Rejji Kuruvilla

Submitted two NIH grants this month-floated off like messages in the bottle in the ocean. No idea if anyone would read them one day….

I am sorry, Wei. Made me really sad to read this, but understandable. It’s a loss for US science and a gain for your next destination. Wishing you well.

After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.

Someone asked me the other day*:

How do we replace all the science that’s being lost across the US as NIH, NSF etc are being lawlessly destroyed?

The answer is: we cannot. It is impossible.
The task now is to defend #NIH and public funding for medical research.
1/ 🧪 #neuroscience

From MRI to Ozempic: breakthroughs that show why fundamental research must be protected In these financially straitened times, funders must recognize that great discoveries often arise from work that was looking for something completely different.

Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake

go.nature.com/47zrzYZ

Today is many federal workers first full paycheck they’ve missed for this shutdown.

They have bills. Rent, mortgages, kids tuition, food, credit card payments, car payments, grocery bills…

All because the Republicans don’t want people to have affordable healthcare.

A university that signs the “compact” is one that acknowledges its own inability to compete and succeed based talent and merit. It would signal insecurity and mediocrity to current and future students and faculty. Say no. Recruit the best people, protect their freedom and support their hard work.

Wins for the week-submitting a grant application and a revised manuscript. Bottom line-focusing on what I can control.

The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org The Nobel Prize rewards science, humanism and peace efforts. This is one of the central concepts in the will of Alfred Nobel, and it also permeates the outreach activities that have been developed for...

Six of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S.
Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world.
www.nobelprize.org

Muscle-derived miR-126 regulates TDP-43 axonal local synthesis and NMJ integrity in ALS models - Nature Neuroscience Ionescu, Ankol et al. show that, in ALS mouse and iPSC models, TDP-43 aggregation at NMJs stems from aberrant axonal translation, normally repressed by muscle EV-derived miR126. Loss of miR126 in ALS increases TDP-43 buildup, impairs local synthesis and triggers degeneration.

Intriguing new insights on axonal TDP-43 in ALS from @labperlson.bsky.social and colleagues

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A multi-omic atlas of human autonomic and sensory ganglia implicates cell types in peripheral neuropathies The human peripheral nervous system (PNS) consists of many ganglia, including sympathetic ganglia (SG) and dorsal root ganglia (DRG), that house the cell bodies of many constituent neuron types and no...

Cool pre-print and valuable resource highlighting the molecular and cellular diversity of human sympathetic ganglia and DRG cell types

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Image of a fluorescently labeled adult mouse kidney showing AQP2 staining of collecting ducts and connecting segment in green and alpha SMA staining of the arterial tree in magenta. The collecting ducts look like squiggly branches.

For this #FluorescenceFriday, a gorgeous image of an adult mouse kidney labeled with AQP2 and alpha SMA antibodies. AQP2 (green) marks the collecting duct and distal connecting segment while SMA marks the arterial tree. Courtesy of talented postdoc Sarah McLarnon.

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

This paper does a great job with a "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario about NIH, supposing the consequences of the bottom 40% of the funding NIH grants never existed.

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

tl:dr The world would lose a lot, but directly and indirectly

Any academic folks on H1B visas (even with stamps in passports) please get legal advice from your University attorneys before leaving the US.

I found this to be particularly acute in public spaces in India. Almost no one used headphones while playing content on their phones, so there is a cacophonous assault of Bollywood songs, tv dramas, cooking shows etc 😀

Arundhati Roy’s intense memoir of her mother “Mother Mary comes to me” is a brutal read, yet funny and poignant. Rekindled my love of reading and brought on all the emotions of complicated mother-daughter relationships, orthodoxy of Kerala Syrian Christians, and not conforming to societal norms.

It bears repeating that nearly the entire US enterprise in science and technology has been irreversibly gutted. This is shocking.

All this loss has occurred without any real benefit to the average US citizen. Except we now have the biggest, best funded secret police force perhaps ever.

Yay for us!

Wistfully thinking about the days when incompetent Reviewer 3 was the biggest problem…

The GOP needs to understand the economic impact of the cuts from the Trump administration. Higher education drives economies.

“If you include the hospital systems, [our impact] is well over $60 billion, and it's 7% of our whole economy — literally more than coal and natural gas combined.”

Science is a long game.

Translational science, or clinical medicine is only possibly because of basic science discoveries where the clinical applications are not yet known.

Also: Nobels are typically awarded for basic science… *exploratory* basic science.

True story.

Over 20 years after Julius’s lab and mine cloned TRPM8, it is rewarding to see this science helping patients. The TRPM8 agonist Tryptyr treats dry eye by increasing tear production. A reminder that NIH-funded curiosity-driven research translates to medicines.
tryptyr.myalcon.com?gad_source=1...

From a trip to PNW and being reminded how beautiful this country is. My childhood was spent in a crowded and polluted city (much as I loved it). But the majestic splendor of the natural beauty in the US will never cease to amaze me. Hope we can sustain the national parks.

Full Committee Markup of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Acts | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

Senate Appropriations has a modest *INCREASE* in NIH funding but it will need to be recconciled with the house cut. If you have not been calling your representative of late now would be a good time to start again
www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/ful...

Yup this.. paylines below 5% are demoralizing not only for applicants but also reviewers. Good luck, NIH, finding reviewers to take on this task..

I wish our media had the knowledge for pushback. NIH is not a business. Funds science that no business would touch. Provides momentum for science that companies run with. Trains a pipeline of scientists for pharma/biotech. That Vought’s own kid has the quality of life because of NIH funded research

Finding comfort in little things these days. Working with a good group of people, discussing science, sharing ideas. Trying to tune the noise and chaos out in moments like this. Lab lunch.

I don’t know how to say it more strongly: it is asinine to think that AI and basic/exploratory, creative science are at all similar, never mind interchangeable.

There are many details one could get into on this, but the important takeaway is the above. 🧪

spongebob from spongebob squarepants is standing in front of a rock and says phew . ALT: spongebob from spongebob squarepants is standing in front of a rock and says phew .

So, it seems that the conclusions are:

(1) The communications around this policy have been atrociously bad;

(2) NIH leadership includes some people with strong opinions about animal-based research who aspire to reduce or eliminate the use of animals, but realize that this would be foolish now.

so.... NIH issued a news item clarifying the new use of animals policy.

It seems that the bottom line is that NIH will not issue NoFOs specifically about creation or use of animal models of disease.

1/2

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

Thank you for this..I served on study section recently for all the reasons you articulated so well. A service that I have always valued.