Jim Hokanson, PhD

The NIH Restructuring Congress Rejected Is Happening Anyway (I used Gemini Nano Banana 2 to create this fictional image.)

Another great essay from my colleague Elizabeth Ginexi on how NIH is being restructured by the White House (Russell Vought) despite Congress rejecting such moves.

open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

What do Congress's top appropriators say?

“This is a drastic departure from historical practice,” @delauro.house.gov told @nature.com.

DeLauro and @murray.senate.gov demanded that OMB release funds, as is required by law.

(The top Republicans, Rep Tom Cole & Sen Susan Collins didn't respond.)

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

Screenshot from an NIH website reading: "Table 1 shows the number of principal investigators (PIs) applying for or receiving an R01-equivalent grant in FYs 2021 to 2025, disaggregated by career stage. NIH supported 1,423 and 1,144 ESIs in FYs 2024 and 2025, respectively. The decrease seen in FY 2025 may likely be due in part to NIH implementing a requirement to use 50% of its remaining competing Research Project Grant (RPG) funds (starting in June 2025) for full-year funded competing RPGs, which was expected to lead to fewer awards and support fewer researchers overall."

Check this out straight from the NIH website, acknowledging that multiyear funding was likely responsible for a 20% decrease in early stage investigators.

And that it was expected.

A strange approach for someone so committed to the next generation of scientists.

grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

The Scientists Groveling to Trump Are Kidding Themselves The government has pulled back from massive cuts to the NIH, but it’s still destroying scientific research. So why are some groups appeasing the president?

Thanking Donald Trump for signing the budget bill, which spared NIH from the knife was unseemly and unnecessary. In fact, the destruction of American science is gathering steam under this administration and appeasement won't help. My latest for @thenation.com. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The collapse of curiosity driven research has occurred in STEM too. Everything has to be outcomes focused - cure disease, grow better crops, etc. But so much of what humanity has discovered is from "basic" curiosity-driven science. I'm hugely in favor of funding curiosity in every discipline.

NIH has lost another Institute Director today. Linsey Criswell was not renewed at NIAMS. 15 (of 27) Directorships are now unfilled, creating a leadership vacuum and opening the door for Trump to install more cronies like former JD Vance roommate Kyle Walsh.

insidehealthpolicy.com/share/153675

From Pill Mills to Prop Bets: Prediction Markets and Mobile Sports Betting Apps Are Fueling America’s Next Addiction Crisis Against the gamblification of the world.

I see no reason not to look at the online gambling and prediction market craze as a new opioids crisis.

It will wreak havoc on lower-income Americans and leave a trail of destruction and despair in its wake.

The companies are just Purdue Pharma 2.0

www.liberalcurrents.com/from-pill-mi...

Love how colon cancer keeps killing people under 50 and yet insurance doesn't cover colonoscopy without cost-sharing until age 45.

I just paid $1,584 out of pocket for mine thanks to my deductible and copays

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

My colleague got into Trump's sprawling family detention camp, which is full of toddlers, kids, & teens.

- Kids have cut themselves or talked about suicide

-There's worms & mold in food

-300 kids have been held for 30+ days, far longer court settlement allows

www.propublica.org/article/life...

FYI: The switch to requiring the new NIH Biosketch format via SciENcv has been delayed until May. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Spoke with a PI whose postdoc is trapped abroad because of social media vetting. It appears the postdoc missed disclosing one account and it's unclear if they can come back… ever.

This is the country we live in now.

The original post

The comment I got this morning trying to sell me data analytics: It's great to hear about progress in data analysis! However, as teams advance, challenges around data quality and preparation often emerge. At Lifewood Data Technology, we focus on streamlining data preparation and implementing robust quality checks to ensure datasets are analysis-ready. What strategies are you considering to keep your data accurate and reliable?

AI has no sense of humor, though its failures can generate a good laugh.

For example: On Halloween, I posted a picture of my kid sorting her candy, captioned, "We have progressed from data collection to data analysis." Now I regularly get bots in my mentions trying to sell me data analytics tools.

In brief, this maneuver:
- effectively converts employee status to "at-will" (meaning they can be fired for any--or no--reason),
- redirects whistleblower complaints to internal agency counsel,
& takes away these civil servants' rights to appeal adverse personnel actions.

Notice of Temporary Extension of Eligibility for the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00):
for Individuals whose final due date was September-November 2025 and January-March 2026. As always, reach out to your PO/IC contact to discuss.
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Looking for sources for a @nature.com story about how researchers are coping in the midst of current events: If you're a PhD or other academic who's struggling to focus with everything that's happening in the world and would like to be interviewed for this story, please get in touch ASAP!

The Senate may choose to vote together on the DHS and LHHS bills. Thus, a filibuster on DHS may mean no funding for NIH. What my colleagues are saying:

“Shut it down, public health will understand. I’ll work without pay again.”
- anonymous NIHer

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.

Great overview of the damage to science over the past year.

This shows NIH awarded 24% fewer new research awards in FY2025 vs 2024.

The multiyear funding language in the new LHHS bill means we should expect the same amount of new science this year.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Don’t let Russell Vought trick Congress into destroying science by removing multiyear funding limits from the NIH funding bill.

It is hard to overstate the impact that the NIH multiyear funding debate happening in congress right now could have on biomedical research over the next few years.

A Quiet Policy Shift That Could Devastate American Science Why NIH’s sudden move to multi-year grant funding should alarm every principal investigator and university

A reminder as Congress finalizes NIH appropriations: the bill must limit multiyear funding (MYF), Vought's way of cutting the NIH budget without cutting the budget. MYF will devastate the research workforce.

@safa-science.bsky.social wrote this in July. Still relevant: substack.com/@scienceandf...

Line graphs of the new and competitive renewal awards from 2021 to 2026. The fiscal year 2026 curve is essentially zero with only 42 awards compared with more than 1200 through the same date in previous fiscal years.

Here is the curve for new and competitive renewal (Type 1 and Type 2) awards.

This reveals that only very few (42) new and competitive renewal awards have been made thus far in fiscal year 2026.

This compares with more than 1200 through the same date in previous fiscal years.

3/6

Building an AI Scientist Hertz Fellow Sam Rodriguez launched FutureHouse, a nonprofit research lab working toward building an AI scientist or AI systems that can automate scientific research in biology and other complex scien...

“An AI scientist, for example, could figure out how the human brain works, or deliver any gene to any cell in the body.”

Yeah and a magic pony could shit bricks of 24k gold and piss a highly concentrated solution of pure heroin.

A biopsychosocial framework for women navigating restrooms. Source: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/2053

I was looking to see if there are any studies about people electing not to poop while at work... and stumbled into a rabbit hole about women's use and avoidance of restrooms (which, BTW, isn't great for one's health). 🧪

www.auajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1...

‘This year nearly broke me as a scientist’ – US researchers reflect on how 2025’s science cuts have changed their lives US science lost a great deal in 2025, including tens of billions of dollars of federal funding, entire research agencies and programs, and a generation of researchers.

This year has been brutal for science, especially early career researchers and those working with communities further marginalized by this administration. Please read the experiences of these scientists.

And when you’re done reading, find a way to fight back.
theconversation.com/this-year-ne...

‘Commuting Is Bad’—Particularly for Women A growing body of research shows how longer travel times affect moms’ ability to work.

Before kids men and women make steady progress in their careers. After kids, moms (not dads) start shifting to lower-paying employers. Mothers trade pay for flexibility or other accommodations. Many opt for part-time jobs, remote work or shorter commutes.
www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

I am so proud to work alongside these folks.