iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The immediate threat of the EO seems to have passed, but the greater attack on science by this administration is almost certainly not over. Some good thoughts on what we should be doing. I would add: get organized. Build connections and community. Many voices are louder than one.

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 24/09/2026

The Trump admin keeps trying ways to break and take over NIH and we keep pushing back and winning. Two takeaways: 1. Together we have power; your voice matters. 2. This isn’t over; they are going to keep trying more ways to take over NIH and science for their political ends. Be ready!

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

15 speakers across mouse, monkey, and human ICMS. Hands-on modeling clinic with code you keep. NSF travel awards cover registration, travel, and lodging. $75 for trainees, meals included. Abstracts due March 1. stim.bioniclab.org #BCI #neurotech #neuroscience #UPNExT #NeuralEngineering #NSF

TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Touch evoked by cortical stimulation dies within minutes. Tired neurons get the blame. However, inhibitory cells in mouse cortex keep firing while the excitatory ones fall silent. BRIDGE-STIM 2027 puts the human, monkey, and mouse teams in one room. Pittsburgh, May 17–19.

BRIDGE-STIM 2027 flyer. Headline: A human can tell you what stimulation feels like, a mouse can tell you why. May 17 to 19, 2027, University of Pittsburgh. Abstracts due March 1, 2027. $75 trainees, $250 faculty, meals included. NSF travel awards. 15 speakers listed. stim.bioniclab.org

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 04/09/2026

On the diversion of several billion dollars from #NIH to the Department of Defense (NYT today reports it’s up to “one third of the NIAID budget” and that Trump NIH director Bhattacharya signed the deal.) The big question I have: Is this is an end run around peer review? 1/

Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD •
E•5h
NIH funds should be used to improve the health of Americans.
X
Far from siphoning money away from research, this partnership between @NIH and @ DeptofWar focuses on research projects that will drive discoveries to improve the health of American citizens and members of the military. Led by the National I Show more
NOTUS
NOTUS 2 @NOTUSreports • 20h
As the military faces a war-driven cash crunch, Rep. Rosa DeLauro said it would be "outrageous" to siphon that money from disease research. notus.org/congress/delau...

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Insights from inside NIH on the proposal to hide scores and instead bin applications into broad score categories. Please read and comment on the RFI. 27unihted.substack.com/p/nih-wants-... Link to RFI: rfi.grants.nih.gov?s=6a2b1c22c3...

27unihted.substack.com

NIH wants to shroud peer review scores. Here’s what you can do about it.

Authored by anonymous current and former NIH workers with experience in peer review

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Of course this RFI drops late on Friday. NIH proposes to stop providing specific scores and instead bin grants into 3 broad categories: most competitive, competitive, not discussed. A score would be calculated but not provided to the PI (or PO). grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

grants.nih.gov

NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review NOT-OD-26-088. NIH

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Take out the trash day... this will create so much more work for POs.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The most generative scientists I have known were all experiments once. Defending the system means defending the next student told, honestly, that they are an experiment and that the institution is willing to find out. #NIH #GradTraining

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

That flexibility is not free. It requires funding that supports wider training pathways than a strict-payline system allows. Right now it is eroding, because funding pressure forces programs to take only the safest students.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The experiment worked. I now run a BME lab with students from biology, engineering, neuroscience, materials science, and CS. I tell some of them, when they arrive, that they are experiments too. We find out together.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

A more rigid system would not have admitted me. A more rigid chair would not have said it out loud. That combination is something I have tried to replicate as a PI.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

What I heard was that the system had room for me. Not that I would fail, that I was new. New is hard, but new is not wrong. Admitting me while naming the uncertainty was a kind of institutional honesty that is rare.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

He wasn't sure the program could absorb someone with my background. He was saying out loud what every admissions decision implies when it takes a student off the expected track. We don't know if this will work. We'll find out.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

When I interviewed at Michigan for their Biomedical Engineering PhD, the chair told me I was an experiment. He meant it descriptively. The program had only ever accepted engineering majors. I had a biology degree from Colorado. 🧵

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

9 lessons from Bethesda Declaration organizers on how to rescue US science: www.ovid.com/jnls/dartmou... 1. Scientists can no longer safely claim the privilege of being outside of, or above, politics 2. Inaction can be riskier than action. 3. Progress requires work. 4. Do not wait for someone else.

ovid.com

Nine lessons from Bethesda Declaration organizers... : Dartmouth Journal of Healthcare Delivery Science

Abstract was not provided for this article.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I filed a detailed comment and wrote a full breakdown of the rule and these next steps at bioniclab.org/news/OMB. If you commented, you're part of the record. Thank you for showing up for science. #NIH #ScienceFunding

bioniclab.org

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Next steps. Commenting has closed, but two levers remain. Ask your members of Congress for peer-review protections in FY2027 appropriations. Push your state attorney general to weigh in, since state AGs led the win against the indirect-cost cap.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Of the comments analyzed, about 94% opposed it. Under the APA, OMB must answer the substantive ones on the record before finalizing, and that record is what a court reviews. Silence is read as consent.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The rewrite lets political appointees override expert peer review on every grant, and cancel active, multi-year awards at will. No cause, no appeal.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

496,769 people commented on OMB's rewrite of how federal research grants are awarded. Rules like it normally draw a few hundred, that gap is the whole story.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Robby: Nah, it's dance till you drop! Duke: Then what? Robby: Teach the kids the steps before you do. Duke: And then what? Robby: Hope they make it farther than you.

