea…

factually supported and consistent with civil rights laws. Without the steps Title VI requires, there is no protection against an administration alleging discrimination as a pretext to force compliance with its policy or partisan preferences. Title VI's procedures guarantee the constitutional due process requirement that no person can be deprived of liberty or property without fair notice and opportunity to be heard. They protect the university and its members' academic freedom, an endowment essential to scientific research, intellectual discovery, and open debate. We are deeply committed to the core principle of non-discrimination codified in Title VI and in the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The principle that no person may suffer discrimination because of race, color, or national origin protects equality and ensures fairness in political as well as social life. Allegations of discrimination deserve serious and careful consideration and, where established, effective redress. But this enforcement effort must follow the law. We urge Governor Newsom and the UC Regents to continue to stand up for the fundamental principles of the rule of law, due process, and equal protection. A defense of the University of California's rights in court will model respect for these bedrock principles of equality and fairness, and it will ensure that the government honors them. The Trump Administration's failure to abide by the law subverts these principles by denying the University of California a fair opportunity to contest the government's charges of unlawful discrimination before an impartial decisionmaker. It is precisely because we cherish the principles of the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution that we encourage Governor Newsom, the UC Regents, and the University of California to fight back. Through its grantmaking powers, the federal government wields vast influence over social and economic life. If not held to account by the procedural protections enacted by Congres…

🚨 150 University of California law professors (and counting) have now signed this open letter to the UC Regents and other officials, explaining the flagrant illegality of the Trump Administration’s UCLA funding cut offs, and urging the UC to fight back. sites.google.com/view/uclawfa...

Honored to have collaborated briefly with Jim during my postdoc. We only met a few times but I was struck each time by his incredibly thoughtful and careful approach to science.

Pathway to Independence – an interview with Chee Kiang (Ethan) Ewe.

In this interview, @ethanewe.bsky.social talks about about what drives and excites him, and what he hopes to achieve in his own lab:

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

As someone who ended up using non-model systems after doing his PhD with Drosophila, you don't realise just how amazing FlyBase or WormBase are until you try to genetics without them.

Obligatory

Opinion | How the Military Became Another Instrument of Trump’s Power The president and his allies have reshaped the military for their own purposes.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

The president and his allies have reshaped the military for their own purposes, say Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, former members of the National Security Council. “We no longer expect resistance from that institution,” they write.

Kennedy's case against mRNA vaccines collapses under his own evidence “This isn't scientific disagreement. It's either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” writes infectious disease physician Jake Scott.

“This isn't scientific disagreement. It's either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” writes infectious disease physician Jake Scott.
www.statnews.com/2025/08/13/r...

If so, I'll shift my lab to work on mice

This EO, combined with the retirement of Noni Byrnes at CSR/NIH, makes me very concerned about peer review at the NIH

a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis Alt: a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis

The funds are approved! We're hiring a postdoc to build a CRISPRa toolkit to identify new aging mechanisms in C. elegans.

Email or DM me to find out more. Please share & repost!

A senior administration official, as well as other officials, told Rolling Stone that it is a priority of Trump that these kinds of military deployments -- in times of relative calm -- become normalized in American political culture.

More: rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Sales of fourth tier blue jeans shilled by Dear Leader’s leering endorsement of partially unclothed model his child’s ~age tank while Subway footlong sandwiches purchases rise on a tide of rebellion. What a country.

Foliar mRNA spray induces protein synthesis in monocot crop and dicot model plant species In planta gene expression via exogenous mRNAs has a wide range of potential biotechnological applications from genome editing to plant protection and to circumventing tissue culture. Yet, regarding mR...

😮 Just WOW!!

Spray GFP mRNAs on plant leaves and the leaves translate this and you get glowing leaves.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What an utter travesty

'An attack on knowledge': UCLA researchers say lifesaving research is in jeopardy - Daily Bruin Dr. Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski has led organ transplant research at UCLA for nearly three decades. Kupiec-Weglinski, the vice chairman of basic science research in the David Geffen School of Medicine’s su...

The regime halted all federal grants then told UC administration if they pay $1 billion they could have them back.
It’s like ransomware.
UC is a public university system and we cannot do this.
So, no grants = no research and labs will shut down.
Are we great yet?

dailybruin.com/2025/08/09/a...

I think about this constantly

🔥my latest paper from @odedrechavi.bsky.social lab🔥
we found small RNAs act across tissues to regulate fertlity in C. elegans 🪱. Surprisingly, we also found that O2-sensing neurons inhibit germline maintenance. Follow along our journey👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669182v1

'A continual assault.' How UCLA's research faculty is grappling with Trump funding freeze The Trump administration has suspended $584 million in grants at UCLA over what the U.S. Department of Justice has described as the school's 'deliberate indifference' to Jewish students' civil rights.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

Made me immediately think of the repeated line from Dylan Thomas' do not go gentle into that good night:

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

He extends this to pursuit of all knowledge, not only in the sciences: "There is no rivalry between the studies of Arts and Laws and Science but the rivalry of fellow soldiers in striving which can most victoriously achieve the common end of all, to set back the frontier of darkness."

8/10

"...flowers by the way."

Love it