Hannah Shoenhard

Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE Support NIH Staff Now!

“We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources.”

Bravo to the brave folks at NIH who published the Bethesda Declaration this morning to hold this administration accountable! You can sign a letter…

Senators press NIH director on killed grants and proposal to slash agency’s funding Bhattacharya says NIH’s final budget will be “a collaboration”

Democrats on a key Senate spending committee today provided a less than warm welcome to the National Institutes of Health director, who was called in to testify about the agency’s 2026 budget proposal.

Three freezer boxes side by side, each packed in a comically large cardboard box, each including approximately 5 feet of plastic shipping bubbles. It is obvious that these three boxes could have easily fit into a single cardboard shipping box.

@thermofishersci.bsky.social showing some spectacular #sustainability practices shipping EACH INDIVIDUAL FREEZER BOX I ordered in its own cardboard box! Thanks for the incredulous laugh, I guess?

Lab milestone! Yesterday my first two students, both sophomores, presented their first poster at the MINS Year of Sleep Symposium! Couldn't be prouder of them :)

Drosophila neuroscience friends! Please help us to identify deserving Ph.D. students or recent Ph.D. graduates for the Elkins Memorial Lecture competition (CSHL, October 2025).

Details below – send nominations by email to Troy Littleton (troy@mit.edu).

This is incredibly cool: if you search for a condition that’s affected your family, the site returns stats on how much NIH has done for that disease, *and* a contact form for reaching out to tell your Members of Congress why you want to see them defend NIH.

Pass it on!

Just pointing out that this work was done by the inimitable Jennifer Tudor at St Joe's-- and I spy multiple undergraduates on the author list!

Dev found my clip! I'm C-span famous! 😜 But seriously - NIH supports the next generation of scientists not only in academia but in pharma, in regulatory affairs, in K-12 education. Cutting NIH training grants will cut deep.

Today was yet another sad day for science. All U-RISE training programs, including the one at SJSU, got stop work orders. We've had a version of this program at SJSU for 30+ yrs. Devastating for the students who got their stipends & tuition pulled w no notice & for the future of science 🧪 1/

Glia: the cellular glue that binds circadian rhythms and sleep Abstract. Glia are increasingly appreciated as serving an important function in the control of sleep and circadian rhythms. Glial cells in Drosophila and m

In this #EditorsChoice article, authors discuss recent the role of glial cells in #circadian or #sleep regulation of synaptic plasticity, brain metabolism, removal of cellular debris, and immune challenges.
academic.oup.com/sleep/articl...

Congratulations! Weirdly BioRxiv seems to be down right now but I'm excited to read this!

Map of Stand Up for Science events, with official SUFS events in Red and solidarity events in Blue

WHERE WILL YOU BE ON MARCH 7TH!?

Head to www.standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information/ or the link in our bio to find your closest event—or add one if you're hosting one!

#standupforscience2025

Looks like it's back up :)

Is NIH.gov down for anybody else?

NSF downsizes summer research program for undergraduates Many participants are from groups underrepresented in science

"downsizes" is a weak way of saying "forced to cancel dozens of programs, which jeopardizes future STEM careers of talented undergrads" @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

No new cancellations today, because there were no CSR sections scheduled for single-day meetings today. So this sheet remains accurate 'til Monday.

I'm teaching necessity and sufficiency experiments to my undergrads in Learning and Memory right now, and I'm going to have them read this article for a properly nuanced understanding! Thanks, @neurograce.bsky.social!

A portrait of Daisy Roulland-Dussoix from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Roulland-Dussoix

Do you know Daisy Roulland-Dussoix? She is one of the discoverers of restriction enzymes, who’s findings paved the way for the development of recombinant DNA and cloning technologies. Accordingly, the finding was rewarded with a #NobelPrize. But the prize didn’t go to her.
🧵👇

Publishing negative results like this is so important-- and this one happens to suggest the existence of an as-yet-undiscovered estrogen receptor pathway with major effects on a foundational form of memory, habituation.

IMO this is one of the biggest science stories in a long, long time. @meteordannyg.bsky.social

This #BlackHistoryMonth, SfN celebrates African American scientists who've transformed neuroscience. From labs to clinics, Black neuroscientists drive progress while creating paths for future generations, advancing brain research & strengthening the scientific community and workforce.

#Neurosky

A scientist in a wheelchair gives an acceptance speech on a stage with a "Young Investigator Draft 2025" sign overhead

A little balm for your Monday: the charity org Uplifting Athletes is a bunch of D1 sports folks who raise money for rare disease research. On Saturday my partner accepted a grant from them at the Young Investigator Draft, an NFL draft style event celebrating research. So proud of him!

Nonopioid drug for acute pain wins FDA approval Ongoing trials will reveal whether suzetrigine is also effective against chronic pain

A long-awaited nonopioid pain drug has won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat moderate to severe short-term pain.

Opioidergic activation of the descending pain inhibitory system underlies placebo analgesia The placebo effect can relieve pain by activating the brain’s pain inhibition system via endogenous opioidergic signals.

A new #ScienceAdvances study in rats reveals neurobiological mechanisms that trigger placebo analgesia—which occurs when a pharmacologically ineffective treatment still produces pain relief. scim.ag/3CtSzxn

:((((

Poll reads "How well do you feel like you understand the Nernst Equation after today?" Vast majority of the dots are on the "pretty well" or "very well" spaces.

We'll see how they feel after the quiz, but y'all, I feel really proud of this Neurobiology student poll result:

In spite of it all, still doing a bit of work every day to launch my little lab. I keep going in the hope of providing an excellent research education for the scientists and doctors of tomorrow. Today I published my website! shoenhard-lab.digital.brynmawr.edu/WordPress/

Scientific breakthroughs we might not have had without NSF funding:

The Internet
Smartphones
DNA analysis
MRIs
Doppler radar
Bar codes

And this is just the tiniest tip of the iceburg.

Kind of a weird time to be starting up a lab, given the freezes at the #NIH and #NSF. Nevertheless... here I am! I'll be documenting (when I have time) the process of getting some science off the ground at a small liberal arts college. Hoping to re-connect with the wider science community here!