George Chen @g_chen

This is absolutely dumb and ridiculous. The K99/R00 Pathways to Independence award is a major mechanism to retain the very best international trainees in biomedical research in US institutes. As a reviewer of this award I know the awardees are absolute stars in each of their subfields. We are talking about the most creative and most productive people here. Now they are closing the door on these young stars who are already highly sought after by other countries. It's saddening and disappointing to watch the "land of opportunity" getting diminished like this step-by-step.

STAT @statnews

2 weeks ago

The NIH plans to close the door on one of the few pathways available to international students on visas to forge a career in biomedical research in the U.S. trib.al/XysZTdU

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@BoardwalkTimes I mean, obviously it's a giant ad for DVC. But "watch as we do the bare minimum to call it a Disney property" probably won't have the viewership draw they hope.

@ScottGustin So....they are building an AI to get around the complexity that they put in place? This seems like such a well thought-out plan! /s, obviously. I maintain that all C-suite should be forced to book and go on a Disney vacation as a normal person. Maybe then we'll get actual change.

I'm immensely grateful to Dan Geschwind and all the members of the Geschwind lab who have been valuable collaborators and colleagues over the past seven years. Special thank you to my past funding: @NIH, @SimonsFdn, @UCLAstemcell, @eaglesautism

I'm excited to share that I am starting my own lab at Children's Hospital Los Angeles! My lab will focus on modeling neurodevelopmental disorders using brain organoids to understand the impacts on development and to develop therapeutic interventions.

@ScottGustin Like when they tried to move all of WDI to Florida haphazardly, this strategy of ignoring the value of institutional knowledge does not bode well for the future of the company.

@ScottGustin Insane to me that they did not use the in-universe name Harryhausen's. "Mike and Sulley's Flavors of Asia" sounds like a placeholder name.

@PeterSciretta The bar is so, so low. And yet, I have no faith that he will, sadly.

This week, we report in @Nature our effort to identify molecular convergence and divergence in #autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using human stem cell models. In this collaborative study with Dan Geschwind's lab, spanning almost a decade, we derived 96 hiPS cell lines representing 8 genetic forms of ASD, idiopathic patients, and 20 controls, and after rigorous quality control differentiated 70 lines in more than 150 experiments into human cortical #organoids for 100 days. Interestingly, early time points harbored the largest mutation-specific changes, but distinct mutations converged on shared transcriptional changes as development progressed. This is just the beginning: we will need larger cohorts and more advanced cultures that capture cell diversity and interactions, such as #assembloids. Still, this initial study illustrates how risk associated with genetically defined forms of ASD can propagate through transcriptional regulation, leading to convergent and divergent signaling defects. This work was spearheaded by the heroic efforts of Aaron Gordon and Se-Jin Yoon, together with Lucy Bicks!

@DLPReport How did this get approved for distribution? Even as a scratch track this is unacceptable. Embarrassing.

Modern GWAS can identify 1000s of significant hits but it can be hard to turn this into biological insight. I'm excited to share our new work combining genetic associations and Perturb-seq to build interpretable causal graphs, out today in @Nature:

WESTCOT CENTER THREAD 🌐 Lots of new never-before-seen pieces of concept art from Disney's cancelled idea for a second theme park next to Disneyland, WestCot Center, have been revealed as part of an upcoming auction by @JuliensAuctions! Join me as we look at all of them!

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After years of unanswered questions, a rare NR4A2 gene mutation gave Franklin Henry and his family clarity, and sparked new research into the genetic roots of #autism. Now, he's helping @UCLAHealth researchers better understand how the brain develops. uclahealth.org/news/article/r…

Story out today from @UCLAHealth on one of my projects in @GeschwindLab studying rare neurodevelopmental disorders using patient stem cells and brain organoids. UCLA #ResearchPowersProgress uclahealth.org/news/article/r…

New preprint from our lab led by an amazing team, @ckvuong and Alexis Weber, were we employ single-cell multi-omics in the developing brain to uncover mechanisms of Down syndrome. #brain #singlecell #multiomics #DownSyndrome biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

@ScottGustin I hope that's true, but the Buena Vista Street poster leaves much to be desired. Besides the bats and hands, the composition is just weird. Why are the guests just standing with hands in their pockets? Why are the villains inconsistent in their sizing?

"Dear @SenMullin, Capito, @SenBillCassidy, Collins, Cornyn..[6 others]" "These hastily-executed NIH contract cuts will damage medical research for diseases like cancer&dementia... It would be taking the side of cancer to do nothing to stop [the cuts]" Letter sent to R Senators:

@SouthwestAir Hedge funds ruin everything: cnbc.com/2025/03/11/sou…

Wow, @SouthwestAir killing all the reasons they were my preferred budget airline all in one go. The free checked bags were great for families, no expiration flight credits for the budget conscious. Way to get rid of all the good things that distinguished your company.

@ScottGustin Offering a promotional ticket during peak season seems to be a way of finally admitting that they’ve gone too far with the current pricing model.