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

DrDinD.bsky.social @drdind.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Infectious disease researcher Jason Walsman, facing cuts to National Science Foundation funded research, has decided to leave the University of Pittsburgh for China

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Monday is the deadline for public comment! The Heritage Foundation has been mobilizing its members to leave comments in favor of the rule change, so every unique comment matters (don’t use a form letter or copy/paste—similar comments are batched and treated as one).

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Reposted by TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

cutting pure science to prioritize applications is fundamentally like asking farmers not to waste time producing grain, cheese, and tomatoes and focus on making pizzas

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

The crisis doesn't just shrink science. It filters the pipeline for conformity at the point of entry, selecting against the work that historically paid the most. Salk's vaccine came out of Pittsburgh. bioniclab.substack.com/notes #YourTaxDollarsAtWork #SciencePolicy #NIH

bioniclab.substack.com

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

📊 The lesson is about risk. Salk's approach was the minority position. With NIH paylines in single digits, study sections now reward safe, consensus proposals, triaging the contrarian hypothesis first.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

💉 Salk never patented it. Asked who owned the vaccine, he answered, "The people. Could you patent the sun?" Funded by dimes mailed to the White House, its success jolted NIH forward into the agency we know now.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

A 1954 field trial enrolled 1.8m children. On 12 Apr 1955 the results landed, safe and effective. U.S. cases fell from 45,000 to under 6,000 in two years, reaching zero domestic transmission by 1979.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

🧪 He pursued it anyway. In Pitt's Virus Research Lab (now Salk Hall), funded by the March of Dimes, his team built a formaldehyde-inactivated vaccine. He tested it on himself, his wife, and his children first.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Late-1940s dogma held that only a live, weakened virus gives lasting immunity, as Albert Sabin argued. Jonas Salk, at Pitt from 1947, disagreed. His killed-virus flu work said an inactivated poliovirus could raise antibodies safely. His peers told him he was wrong.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

🧵 Every entry in this series featured science that outsiders called ridiculous. This one is different. Here, the scientific establishment itself said it would fail. 🔬

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

🔬 Led by Te-Hsuan Tung, senior author Franca Cambi, with Teresa Thai, Hansruedi Mathys, Yongxin Zhao, and AppNL-G-F originators Takashi Saito and Takaomi Saido. A UP NExT collaboration at Pitt. NIH- and NSF-funded. Open access in Brain: doi.org/10.1093/brain/awag234

doi.org

Fus-depleted oligodendrocytes reduce neuronal damage and Alzheimer’s disease progression in the AppNL-G-F mouse

In a new mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, Tung et al. show that oligodendrocytes with enhanced energy metabolism gene expression and myelin production p

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

🧠 The same hypermyelinating oligodendrocyte model that stabilizes chronic neural recordings (Wellman et al., J Neural Eng 2026) also protects neurons under amyloid stress. Oligodendrocyte health as causal, not incidental, runs through both.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

🩺 The field bet on clearing amyloid and on microglial targets, and both stumbled. The INVOKE-2 TREM2 agonist trial in early AD missed its primary endpoint. Oligodendrocyte energy metabolism opens a target class independent of plaque clearance, for 7M+ Americans with AD.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The metabolic shift appeared before plaques accumulated, consistent with adaptive support rather than plaque removal. Neuronal oxidative damage dropped in both hippocampus (P=0.0047) and cortex (P=0.0036).

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

⚡ Protection ran through metabolism. Fus depletion in oligodendrocytes thickened myelin and raised cholesterol synthesis, shifting their transcriptome toward oxidative phosphorylation and antioxidant defense (complex I, SOD1, Gss up), lowering neuronal oxidative load.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Plaque burden fell in the hippocampus (P=0.019) but not the cortex, yet neurons survived in both regions. Presynaptic terminals were retained too (50% less synaptophysin loss, P=0.03), so the rescue tracks neuronal protection, not plaque load.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

🧠 Memory held even where the plaques never cleared. In an aged Alzheimer's model, boosting oligodendrocytes kept spatial working memory at wild-type levels (56.7±2.5% vs 39.5±2.1%, P=0.0004), without lowering amyloid. 🧵

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

📢 Open to faculty, staff, and trainees. Trainee participation is a primary design choice, because cross-species ICMS expertise has to transfer while the senior generation is still active in the field. Registration opens soon.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

💰 Conference grants are the mechanism that lets a research community physically assemble to standardize methods across labs. Neither industry nor private foundations reliably fund this coordination at scale. NSF CBET does.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

🤝 Co-organized through UP NExT (Pitt Neural Engineering Cross-Translation) w/ Robert Gaunt (human BCI), Alberto Vazquez (hemodynamics), Chengcheng Huang (computation), Omar El Gharbawie (NHP cortex), Mac Hooks (mouse circuits), Maria Dadarlat, Emily Graczyk, & Charles Greenspon

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

🔬 Mouse cortex responds to ICMS in ways NHP cortex does not, which in turn does not predict what a human perceives during a somatosensory restoration trial. No single lab can align electrode geometry, waveforms, behavior, and data formats across all three.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

⚡ One design choice drives the whole workshop. Rodent, NHP, and human ICMS data get presented side by side in the same session, not in parallel tracks that never meet, so the three preparations can finally be compared directly.

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TK (Takashi DY) Kozai @bioniclab.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

📅 NSF (CBET) has funded BRIDGE-STIM 2027 for May 17-19, 2027 at the University of Pittsburgh (Award #2624028). It assembles labs running intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) in mice, non-human primates, and humans.

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