iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Today we are hosting Dr Barbara Slusher from John’s Hopkins speaking about her drug discovery research programs - amazing scientist and a full house for her seminar !

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

This made me happy. And happy new year!

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

As a little boy, my grandparents gave me this book. This story of Pasteur is the one that made me want to be a scientist. And it doesn’t even mention optical activity!!

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

It reminds me of this banger: "Revised Estimates for the Number of Human and Bacteria Cells in the Body" - We estimate the total # of bacteria in the 70 kg "reference man" to be 3.8X10^13. - # of bacteria in the body is actually of the same order as the # of human cells, & total mass is ~0.2 kg.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

I missed this paper at the time but love this kind of study: "The total mass, number, and distribution of immune cells in the human body" "an average individual’s immune system consists of approximately 1.8 trillion cells, weighing around 1.2 kg" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

I rarely post about work, but in writing this email today asking how to be reimbursed for the cost of hosting a scientific visitor I wrote this explainer. This is not a complaint - but shows how we have to use our own salaries to enrich our environment and the commitment that takes

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

One of the posters from my group was on a drug discovery strategy for inhibitors of biliverdin reductase - a target relevant for several rare diseases. Our postbac Christa did an amazing job presenting her work - it’s a collab with scientists at Einstein.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Meeting my trainee for coffee and project strategizing in the amazing NIH Clinical Center. Inspiring.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

But the poster sessions are buzzing - so much amazing NIH science on show! I got in trouble for standing on a ledge to take this photo….. you’re welcome

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Sometimes you make a poster, then realize the world isn’t ready

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

It’s that time of year again - NIH Research Festival !

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

I must be doing something right - daughter raided my vinyl.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

I show this dedication in Volume 1 to 'Inorganic Syntheses' to the organic chemists whenever I can. Solid.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

They were - as always - phenomenal

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Am I the only scientist who likes to cool off in the coldroom on a hot day?

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

The new NIH Director presents at his first Town Hall - and it’s a FULL HOUSE in the Clinical Center

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Farewell to Nate Hoxie, who leaves our group after an amazing period of time developing mass spec approaches for drug discovery and assay development. As is tradition for our group, Nate receives the complete Sherlock Holmes canon. Full of life lessons.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

We've added another success - NUMBER 60 !!! - to our intramural list of FDA drug approvals and clinical trial clearances here at NCATS. Latest is cross-NIH partnership w/ Amy Newman at NIINDS with IND approved for VK4-116 for opioid use disorder. See all our success: ncats.nih.gov/research/our...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Started watching Farscape - I’m not normally a Sci Fi watcher, but liking how it starts:

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

So much science happening ; in our NCATS labs we've got a SciEx mass spec screening platform - and we've started HTS on a couple of new methyltransferase targets as part of a collaboration with NCI. The plates are stacking up and loading on to the mass spec as I type .

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Picked this up from X: Rare diseases have a home at NCATS, was proud to light up Building 1 at the center of the NIH campus in recognition of #RareDiseaseDay. NCATS Director Joni Rutter, DRDRI Director Dominique Pichard are shown. #NIH

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

New paper in Nature Comms with Isaac Brownell NIAMS, identifying #repurposing treatment options for the rare Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC). We found Aurora kinase criticality in genetic & chemogenomic screens - wonderful collaboration @gryderart.bsky.social #NCATS www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

The final product (and before the cream and fruit goes on top): pavlova!

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Tonight’s reading : the Fortas Bobliohoax is a truly remarkable story. A summary: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortsas...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

In case you haven't seen it, here is the structure of Red Dye No. 3, also known as disodium salt of 2,4,5,7-tetraiodofluorescein.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Our NCATS research program has a history of collaborating and partnering to get treatments to patients. One of my first goals as SD was to capture and share our success in one place - and here it is! 4 approvals and 56 INDs to date - not bad for 12 years old! ncats.nih.gov/research/our...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Beautiful new paper from Quin Hanson, Natalia Martinez and many others here at NCATS ; @acs.org Biochemistry, with Dom Esposito at FNLCR - They created assays and a HTS streategy to ID Methyltransferase and Exonuclease Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 NSP14. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

We regularly host visitors to the labs at NCATS. Yesterday was fun showing trainees from the NIH Translational Science Training Program what we do. We spent lots of time in our compound management facility - an essential facility for this kind of work that enables all our research. #raredisease

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

This is a fantastic visual display. We tried a few years back to build chemical classes and approval year into a display (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...) . What you've created is wonderful.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Funny ; Otto Penzler (who runs the Mysterious Bookshop in NY) is selling his home. It has some built-in bookshelves... apparently held 50,000 first editions! www.williampitt.com/search/real-...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Exciting times ahead - after 15 years we're in beta testing for our new NCATS HTS data browser. Once it's deployed internally we'll be making the code openly available.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

An unusually active weekend - Mariah Carey last night for her Christmas show in B'more (!) and tonight seeing Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' at Everyman Theatre in B'more - one of my favorite novels ever.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

My live music plans are complicated

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I try not to mix my science with my Sherlock fandom, but need to tell you that in the 1883 Arthur Conan Doyle short story 'Selecting A Ghost', an analytical chemist (analyst) identifies chloral. The name of the analyst? T. E. STUBE, M.D. www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Se...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

EXCITED to announce the next NCATS Assay Guidance Manual... in Berlin, Germany, April 9-10, 2025, at NUVISAN Innovation Campus. We are co-organizing this with EATRIS, EU-OPENSCREEN, and NUVISAN. Regster here: ncats.corsizio.com/event/66f2d5...

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I think about Julia Margaret Cameron almost every day. I find photos like this one from 1864 remarkable - everything has changed and nothing has changed in 160 years.

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

The PhD project still has a strong influence on my publication career.... Look what I made! 🦋 With help from Scholar Goggler scholargoggler.com

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Matt Hall @cispt2.bsky.social · 17/12/2023

Re-Visited this beauty on NIH main campus (bldg 50) - a Varian 60 MHz NMR with plotter. This is a museum piece behind “glass”. I used a plotter to print spectra as an undergrad as part of a lab exercise.

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