Bill Wuest

New NSF GRFP announcement is out. MAJOR CHANGE: Only senior UG and 1st year grad students appear to be eligible..... Why the change? Anyone know?

Looks like this worked. Solicitation is up and deadline was moved back 2 weeks. Nice job.

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Also worth pointing out the MIRA mechanism, which sounds closer to what was suggested - betting on the athlete not the proposal. With all the cuts I worry this program won’t be able to continue as intended or planned.

I believe nigms cancelled f31s awhile back.

I dont have that data (I think that med school accepts seem similar) but I do not think this 5 course sequence is THAT different that a normal 2 semester gen chem, 2 semester organic, quantum sequence, with a little biochem added. The bigger difference is the electives needed to be offered after.

Nope not quite what we do. 1st semester is structure-focused (~95% gen chem), 2nd is 70/30 gen chem/orgo, focusing on equilibria mainly, 3rd is 100% orgo, 4th is ~50/50 orgo/biochem. 5th is p chem (quantum mostly). These are my own estimates but am fairly familiar with the curriculum.

I typically review all files twice a year (week before enrollment). I actually make this a lab job for a grad student aspiring to be pui faculty and they help organize and conduct the interviews too.

Oh I agree but I have found that by asking the right questions we can trim the number down to 4-5 then conduct brief zoom interviews to land on the best fits, at least imo. Success rate and long term retention have gone up and students really appreciate the clarity.

Instead of relying on emails why not create an application form for anyone interested to complete? Then they won’t have to guess at what you are looking for & you can level the playing field for all. We have found this approach super useful in my lab! Happy to share more info if you are interested.

Ours at Emory is also happening.

Has anyone else received manuscript reviews that were AI-assisted? We got our 1st one. Text raised suspicions & was "verified" by GPTzero as 90% AI. Assuming that our manuscript had to be uploaded to a system to then be reviewed raises copyright and privacy concerns. Are there any repurcussions?

I have that exact record in my office! I remember reading the background and finding it online.

Yeah, they were very close to approval by a startup company (Phase 3 I think). However, the IPO to fund the trial was "shorted" by investors and ended up bankrupting the company. I believe Roche picked up the IP. It is sad how often this happens in ABX research....

Repurposing human kinase inhibitors to create an antibiotic active against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, persisters and biofilms - Nature Chemistry Screening commercial kinase inhibitors for antibacterial activity identified the anticancer drug sorafenib as a major hit. Subsequent structure–activity optimization created a new antibacterial analog...

What Stephan meant to say is no 🙂, him and I are on another paper together led by Stephan Sieber published in Nat Chem. It's really cool IMO: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I use this paper in my chem Bio class as well. So good! Crazy this compound hasn’t made it to the market imo.

Three million child deaths linked to drug resistance Children in Africa and South East Asia are most at risk from antibiotics medicines no longer working, a study suggests.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

you and me both. i even got my RPPR in 8 weeks early and realized one journal put a 12 month embargo on them instead of the necessary 3.....ugh.

I am getting very nervous about NIHMS service. If papers aren't uploaded there then grants can technically be withheld. The delay for NIHMS uploading has noticeably increased. Any word on this infrastructure??

we are due for some wins, right? maybe? ugh.....

Sounds like there might be plans to award additional fellowships from the HM list down the road. Perhaps they wanted to get out the UG specific awards ASAP to allow for grad school accepts? Perhaps I am being too optimistic....

NSF GRFP Awards by the Year:
2021 - 2074
2022 - 2193
2023 - 2555
2024 - 2036
2025 - 1000

Again, these funding cuts will have drastic longterm effects on the scientific future of the US.......

@jeremymberg.bsky.social @altnih4science.bsky.social

Congrats Erin!! Well deserved!

Recently engaged, beloved barber arrested by ICE | How his immigration story is questioning the system Rodney Taylor, a Georgia barber, has been pursuing permanent residency for years. Now, he faces deportation to Liberia despite being in the U.S. since childhood.

Rodney Taylor is a beloved Georgia barber who came to the United States from Liberia with his mother when he was only two years old. He applied for citizenship but was denied. But this year, ICE arrested him, locked him up, and has scheduled him to be deported to a faraway country he's never known.

Closing the department of education will clearly be disastrous but what is not as obvious is how it will impact higher ed. Pell grants, federal loans, etc are all distributed through this organization. Without staffing, few, if any loads will be given. Universities are taking it on all fronts.

If you found the antibiotic work I blogged about today interesting and useful, then gosh, that’s too bad. Because as it stands Elon Musk’s child army is ripping all that stuff to bits.

Closing the department of education will clearly be disastrous but what is not as obvious is how it will impact higher ed. Pell grants, federal loans, etc are all distributed through this organization. Without staffing, few, if any loads will be given. Universities are taking it on all fronts.

Emory too.

Also looks like the study sections scheduled for today met. No asterisks on the csr page…