@AmitaGuptaMD has spent more than a decade on a $70m trial to study a new TB drug, enrolling 6,000 participants in 13 countries. It might all have been for nothing. That's because an NIH policy has abruptly cut off billions to trials abroad. For @Nature https://t.co/WbGfwScVWb

A new technique called ‘mind captioning’ generates descriptive sentences of what a person is seeing or picturing in their mind using a read-out of their brain activity, with impressive accuracy. https://t.co/RcPIYm2t0F

A vaccine that fights cancer might already exist: People being treated for deadly cancers lived longer if they received an mRNA COVID shot. The vaccines have this effect not because they protect against COVID-19 but because they rev up the immune system. https://t.co/jV48vYnnUe

In a wide ranging interview, Monarez told me about her upbringing, why she was interested in the job and her reactions to the deadly shooting on the CDC campus that left one dead. “The CDC is far too important to just give up on,” she says. https://t.co/RVXXgN2usb

EXCLUSIVE: In her first interview all year, Susan Monarez tells me why Trump fired her and where this is all headed. The CDC director is an “inherently political position, but that doesn’t mean it has to be politically compromised”, she tells @Nature. https://t.co/RVXXgN2usb

From an NIH source: "The fact that it’s 8a on the day of a likely shutdown, and NIH personnel have received not one word about it from our leaders, from HHS, or higher, is gobsmacking. Normally we receive shutdown preparations emails starting days in advance. Absolute silence."

To pick up the spending pace, some employees cancelled holiday plans, worked overtime and filled in for staff laid off across the NIH. This year was “like a pressure cooker that exploded. There was a willingness to work extra hard to move the science forward”, a staffer told me.

Thousands fewer projects will be funded so success rates for grant apps hit all-time lows. “That is extremely demoralizing,” says ex-extramural chief Mike Lauer. “We want people to be excited about...science. This will do even more to chase [researchers] away from...the US.”

NIH staff seem to have done the impossible: spend the agency's $48 billion budget despite political obstacles. “Everyone has been rallying together to clean up the mess, but it’s a mess that did not need to be made,” an NIH staffer told me. In @Nature: https://t.co/sz4Mb4Xvf9

“It’s our whole field! Dammit,” says Ruth Ley, one of the co-authors of the human-microbiome paper. “That particular grant was a big multicentre thing, but it had amazing trickle-down effects,” she says. “It wouldn't have happened without that grant. No way. No way.”

"Highly cited studies that might not have existed if their grant had been cancelled include a seminal paper with results from the Human Microbiome Project. It was likely flagged by the algorithm because 3 of its supporting grants referenced the diversity of genetic populations."

"The results show the damage that cuts in funding can do to research, and the unpredictable nature of the research process."

NEW: @Nature trained AI to predict which NIH grants from 2014 would have been cut if the Trump admin had its way back then — and what science would have been lost to history. https://t.co/l4LKgnYEe9

Exclusive: The US Department of Defense is continuing to bankroll projects to develop vaccines against deadly pathogens https://t.co/TSlZEmuVS8

“I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity. The stakes are not theoretical — we have already seen the largest [US] measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which claimed the lives of two children.” https://t.co/xHheb4w5Wy

Fired CDC director testifies at tense Senate hearing that scientific integrity is being quashed at US health agency. https://t.co/Cplge6Mmy1

Through lawsuits, grant tracking, whistle-blowing and more, resistance to the US war on science is growing. https://t.co/wIChkLqNCT

RFK Jr defiantly defended his controversial actions to upend public health, and made unfounded allegations about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and accused the medical establishment of corruption https://t.co/0h8EW8IYpQ

What was supposed to be a routine hearing was anything but. The hearing devolved into a shouting match, as senators grilled RFK on the shakeup at CDC and his efforts to scuttle research on mRNA vaccines. Read my full story in @Nature with @marilenharo https://t.co/vnq4JAaSZf

Still thinking about this mind-boggling exchange regarding the former CDC director today RFK JR: I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, “are you a trustworthy person?” and she said “no.” WARREN: What?

Thought this was notable — Bill Cassidy did raise concerns with RFK Jr during the hearing. "I would say, effectively, we're denying people vaccines," Cassidy said. But the press release his office put out says nothing on that. Instead emphasizes Cassidy's alignment with Trump.