Alex Pike

my amazement with the technology surpasses my annoyance with my past self for not sequencing this plasmid sooner, since my original map has lots of issues

Gotta take time to appreciate the small joys in life, like samples getting delivered at 8:30am to @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social and results getting emailed to you right at noon!

Assistant Professor of Biology The Biology Department at Oberlin College invites applications for a full-time tenure track faculty position in the College of Arts and Sciences in conservation ecology. Initial appointment to this po...

Our department is hiring a conservation ecologist!
See the job posting here & please share:
jobs.oberlin.edu/postings/16671

In #GENETICS, Grace Duke and Robert V. Skibbens report on novel gene deletion combinations with implications in cohesion activities and show their requirements in #yeast cell cycle progression and cell viability.

Read more: buff.ly/Fa2FAfQ

Grad student Gayathri Muthukumar investigates how the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM), a hub for signaling proteins, helps regulate mitochondrial function. Her research aims to uncover how changes in the OMM’s protein makeup can fine-tune the behavior of individual mitochondria. #Sciencein60

Researchers show that the cell nucleus is the pacemaker for cell division Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have shown that the 'pacemaker' controlling yeast cell division lies inside the nucleus rather than outside it, as previously thought. Having the pacemaker i...

Crick researchers have shown that the ‘pacemaker’ controlling yeast cell division is located inside the nucleus, rather than outside it as was previously thought.

This research was led by @nitinkapadia.bsky.social and Paul Nurse.
www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-06...

Hopped onto the tenure track today! What were your favorite purchases when you started your lab? We're doing genetics and biochemistry in yeast 🧬

Postdoc positions open in my lab (Francis Crick Institute) to study

1. initiation of DNA replication.

2. chromatin replication/epigenetic inheritance.

Great for biochemists, biophysicists and cryo-EM/cryo-tomography scientists.

Deadline 3 August 2025.

crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job...

Following court order, NIH ceases new terminations of politically sensitive grants After a judge told agency to restore hundreds of killed grants, NIH backs off plans to cancel more existing projects

Breaking news: The National Institutes of Health has ceased terminating grants on politically sensitive topics after a federal judge ruled last week that the cancellations were illegal.
scim.ag/4l9MO8Y

Especially in file names

Please, mentees, I am begging you

NIH grant cuts will axe clinical trials abroad — and could leave thousands without care US agency’s new policy could abruptly end studies of infectious diseases and cancer, leaving researchers scrambling for funds.

The NIH has said it will implement a "new award stucture" by October.

But researchers say it is absolutely senseless and reckless to cut off funding without an alternative in place.

I spoke to nine affected researchers.

This is their story.

URGENT: FlyBase has lost practically all its funding overnight; even user fees are tied up in denied grant funding. 🤬🤯

Any lab using @flybase.bsky.social please donate using the link in post below.

This incredible community, on whose backs our #Drosophila labs depend, can't be left out to dry.

Molecular_Bio - YouTube

Re-upping this: I curated a YouTube playlist on molecular biology. I use it to train undergrads and new grad students. I usually have them watch the playlist first before showing them how to do in the lab.

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

This framing is all wrong

Our international students are not a “crucial funding source”

They are our STUDENTS

They are the reason we EXIST

We teach STUDENTS

Our country is under attack by our own President. He wants everyone - persons and institutions alike - to tremble in fear of saying something that he dislikes. These attacks are not only wrong and contrary to the highest U.S. ideals, they are unlawful viewpoint based conditions. 1/x

Harvard today, your institution tomorrow.

It's all part of the Project 2025 plan to destroy high education in America.

All leading US universities depend on federal funding and tuition dollars from international students. They severely curtailed the former. Now they're eliminating the latter.

definitely worth checking surplus lab equipment vendors — some items are barely used or even brand new — as a way of getting around the tariffs

an exciting time to receive your start-up funds 💸

Wow.

We have updated our database of funding opportunities for Early-Career Researchers (private foundations, federal, international)

We have 456 entries, for which we provide $ amount, deadline, eligibility criteria, etc.

Download this massive database here for free: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

Oberlin Welcomes Tenure-Track Faculty Members for the 2025-2026 Academic Year | Oberlin College and Conservatory Scholars and performers bring world-class expertise in arts, sciences, and the humanities.

Excited to be jumping onto the tenure track at Oberlin after a couple of years as a visiting prof!! www.oberlin.edu/news/oberlin...

American Thoracic Society | Advocacy The American Thoracic Society is the world's leading medical society dedicated to accelerating the advancement of global respiratory health through…

“In essence, the EPA is proposing to roll back the clock on environmental protection and allow industry to release tons more toxic pollutants into the air we breathe,” Gillian C. Goobie, MD, PhD.

Read more about the impact of the EPA’s announcement to reconsider over 30 EPA regulations:

Johns Hopkins Plans Staff Layoffs After $800 Million Grant Cuts Local and international health research efforts are already winding down as the university braces for even more potential cuts.

Our top health official thinks castor oil cures measles, while his bosses cut funds to much of the most important medical research in the world.

The toll in disease and death is beyond our ability to imagine.

And the goddamned eggs still cost $9 a dozen.

Gift link: www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Many of these grants are fellowships and training grants supporting smart young people interested in bettering the world through their research. It is sad to see NIH funding used as an indiscriminate tool of retribution.

China Bans Imports of Illumina DNA Machines in US Retaliation China banned the import of Illumina Inc. gene-sequencing machines as part of a wave of retaliatory measures against fresh US tariffs on all Chinese goods, deepening the US company’s woes in one of its...

In #NextGenSequencing news, China now outright bans the imports of Illumina $ILMN machines in US Retaliation. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Musk says DOGE ‘restored’ Ebola prevention effort. Officials say that’s not true. USAID’s initiatives to fight Ebola and other diseases have been gutted, current and former agency officials said.

Every news outlet reporting Elon Musk's comment about accidentally canceling Ebola prevention efforts and quickly restoring them should also say they haven't been restored, they're still canceled, the outbreak-fighting teams are dismantled, the money is gone

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

a man in a suit and tie sitting in a chair ALT: a man in a suit and tie sitting in a chair

More NIH intramural news...

As part of the new Executive Order IMPLEMENTING THE PRESIDENT'S "DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY" COST EFFICIENCY INITIATIVE, NIH staff are advised not to use their NIH Purchasing Cards.

If this get any more efficient, they will not be able to so anything...

Trump Places Freeze On Federal Credit Cards In Newest DOGE Executive Order The order gives the Department of Government Efficiency more power over federal funds and spending practices.

This is a straight ban on purchasing at #NIH — for cancer trials, treating patients, and developing cures. @chrislhayes.bsky.social

Almost all purchases at NIH are made on govt credit cards.

It’s clear what’s happening: Trump/Musk are blowing up the govt using devious… 1/
www.forbes.com/sites...

SPO11 dimers are sufficient to catalyse DNA double-strand breaks in vitro - Nature A biochemical system recapitulates the hallmarks of meiotic double-strand break formation, with mouse SPO11 catalysing break formation in the absence of any partners and remaining covalently atta...

🥳Just published @nature.com. Over 25 years after the discovery of SPO11 as the enzyme responsible for initiating meiotic recombination, we finally succeeded in reconstituting its DNA cleavage activity.🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...