Today I delivered my maiden speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a long held tradition for new senators. It’s a love letter to Michigan where we invented the middle class. Protecting the middle class is and always will be my north star.

Spearhead Bio, a Danforth Technology Company startup, has received a grant from @NSF that will allow them to fast-track their breakthrough genome engineering technology to develop corn varieties equipped for ag’s biggest challenges. Read more: https://t.co/ghuxbxP4Lx

Two new positions open at @DanforthCenter to collaborate with @Spearhead_Bio!

Today, was a busy and productive one in the House Science Committee! We passed two bills that I wrote and introduced, the Post-Quantum Cybersecurity Standards Act and the Small Business Artificial Intelligence Advancement Act. Both bills will safeguard our national security and

It seems like all these goodies would fit nicely in a backpack

Latest work from the lab led by @yuhunghung in @ThePlantJournal! We engineered a RNA-binding protein to sort and protect a Cas9 transcript for long term expression! Can be applied to any engineered transcript as a UTR:

Congrats @Spearhead_Bio for the new grant!

What is one country also investing heavily in agricultural research? It's China. That's why this Administration's $600M cut to ag research makes no sense. We cannot go backward on investing in the future of agriculture. It impacts our farmers and our national security.

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@Spearhead_Bio Offers Precise Plant Engineering Using CRISPR-Directed Jumping Genes TAHITI couples #CRISPR with transposable elements from plants to edit cash crops such as corn and soybean with reduced off-target effects @DanforthCenter @Slotkin_Lab https://t.co/bohfCmifVg

I’m about to lead my @sciencedems colleagues on the House floor to stand up for science, fight Trump and Musk’s NSF cuts, and STOP THE CHAOS! Tune in!

I’m happy to share that our collaborative commentary is out! In defense of funding foundational plant science

See us in St. Louis Magazine! @stlmag

Introducing the newest startup to spin out of the Danforth Center: Spearhead Bio. Spearhead’s technology enhances the efficiency of genome engineering by harnessing the plant’s own natural DNA. 🌱 Learn more: https://t.co/i5FhJo9UAs

So 🥳excited🎉 to publicly announce what we’ve been working on for over two years, 🔥Spearhead Bio🔥, which comes out of @DanforthCenter and my lab’s love of transposable elements!!

New Perspective: "The future of genome editing in plants" https://t.co/nk5bemARGO Genome editing will mimic the natural evolutionary processes that shape genomes; will be used to reshape genomes in a manner that could have happened naturally, but more precisely and more rapidly.

Sometimes at a scientific meeting you sit down for lunch and eat quietly by yourself. Other times you have a conversation that results in a Perspectives article! It was great to write about Genome Engineering with @GenomeLarry and Holger Puchta

Can we please bring back science? Can we invest in foundational research to invent tomorrow’s technology? And develop new vaccines? And cure Alzheimer’s? And childhood cancer? And solve the climate crisis? And beat China? Let’s not relitigate settled science but pursue new

U.S. early career scientists that do research in Arabidopsis can apply by March 31 for travel funds to attend ICAR 2025, taking place in Ghent, Belgium, this June. Details here. Please share!

NAASC is holding an annual membership drive to support our (micro) nonprofit & I’m excited to announce 2 new lifetime members! 💚 Member fees start at $10/year & support fundament plant biology & the next generation of plant biologists. Join today! https://t.co/GiqGWWGASZ