Laura Seeholzer

My latest Aronov lab paper is now published @Nature!

When a chickadee looks at a distant location, the same place cells activate as if it were actually there 👁️

The hippocampus encodes where the bird is looking, AND what it expects to see next -- enabling spatial reasoning from afar

bit.ly/3HvWSum

Text reads "Congratulations to the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows" followed by the Leading Edge logo and www.leadingedgesymposium.org. Below are the headshots and names of the 40 new Leading Edge Fellows. They are Cel Welch Lianna Wat Maria Toro Moreno Sarah Talley Xulu Sun Ines Sturmlechner Virginia Savy Amelie Raz Kali Pruss Caterina Profaci Sarah Pierce Melissa Pamula Kehinde Odufowora Patricia Nano Ariana Musa de Aquino Nour El Houda Mimouni Kathleen Martin Brea Manuel Mable Lam Miri Krupkin Elaine Kouame Megan Kirchgessner Sumin Kim Shubhangini Kataruka Geraldine Jowett Andrea Jones Leanne Iannucci Emily Heckman Allison Girasole Florencia Fernandez Chiappe Tonie Farris Hannah Elam Erin Doherty Xiaoyun Ding Maria Bustillo Julia Brunner Debadrita Bhattacharya Lorena Benedetti Ashley Anderson Krisha Aghi

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows! 40 outstanding postdoctoral fellows doing pioneering research in a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines.

Learn more about these exceptional scientists:

www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows

‘Devastated’ and ‘Hopeless.’ Researchers Speak Out on Funding Cuts | ACLU

We're suing the Trump administration over its politically-motivated termination of research grants that has already harmed scientists and our communities.

Political ideology shouldn't dictate public health.

What a cute baby!!! I'm so happy decades of investment in biomedical research saved his life and lives of many other babies born with genetic disorders. And he'll likely be a future @philadelphiaeagles.bsky.social fan - the best kind of fan 🥰 www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...

Musk should consider resigning from UK Royal Society, new president says Musk’s attacks on publicly funded scientific research make his position as a member difficult, says Sir Paul Nurse

Paul Nurse: Musk "has said and instigated things...destroying science...He has behaved in ways that have really damaged the scientific endeavour in the US” www.thetimes.com/article/e13f...

If using Bloomigton #Drosophila Stock Center stocks, pls. acknowledge them & their NIH funding (P40 OD018537). Papers listing this no. are being harvested as evidence. We massively depend on the @bdsc.bsky.social & they need our support in these dire times! @flybase.bsky.social @fly-eds.bsky.social

Nobel laureate: I owe America my success. Today, its scientific future is in danger | CNN Dr. Ardem Patapoutian says he watches “with deep sadness as the United States’ remarkable scientific enterprise, which took generations of hard work and national investment to build, faces a concerted...

Please share www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/h...
"How do you feel as we fall behind in global scientific progress? As economic uncertainty grows? As the health of your families and communities is put at risk? As patients are cut off from clinical trials? I know I feel outrage" @ardemp.bskyverified.social

Science Friday's Picks: The Best Science Books for Kids 2024 You asked for science book recommendations for the kids in your life. Two bookworm experts respond—and share their own favorites.

Librarians at public libraries "are there to know books, get to know your kid, and find stuff that really supports your family throughout a child’s reading life and lifelong," says librarian Carrie Wolfson.

This #NationalLibraryWeek, we’re revisiting last year's top science books for kids.

NIH nixes funds for pre- and postdoctoral training programs Many of the axed grants support scientists from underrepresented communities.

Long-standing training grants for underrepresented minorities have been canceled under Trump’s NIH.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/excl...

From a source at NIH:

“Right now NIH’s ability to buy things is dead. Nearly all people with the power to make an order — purchasing people — have been removed.
The NIH hospital can’t buy medicines, the labs can’t buy petri dishes. X-Ray machine breaks? Too bad.
Everything is stopped”

Sen. Jim Banks told a laid off U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) employee who approached him that they “probably deserved it” and they “seem like a clown.”

