Kara Maxwell MD PhD

Somatic tumor next-generation sequencing in US veterans with metastatic prostate cancer ft. Heena Desai, Ryan Hausler & @karanoelle.bsky.social (@penncancer.bsky.social/ @VAPhiladelphia) ‪https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2833847

No question things are bad. But - a ray of hope - I got a notice of funding for an FY24 DOD grant. The CDRMP program sites were all down until this week.

DOGE will use AI to assess the responses of federal workers who were told to justify their jobs via email The revelation comes as federal workers face a midnight deadline to respond.

Off duty
LLMs to decide if "physician" is a necessary job title. www.nbcnews.com/politics/dog...

Heartbroken. This is a government website. Why does my child's authentic self and what he does with his body anger so many people?
womenshealth.gov/protecting-w...

Trump's executive orders cause 'chaos' at the VA, some staffers say About a dozen Department of Veterans Affairs employees described the far-reaching effects of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders.

Off-duty.
www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-...

Welcome to Trump Tracker: Probationary workers at health agencies being fired today Follow President Donald Trump’s impact on U.S. research and science globally

Off duty.
Every day in science now is like a year. This helps keep track.
www.science.org/content/arti...

Off duty.
news.va.gov/press-room/v...

Text from the post, "To My Fellow Lab Rats: A Letter From a Postdoc Who Survived the Bolsonaro Years"

Loved this post from a postdoc who lived through the Bolsonaro years in Brazil:

"The best 'fuck you' to fascists? Thriving. Publish that paper. Build that collaboration. Laugh with labmates. Science outlives dictators—but only if we stay in the fight."

www.reddit.com/r/labrats/co...

Well let's see.. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/h...

Trump Administration Cuts Put Medical Progress at Risk, Researchers Say Grants from the National Institutes of Health come with additional money for overhead. A planned $4 billion cut would leave colleges with large budget gaps.

Indirects fund 412,000 staff at universities - all the "unnecessary funding" pays all the hardworking people who take a low salary (comparatively) because they believe in academic research. The cuts will decimate two-thirds of those jobs. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...

Zero

Good explanatory thread of why every scientist and all medical schools, graduate schools, and universities in the US are freaking out.

F&A Cost Rates After World War II when the federal government initiated a close partnership with universities in pursuit of the research enterprise, recognition was given to the infrastructure costs needed to support this expensive endeavor. These infrastructure costs became known as Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs and were expressed in terms of a rate; that is the indirect costs of research divided by the direct costs of research. This F&A rate is applied to eligible direct costs and is the accepted sponsor method to reimburse universities for the indirect costs incurred with the research project. Below is a

Harvard’s explainer is good.

“F&A Cost Rates: After World War II when the federal government initiated a close partnership with universities in pursuit of the research enterprise, recognition was given to the infrastructure costs needed to support this expensive endeavor…”

This is devastating. Universities need the indirects to keep the lights on in research labs. The directs barely pay the people and science.

R01 #2 made it in with 7 minutes to spare. After scrubbing it for all indication of diversity or how I use genetics to improve disparities....😔

My last R01 submitted Oct 5th has a study section date! However, having nightmares about some AI bot finding the statement in my Innovation secion that the goal of this project is to "advance health equity and reduce disparities in prostate cancer" and tossing it to "ND".

R01 #1 for the Feb 2025 cycle submitted to NIH. #2 is going to go right up to the deadline but I've got to do it. Let's hope this news of study sections restarting is real!!!!

Anyone else Google CDMRP prostate cancer research program or any of the others? You get a hit but then you click on it... It's gone. Ebrap just there to taunt. If anyone thought cancer research wouldn't take a hit, think again....

On caring for a liver transplant patient: “worst day of my medical career,” because he knew a $50 vaccine could have prevented her fate. “Your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me,” Mr. Cassidy said.

My career is based on government research funding yet I've never watched the HHS secretary confirmation hearings so closely. Yes that problem is due to the President. But we as scientists need to examine why we can't convince half the country that their health is better due to government funding.

Nobel laureates urge US Senate to reject Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination Seventy-seven prize winners sign letter arguing Trump’s DHHS pick will put US public health ‘in jeopardy’

Nobel laureates urge US Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination

Seventy-seven Nobel Prize winners sign letter stating Trump’s DHHS pick will put US public health ‘in jeopardy.’

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

I will not be able to give the talk on prostate cancer disparities research work that I'm doing in VA at the American Association Cancer Research unless there is a change soon.

1 / 2 Since I am not currently on duty at the VA, I can say with no commentary the fact that I am no longer allowed to speak about my VA research publicly or travel on VA time.

All federal grants and loan disbursement paused by White House | CNN Politics The White House budget office has ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans, according to an internal memorandum sent Monday.

All federal grants and loan disbursement paused by White House | CNN Politics search.app/txcoEUWLNRqn...

About Us - LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory The LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory is a free, searchable database helping LGBTQ+ people to find friendly and affirming doctors, medical professionals and healthcare providers.

This is a free, searchable database of all kinds of doctors, medical professionals and healthcare providers who are knowledgeable and sensitive to the unique health needs of LGBTQ+ people in the USA and Canada.

lgbtqhealthcaredirectory.org/about-us

My sincere hope for Super Bowl LIX is that Kevin Hart gets s#$&-faced and moons T Swift after the Eagles wipe the floor with the Chiefs.

And then we could hire and now we can't again... This back and forth stress is intolerable

Opinion | I’m a health researcher. NIH’s pause on research grants could have a devastating cost. This is a potentially devastating event — not just for the scientific community, but for all Americans.

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Video: Blumenthal to Collins on Trump's VA Hiring Freeze: This will be Your First Test Committee’s top Democrat pressed Collins to push back against proposals harmful to veterans, including a hiring freeze on critical VA health care positions already facing shortages

Hiring freeze not supposed to affect Veterans healthcare? Well it is and it will, and Collins doesn't really seem to care. www.veterans.senate.gov/2025/1/video...