TanentzapfLab

I love finding a paper published years ago (5, 10, 15, 20) that isn't famous or field changing or has a ton of citations but when you read it is just awesome. Like, beautifully designed & executed & written. Best part is that there are so many papers like that lurking in the literature.

This is your regular reminder to always always put scale bars on your figures & always always make sure you use properly scaled axis on your graphs

Venkatesh B, et al. (@tanentzapflab.bsky.social lab) Inside-out integrin activation is essential for early mammalian development. Mol Biol Cell. 2025 Sep 3;:mbcE25030106. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 40901728

The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.

The basic problem in science funding in most countries is that the government decides how many scientists to support but universities/institutes decide how many scientists to hire & those #'s are incongruous. I'll never understand why they don't just talk to each other & coordinate.

I think a good rule of thumb is to spend at least as much time thinking about your data as you did obtaining it. It's common for people to spend a lot less time thinking than doing which gives rise to all kinds of problems.

fantastic stuff! very exciting work.

It's Friday it's summer, let's have some fun. Drop in the comments the meanest things a reviewer has ever said to you (bonus if it's on a manuscript you think is good & that you ended up publishing in a different journal). I'll start with the masterpiece below.

Idea of the day: For every publication the first author prepares & records a 10-20 minute seminar talk about the work that gets posted on the journal website along with the manuscript.

Friends in Los Angels. I am giving a seminar in UCLA tomorrow (Friday May 30th) at 3:30 at Boyer 159. I will be speaking about how stem cells make good decisions when seemingly every signaling pathway in the world is present in their environment telling them to do something totally different.

The turmoil impacting NIH funding is a reminder how important it is that ALL countries have robust & well resourced research funding bodies to support science. The world of science can't rely on the US & the NIH to continue playing such a major role in funding key scientific work

I meant none of those things you list. Rather that the notion that we can fix science funding simply by convincing the public of the importance of funding science is incorrect.

I've been doing this for 30 years & I still can't believe that when people ask me what I do for a living I get to tell them "I'm a scientist". It feels like a kid's fantasy career that they dress up as for Halloween, like "astronaut" or "pirate". I feel very lucky I get to do this day in & day out.

6. "educating the public about the value of science" is clearly important but has not been very impactful in improving science funding. We have to think harder how to make increased investment in science important to political parties, because right now this is not the case

5. Governments do what people want them to do to an extent but also have basic agendas driven by ideology. The lesson for me is that as scientists our priority should be to find out how to make funding science a key ideological goal of political parties.

4. Another example is how the NIH budget doubled between 1998 and 2003 under both a democratic & GOP administration with very different agendas. Both parties at the time really believed in funding science. Subsequent administrates of either party have not funded science well.

3. You could argue that public opinions influences what politicians & policy makers decide to do but I think that doesn't turn out to be the case. For example, recent governments in Canada were outwardly very pro science, but science funding stagnated.

2. In fact there is little correlation between how much people value science & how well it is funded. What actually matters? How much of a priority science funding is to the politicians & policy makers that run government

1. I think a common misconception in science policy is that we need to convince regular tax payers that science is worth funding. But I think the data shows this has little effect on science funding.

Over my career I learned that whenever there was a paper, or a technique, or a finding that I thought was totally wrong all I had to do was wait & it would go away. Alternatively, I found out that actually I was the one with the wrong opinion. Whatever the case, I learned that time is my friend.

Registration is still open to this exciting meeting! Besides cutting edge science and nice people, it’s also a fantastic location to take a bit of a break from it all!

This week has been comically busy, I’ve been so under the cosh that I spent 10 minutes yesterday frantically searching the kitchen for the grater & turns out I randomly put it in the fridge in my absent mindedness. Please share your best "absent minded scientist" story in the comments below.

Reading a nice polished CV is useful & everything but the most important part of my scientific training, the 18 months I spent on a project that failed, which taught me resilience, problem solving, humility, & other such wisdom, is nowhere to be found on my CV. So CVs have their limits.

Another reminder. Deadline is approaching, this meeting is going to be awesome. Please join us!

2. But science is by nature & design inefficient & methodical with long stretches where things move slowly between brief bursts of fast progress. This is how it should be, cautious, thorough, reflective, thoughtful. This is what we need to teach the public. Slow science is good science.

1. There is increasingly a trend to tell politicians & the public that there are magic solutions to make science be quick & efficient ("moon shots", "AI", whatever is the got rend of the day). That if we only found some technique or the right funding mechanism it will speed up & be efficient

9. Start a Netflix reality series called “grant panel” where 20 PIs compete to debase themselves in a series of humiliating challenges for a single available grant.

10. Make stupid joke lists to keep sanity.

6. Convert all lab computers to a vast bitcoin mining operation.

7. Develop zebrafish into the food source of tomorrow.

8. Offer PI babysitting service where they can give 20 minute talks with 100 slides & put any toddler to sleep.

3. Sell gene names to highest bidder so that doctors can say “you have a mutation in your Bud Light-7 gene so you have 2 years to live”.

4. Clone pop stars and make hit records.

5. Repurpose lasers from confocal microscopes and put on fancy light shows at corporate events.

Top 10 ways American Science can survive the 15% indirect cap:

1. Breed special transgenic mice that can run for days in tiny hamster wheel turbines to keep lights on.

2. Get athletic program staff to donate 1% of their salaries to the research thus raising 100 billion dollars a year.