Margaret Gardel

We invite abstracts for “Physics of the Cytoskeleton” at the 2026 APS Global Summit in Denver. Join speakers Margaret Gardel @squishycell.bsky.social (Univ of Chicago) and Colm Kelleher (Syracuse)! This is @aps-dbio.bsky.social and @apsdsoft.bsky.social Session 04.01.03 with deadline Oct 23, 2025.

Schmidt AI + Science. Amazing fellowship opportunity at UChicago! apply.interfolio.com/173322

Lab Clean Up 2025- a decade of posters to be removed to make way for new. So fun to spend time looking at work in progress from awesome alumni for a few minutes!

Teaching at MBL physiology was such a gift! @mblscience.bsky.social

MBL Announces Largest Ever Gift for Its Renowned Biological Education and Research Programs | Marine Biological Laboratory Cell Biology Researcher Mark Terasaki’s $25 Million Unrestricted Gift Will Support Operations and Infrastructure Contact: Samantha Cummis scummis@mbl.edu; 973.800.4119

We're thrilled to announce the largest private gift in our 137-year history: a $25 million unrestricted donation from MBL Whitman Scientist Mark Terasaki.

His extraordinary generosity will bolster our renowned research and education programs. 🔬

Learn more: bit.ly/452WL1m

We will miss Shailaja, but are very excited for her to launch a new mechanobiology lab!

Are we overproducing PhD students? Every few years, reliably like clockwork, somebody claims that we’re producing too many PhD students.

I set up a substack. What better topic to start with than the question of whether we're overproducing PhD students.
clauswilke.substack.com/p/are-we-ove...

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The fantastically successful NIGMS MIRA R35 "expired" on May 17, after the most recent deadline--these removals are the most aggressive attack on American science in the current series of devastating actions 🧪

Therefore, this application has been administratively withdrawn."

ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness. Worse, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race and other protected characteristics, which harms the health of Americans.

which included elements based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and

Here is how NIH is communicating with graduate students who applied for the now discontinued K99 program designed to support students from underrepresented backgrounds. It is disgusting.

"This application responded to a discontinued program that no longer effectuated NIH priorities

I'm the 1st scientist in my family. My parents were amazed I could attend @caltech.edu, an elite private school, for my PhD studies FOR FREE. In fact, I was paid to become a PhD chemist. STEM is a pathway to a good career. I study TB- a disease that impacts millions. Fund NIH.

A screenshot of the termination notice showing "Outstanding Investigator Grants"

A screenshot of the termination notice with "This award is terminated effective the date of this award, due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." highlighted

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Join us for the exciting Cell Dynamics Symposium at Vanderbilt! Poster deadline coming up May 12th. Everyone welcome - please repost!

"If NIH budget money, designated by Congress to be spent on medical cures, doesn’t go out over the next few months, all US scientists are looking at budget cuts that will not just take away cures but harm local economies." donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...

Yes this is true. The last dispersement to Northwestern was on March 27th. This is insance and is impacting important research and may cause the US to lose a generation of young scientists who would have made tomorrows important discoveries

Harvard may have a lot of issues, but none of the accusations in this acid-tripping letter are it. Don't know whether to laugh or cry as I watch monkeys tear up pearl strings.

YouTube video by Steve Lawson Kara Marshall PHD-History of Science in America - Trilogy at Tehaleh 04/27/25

Gave a talk at my parents’ retirement community to describe how science is done, and what is at stake. There was a ton of interest, and anyone can do this. Get the word out about how science affects everyone. I’m happy to share slides with anyone who asks- just get in touch! youtu.be/BY_SFgi-Cig

Learning via mechanosensitivity and activity in cytoskeletal networks In this work we show how a network inspired by a coarse-grained description of actomyosin cytoskeleton can learn - in a contrastive learning framework - from environmental perturbations if it is endow...

check out new work by Deb in collaboration with Martin, @squishycell.bsky.social , Aleks Walczak and Thierry Mora : arxiv.org/abs/2504.15107 o on how simple mechanosensitive agents can enable learning mechanisms

Only 29 slots left out of 200--register now!

The NYT wants you to think universities became dependent on government. This is false.

The government invested in the national research infrastructure by competitive grants to universities. The taxpayers built this. It got us to the moon. Won the Cold War. Created Silicon Valley. Made the McRib.

Harvard University Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.

Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu

Here's is my experience from the financial crisis of 2008 (and Covid). Even though the whole way we are doing and funding science has changed significantly, people's shortcuts for determining whether or not you are "succeeding" will take longer to recalibrate. /1

Nearly a 1,000 student visas invoked by Sec. of State Rubio and counting.