Joe L Wilkerson

BREAKING: Shots fired at 'No Kings' protest in Salt Lake City, Utah

I'd just walked past the Episcopal Cathedral, tolling their bell in support, and they started shouting to run. I'll give props to the police for handling the crowds. It's a fucked up world.

SLC had a huge crowd, one of the biggest I've ever seen, at the #nokings protest. We were peacefully marching until an active shooter opened fire into the crowd.

#cat #writing #science

Saturday morning grant writing with a cat.

Yup, I inherited Dr. Yost’s Leica upright and planned to update parts of it. Slapped with a $4000 tarrif and now I have to decide, ditch the software upgrade or the motorized stage.

My department inherited a nice Leica microscope and decided to invest in it to add some nice functions, a new camera, updated software, a moterized stage and an LED light source. I was ecstatic! This morning I met with my sales rep. This afternoon I get this email. Just my luck 🤬

Yes they do

I thought the same thing!

My new Alzheimer's projects have had great results for new therapeutic targets to reduce plaque growth and cognitive decline. It is sad to see all of that go to waste.

I am preparing to close all of my research by the end of summer. It doesn't take much defunding and political chaos to derail a lot of science. Extremely sad considering I've spent so many years training and getting projects off the ground.

I personally wiped out 80% of my experimental mice for Alzheimer's research in the last couple of weeks. While I continue to write grants, hoping that funding comes back, I'm still considered an early career investigator with much more limited funding.

In the last two months, we have found scientific literature scrubbed from databases, all grant funding stalled, and labs are starting to fire people to reserve the grant money they currently have.

It wasn't long ago when NIH-funded work had bipartisan approval. Republicans often increased NIH funding for cancer, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease and so many others (sometimes better than Democrats). But those days are long gone.

Weak Science = Weak America

Scientists all over the US protested government cuts to science agencies and attacks on universities. It is sad to see science turned into a political boogeyman and an enemy in a stupid culture war. #standupforscience

Parental origin of transgene modulates amyloid-β plaque burden in the 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease The 5xFAD transgenic model, popular in Alzheimer’s disease research, exhibits varying cerebral plaque burden depending on the parental source of the transgene. Mice inheriting the transgene paternally...

Yikes! Glad I've always used the male as the carrier.
Parental origin of transgene modulates amyloid-β plaque burden in the 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease: Neuron www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

It scored but not funded. I did get good suggestions for a resubmission.

#AAIC24
Great to see friends and all the new research, and a chance to share mine.

I submitted my K01 on my Alzheimer's Disease project today! Crossing my figures that I get it.