The NIH’s Most Reckless Cuts Yet Ending clinical trials with no warning can put patients at risk.

Ruining studies and potentially harming research subjects...

Abruptly terminating clinical trials...

Ignorant and evil

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I often wonder: what do MAGA people think that greatness means? One thing that makes us great, imho, is our scientific innovation, which really is the envy of the world.

Breaking it is relatively easy. Rebuilding it will be very, very hard.

Linocut portrait of biochemist and medical researcher Maud Menten (1879-1960) with the Michalis-Menten equation in blue and a histology image in pinks and purples in the background.

Happy birthday to Canadian medical researcher & #biochemist Maud Menten (1879-1960). 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histscj Not only was she an author of Michaelis-Menten equation for enzyme kinetics, she invented the azo-dye coupling for alkaline phosphatase, 1st example of enzyme histochemistry, still used in imaging of 🧵

The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia American universities have given the country prosperity and security. The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom endangers all of that.

The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

What codes for threat imminence in the brain?

Lots of places, including the hypothalamus it seems.
Very cool study.
(h/t @ajshackman.bsky.social )
#neuroscience
doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

The NCI grant supporting the Columbia comprehensive cancer center was terminated. Tell me how terminating support for cancer research helps the economy.

taggs.hhs.gov/Content/Data...

NIH funding delivers exponential economic returns — Harvard Gazette Report finds all 50 states reap gains in patient health, job creation, research resources, business development.

In fiscal year 2024, the report found, NIH awarded more than $36.9 billion to researchers, supporting more than 408,000 jobs and generating over $94.5 billion in new economic activity nationwide.

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.

NIH is the best investment there is.

www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

My friends at Columbia, Harvard, Pittsburg and Penn are fighting to find a cure your mom’s heart disease, your dad’s chronic pain, your niece’s cancer. This administration is fighting against these people, fighting against finding cures and destroying science in America.

Wow. "NIH" canceled my co-mentored (with Dave Sulzer) PhD student's F31 funding. His work is on understanding the genetics and neuroscience of language learning disorders. F31 provides no indirect $ to Columbia, just pays his salary. Not that it should matter, but he's an American citizen. W.T.F.

I have confirmation from several sources now that all T32s, many F30s and F31s, and most or all Center awards (P30, P50) have been terminated at Columbia.

This is quite damaging to research and to individuals.

This is pure terrorism and cannot be legal. But litigation will take time...

What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

"That's what the people promulgating these horrible policies want - a bored, indifferent public who figures that who cares, nothing matters any more, it's gonna happen no matter what. But it doesn't have to. Never forget that: it doesn't have to happen."
www.science.org/content/blog...

Transitions in development – an interview with Kara McKinley Kara McKinley is an Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Kara's group studies the ute...

I had a fun conversation with @dev-journal.bsky.social about my scientific trajectory 🧪, my thoughts on the academic job market, @leadingedgeprogram.bsky.social, and the joys and challenges of #newpi life. Thanks to Saanjbati for the interview!

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

Just yesterday @drnancypadilla.bsky.social's lab published a paper showing that a common behavioral paradigm in systems/behavioral neuroscience, produces distinct results/outcomes in different strains of mice. We should study a diversity of animals/strains and be humble about over generalizations.

My lab studies both lab mice and naked mole rats. There is a belief amongst some that what we discover in mice will be universally true, and what we discover in naked mole rats will be a weird mole rat quirk. I believe this mouse-centric view of biological systems is very limiting.

The Leading Edge Fellows starter pack is now up to 101 Leading Edge Fellows! If you haven't checked it out recently, there are lots of fabulous new postdocs and new PIs to follow!

I truly love @sfchronicle.bsky.social weather coverage

"Thanksgiving is just over a week away, but something big is being cooked up off the coast of the Pacific Northwest right now.
On the menu?
A powerful low-pressure system — a feast of weather unlike anything we’ve seen so far this season."

I was honored to be selected as this year's winner of the Eppendorf & Science Prize in Neurobiology. Please check out my essay: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

And the essays of the two other finalists: www.science.org/content/page...