Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD

@prasad.bsky.social

11507 Followers 1512 Following

Prof & Lab Head in NYC. 100% research: cell division, genome integrity, cancer. Curious to a fault. Also πολύτροπος. Talking here for me alone. I listen to the finest worksong. Like/repost = bookmark/news, not agreement/endorsement.

Mr. Kratsios’ proposal to reduce the role of universities would upend that system, which has been in place since the end of World War II. His call for the administration to de-prioritize “life sciences,” which encompass molecular biology, genetics and other fields in biomedicine, as well as clinical trials aimed at testing new therapies, raised alarms among biomedical researchers and academic medical centers. They fear it will mean less funding for the National Institutes of Health.
It may not have been the face-melting exhilaration inferno of 2022. But I look at the world right now and it’s so grim. The air’s full of smoke from runaway wildfires. We’re all getting explosive diarrhea thanks to Trump’s CDC cuts. AI doesn’t do almost any of the stuff they say it does, but you still have to use it all the time, because a CEO said so. Everyone in power seems to be so bad at doing the exact thing they’ve been empowered to do. I mean, my God—we can’t even do photo ops correctly in this country.
Definition of a Physician H-405.969 Our American Medical Association affirms that a physician is an individual who has received a "Doctor of Medicine" or a "Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine" degree or an equivalent degree following successful completion of a prescribed course of study from a school of medicine or osteopathic medicine. Our AMA policy requires anyone in a hospital environment who has direct contact with a patient who presents himself or herself to the patient as a "doctor," and who is not a "physician" according to the AMA definition above, must specifically and simultaneously declare themselves a "non-physician" and define the nature of their doctorate degree. Our AMA actively supports the Scope of Practice Partnership in the Truth in Advertising campaign. CME Rep. 4-A-94 Reaffirmed by Sub. Res. 712, I-94 Reaffirmed and Modified: CME Rep. 2, A-04 Res. 846, I-08 Reaffirmed in lieu or Res. 235, A-09 Reaffirmed: Res. 821, I-09 Appended: BOT Rep. 9, I-09 Reaffirmed: BOT Rep. 9, I-11 Reaffirmation A-13 Reaffirmation A-15 Reaffirmed in lieu of: Res. 225, A-17 Reaffirmed: Res. 228, A-19 Reaffirmation I-22 Reaffirmation: Res. 211, A-24
Just read this fantastic passage in Guattari's "The Three Ecologies" from 2000: "Just as monstrous and mutant algae invade the lagoon of Venice, so our television screens are populated, saturated, by 'degenerate' images and statements. In the field of social ecology, men like Donald Trump are permitted to proliferate freely, like another species of algae, taking over entire districts of New York and Atlantic City; he 'redevelops' by raising rents, thereby driving out tens of thousands of poor families, most of whom are condemned to homelessness, becoming the equivalent of the dead fish of environmental ecology." The Three Ecologies, p 43. EDIT: written in 1989 but published in an English edition in 2000z
Getting results in Shanghai In China, it's a different story. "I have enough money to do research," says Shu, laughing. China is pouring huge resources into developing all sorts of biological research, including gene therapy, aiming to curb its reliance on the West and become an even bigger world superpower. This spring, the country pledged billions in additional science funding. Shu, who trained at Harvard Medical School and is working on solving the same problems as David Corey, has plenty of staff in his lab, all the supplies he needs and can just get more done. "My lab is growing bigger and bigger," he says. And it's far bigger than his lab when he was in Boston, training under Corey and his mentees. For decades, the U.S. has brought the smartest people in the world — like Yilai Shu — to its shores. Many have stayed. Shu wanted to, but family and a scientific opportunity, with lots of funding, drew him back home. That decision was rewarded when his team had a successful trial on a single injection that can restore hearing.
"The exhibits here focus not just on policies, but on the shared values that make democracy possible," Obama said. "A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection. A belief in checks and balances in our government and an accountability that comes with it, an independent judiciary and a robust free press." And a belief, he continued, "that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives." These values, Obama concluded, are "our greatest inheritance."
The executive order effectively transforms these positions — which include "epidemiologist", “health scientist" and "toxicologist" jobs — into "at-will" positions, meaning they can be readily fired without cause. The job category, initially called Schedule F and now called Schedule Policy/Career, strips these federal workers of protections meant to prevent political interference.
Last August, the Trump administration issued an executive order intended to fundamentally alter how grant funding is handled by the US government. Under the system that had made the US a scientific superpower, peer reviewers rated the scientific quality and feasibility of grant applications, and subject-matter experts within the funding agencies used these ratings to determine which grants got funded. Under the proposed rules, political appointees would have the final say, and they were specifically instructed not to “routinely defer” to peer reviewers. In the interim, the administration has lost many court cases because it turns out that issuing executive orders doesn’t circumvent legal requirements, and the orders can be vacated if they lack strong justification. To avoid that same fate, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has decided to merge the executive order with other administration priorities and send it through the formal federal rulemaking process. The result is a horror show for US science research. Not only is peer review made a secondary consideration, but the new rules would allow any federal agency to cancel any grant at any time based on the vague assertion that it isn’t in the “national interest.” The document would also ban any grants on a number of culture war topics, limit international collaborations, and block spending on things like publishing papers and attending conferences. It is, in short, a recipe for how the government can finish the job of crippling American science.
The measure, called the Securing Innovation and Research from Adversaries (SIRA) Act, would prohibit U.S. scientists from using federal funding "to enter into, support, or carry out any research collaboration" with any Chinese scientist "associated with" Chinese entities on one of several U.S. government blacklists. The bill's sweeping definition of collaboration includes co-authorship, sharing data, material transfers, and any joint supervision of students. The blacklists are equally broad. They include any university, laboratory, or hospital considered part of the country's "military-civilian fusion strategy" to boost the country's standing as a science and technology superpower. Yang's employer, a top cancer research center in Guangzhou, China, would presumably fall under the ban.
The White House signaled interest early this month in investigating whether the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine should be suspended or debarred from federal funding, in response to a letter from 11 Republican lawmakers criticizing NASEM, particularly the climate science chapter of its Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows posted an article about the letter on X, adding, “The National Academies have weaponized tax dollars against President Trump for far too long. It’s time to end their contracts.” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought responded, “On it.”
In 2025, Eddy received a letter from the National Institutes of Health, informing him that his work "had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated," he recalls. Eddy is one of thousands of researchers across the U.S. still grappling with the damage inflicted on science in 2025 under the Trump administration - despite a restoration of funding earlier this year.
It turns out that would-be authoritarians don't need to staff their regimes with ideological true believers, offer extreme enticements or impose draconian punishments in order to make successful power grabs. They just need to figure out how to target their ideal labor pool: the frustrated and mediocre. Their conclusions have implications for countries around the world grappling with the stability of their democracies - including the United States.
When Republicans disenfranchise Black people and brown people, they can now simply claim they are doing so for partisan reasons. In fact, since the Court ruled that intentionally creating minority-minority districts is unconstitutional, states can claim they must prevent Black people from being elected to abide by the law. The Supreme Court has, intentionally, reestablished the regime of white supremacy and Jim Crow.