Marta Koperska

Join us Tuesday, April 29 from 12–1 PM for the first Bridging the Divide seminar, hosted by CFAR. Dr. Erin Barnes and PhD student Jonathon Sens will discuss immune and infectious processes in opioid use disorder. Teams link here: shorturl.at/7nRFi

I'd like to talk to graduate students whose trajectories have been affected by the Trump administration's research cuts, doctoral admissions being paused, or offers rescinded. If that's you, send me a DM or Signal! Same goes for scholars overseeing affected programs. #PhDSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

I hate that I have to even type this post but the information must be shared: F31 diversity #nih grants are being removed again from study section (after being put back in for a period of time). Just to let yall know. My student was notified yesterday. @insidehighered.com @jeremymberg.bsky.social

‼️ As of today, the NIH has re-closed the F31-Diversity Fellowship (after reversing the initial closure last week) along with other funding mechanisms. This is in direct opposition to a federal judge's decision to block Trump's DEI EO earlier today ‼️

Declaration To Defend Research Against U.S. Government Censorship This Declaration is a call to action for the scholarly communication community and additional stakeholders to condemn and resist recent acts by the U.S. government to censor scholarly research. We ca...

And please also sign the open Declaration To #DefendResearch Against US Gov Censorship! Share everywhere! Help make this action go viral! #scholcomm #academisky #sciencesky #openscience tinyurl.com/3bwuc38f

Unfortunately I know of at least 2 cases where F31-Diversity apps have STILL not been re-assigned to a study section. Please share to help identify other applicants in this position (reply below if that's you) so we can figure out whether the re-assignments were specific to only certain ICs etc.

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF STATES’ EX PARTE EMERGENCY MOTION FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER ANGEL KELLEY, D.J. Plaintiff States’ Ex Parte Emergency Motion For Temporary Restraining Order [Dkt. 4] is GRANTED. Defendants and their officers, employees, servants, agents, appointees, and successors are hereby enjoined from taking any steps to implement, apply, or enforce the Rate Change Notice (NOT-OD-25- 068) within Plaintiff States until further order is issued by this Court. Counsel for Defendants shall file a status report with the Court within 24 hours of the entry of this Order, and at biweekly intervals thereafter, confirming the regular disbursement and obligation of federal financial assistance funds and reporting all steps that NIH, HHS and their officers, employees, servants, agents, appointees, and successors have taken to comply with the Court’s temporary restraining order.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, ATTORNEY GENERAL DANA NESSEL ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, STATE OF ILLINOIS, STATE OF ARIZONA, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, STATE OF CONNECTICUT, STATE OF COLORADO, STATE OF DELAWARE, STATE OF HAWAI’I, STATE OF MAINE, STATE OF MARYLAND, STATE OF MINNESOTA, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, STATE OF NEW YORK, STATE OF NEVADA, STATE OF NEW MEXICO, STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, STATE OF OREGON, STATE OF RHODE ISLAND, STATE OF VERMONT, STATE OF WASHINGTON, and STATE OF WISCONSIN, plaintiffs.

BREAKING: Federal judge temporarily blocks NIH indirect costs rate cap issued Friday as applied to states that sued over the act this morning.

Judge Angel Kelley, a Biden appointee, ordered further briefing as well, and set a hearing on Feb 21 in the case. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Research Universities Are Poised to Lose Billions Under Trump’s Sudden Cut The NIH’s decision late Friday to drastically shrink its reimbursement of indirect costs, which help pay for facilities, equipment, and staff to support grants, will have an immediate impact on higher...

The Trump administration says its sudden cut to biomedical-research grants will minimize "administrative overhead." University leaders say it will kneecap the U.S. research enterprise. chroni.cl/3WUavbg

They applied for NIH grants designated for researchers from underrepresented backgrounds. Then, their applications were pulled from review. chroni.cl/3WU4njj

Save NIH and NSF Research Funding ⭑ 5 Calls On February 7, the Trump administration moved to cut billions of dollars in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science …

A useful tool and a great thing to do...

5calls.org/issue/nih-ns...

I also looked at how much each institution that got a grant would lose with this cut to NIH funding.

‘We’re Being Punished’: NIH Tosses Some Grant Applications From Minority Researchers The sudden withdrawal affects early-career scholars who applied for a prestigious federal grant with a diversity notation — flagging that they came from underrepresented backgrounds.

www.chronicle.com/article/were...

This is what amounts to an ILLEGAL & indiscriminate funding cut for research centers everywhere. It will mean shuttering labs across the country, layoffs in red & blue states, and derailing lifesaving research on everything from cancer to opioid addiction.

We all need to speak out to save lives.

I have not seen a crisis of this magnitude since yesterday

Our next CFAR 2024 Research Round-Up post features work from the Kiraly Lab examining how microbial short-chain fatty acids regulate drug-seeking behavior and transcriptional control in a model of cocaine seeking.

If anyone has good contact information for someone connected with ACLU legal departments anywhere, please DM me. Needless to say, they seem to be overwhelmed and I have not been able to even submit anything.

Thanks!

If you can, I strongly recommend that you consider “holding space” 💖

I held space tonight for the neuro grad students & postdocs. I ordered pizza/soda and we talked.

I didn’t have any answers. They didn’t expect me to. They just wanted to be heard & to feel that they’re not alone in their worries.

To get funded on a new F now is to potentially do so even though one's application was scientifically weaker than that of someone from an underrepresented background because theirs was withdrawn due to bias. How's that for preferences?

HHMI kills program aimed at boosting inclusivity in STEM education “Inclusive excellence” program had committed $60 million to 104 institutions

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, yesterday killed a $60 million program aimed at making universities’ STEM education more inclusive. scim.ag/3EtS0US

ATTENTION

If you are someone who had an F31-Diversity (or similar) application submitted this cycle, please DM me here, contact me on signal (jeremymberg.78), or email me at jeremymberg@gmail.com.

I will keep all information confidential.

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I have learned from several sources that NIH staff tried to find out how to transfer F31-diversity applications to other program announcements for funding but were not able to do this. I don't know whether this was technical (regulations) or ideological.

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NIH F31graduate student fellowships One of the primary NIH training fellowships is the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award for graduate students, aka, the F31. It is requested with individual ap…

The impact of dropping the diversity focused NIH F31 graduate student fellowships from review drugmonkey.scientopia.org/2025/02/06/n...

The CSR comm I'm on just pulled all Diversity F grants from the current review cycle. These apps are reviewed alongside (and by the same criteria) as all other F grants. So, instead of helping these trainees, they will actually be punished by having their grant reviews delayed at least 1 cycle !?!?

My diversity F31 was also pulled. 😟 Really frustrating to have months of hard work essentially thrown away. Not to mention the delay that resubmission will cause. Wish there was a way we could all come together and do something about this.

Some ppl are suggesting reviewers take a stand- if the diversity F31s can’t be reviewed this cycle then no F31s should be reviewed. I know none of us wants to slow things down after panels finally restarted, but this seems like the only fair approach to me. Wait till next cycle to consider everyone.

‘Never seen anything like this’: Trump’s team halts NIH meetings and travel In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.

In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research

https://go.nature.com/4gc0Bc5