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Melissa Kane PhD

@cornymel.bsky.social
295 followers 180 following 149 posts

www.kanelab.org Assistant Professor University of Pittsburgh Retroviruses, genetics, immunology, and cell biology

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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 21h
My first PhD student is defending his dissertation in two weeks!! There will be mouse genetics, there will be retroviruses, there will be B and T cells, there will be champagne, there will be me trying (and likely failing) not to cry the whole time.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 20/09/2026
Remember what this is about: There is no cause more important than a renewal of liberal constitutionalism. There is no task more urgent than defending and strengthening our constitutional government.
lnk.thebulwark.com
Why Do We Even Have a Constitution Day?
Because it’s the frame of silver for our apple of gold.
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
DOGE was sold as a “massive money-saving operation.” But it actually saved nothing. The story was always about gutting the federal workforce and reshaping the agencies themselves. A new GAO report estimates federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Without saying your age, what’s your favorite movie that came out when you were 20 years old?
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Shake It Fast: Show Me What You Workin' With
ALT: Shake It Fast: Show Me What You Workin' With
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is a bit familiar..:
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I would like to thank each and every one of you that doesn’t “reply all” unnecessarily. It’s a silent gift to everyone.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Ossoff has the juice. I think he’s going to continue to be fun to watch the next few years…
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
NIH has lost more than 20% of its staff. NIH has lost 1 in every 5 workers. This undermines the NIH mission. @27unihted.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...
open.substack.com
Lost critical expertise is hindering the NIH mission
Concern 5 of the Bethesda Declaration: One Year Later
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Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social gammretrovirus-specific nAb induction is unique to infection, suggesting this is triggered by the infectious process rather than the unique nature of specific viral antigens www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cornymel.bsky.social
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elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Top senators consider blocking the OMB rule. www.politico.com/live-updates...
politico.com
Top senators consider blocking Trump’s grant shakeup in spending stopgap
It’s now “up to leadership” whether to head off the controversial changes, Sen. Susan Collins said.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
static.klipy.com
Back To The Future: Marty McFly & Doc Brown Celebrate
ALT: Back To The Future: Marty McFly & Doc Brown Celebrate
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
The Assault On Science Funding Continues
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
120 Minutes was essential - I taped it many times to ensure that I could hear/see again all the interesting stuff that they weren’t playing the rest of the time
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
This is awful and so sad
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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Four hours left. Do it. Two or three paragraphs of your own text are enough.
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Dan Savage @dansavage.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Maybe Scott Jennings can get Lindsey Graham on the phone to confirm the death of Lindsey Graham?
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 06/07/2026
let this be a lesson to deal with your feelings of gender anxiety and masculine inadequacy with a hobby or therapy or something and not a high stakes senate election
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
🇺🇸🇺🇸
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Check out this paper from my friend Francis, they developed an method for isolating native capsids and identified previously unknown mechanisms of viral protein and RNA incorporation. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Capsid and integrase play essential apposing roles in viral ribonucleoprotein assembly during HIV-1 core morphogenesis
HIV-1 virions harbor a core composed of a conical shell of capsid proteins that encases the viral ribonucleoprotein complex (vRNP). The vRNP is compos…
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 27/06/2026
OMB has proposed a new rule change. And, as @jvl.bsky.social describes it, it's goal is to disappear people and ideas. lnk.thebulwark.com/4uWvDvW
lnk.thebulwark.com
They Want to Disappear You
How OMB will politicize the federal grant system with this one weird trick.
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Fauci’s last act of public service should be to sue all these motherfuckers for every penny.
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The Trump administration is moving to weaken environmental protections for oil, gas, and coal companies operating on public lands. Today the Interior Department has proposed cutting drilling fees and loosening methane pollution requirements,
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Trump is 80 years old and unhealthy, he’s one foot in the grave but all his enablers? They still have a whole life ahead of them and we all have a responsibility to make sure each and every one of them spends that remaining time in prison.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Embedded in this appalling story about censorship by the ADA is a reminder that a formerly well respected scientist, Rick Woychik, sold out to sell the MAHA agenda & was representing NIH/MAHA at the meeting. When colleagues sell out we need to highlight their perfidy www.science.org/content/arti...
Statement on the Selection of Dr. Rick Woychik as Senior Advisor to the NIH Director for the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Strategy
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Dr. Rick Woychik
 Richard Woychik, Ph.D.

I am delighted to announce that Richard Woychik, Ph.D., has been selected to serve as Senior Advisor for NIH’s Make America Healthy Again Strategy. In this pivotal role, he will help advance a bold, forward-looking agenda that unites research and innovation across NIH’s Institutes and Centers. His leadership will support efforts to identify the root causes of chronic disease, strengthen the nation’s health resilience, and promote equitable, data-driven prevention strategies.

Dr. Woychik brings a distinguished record of scientific leadership and strategic vision. Since June 2020, he has served as Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Under his direction, NIEHS launched the 2025–2029 Strategic Plan, Health at the Intersection of People and Their Environments, which charts an ambitious path forward in exposomics, precision environmental health, the health impacts of extreme weather, environmental health disparities, and data science.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Holden Thorp is an institutionalist. He's been a university chancellor, provost, now EiC of Science. When institutionalists pull the fire alarm, we listen, because the call to action he issued this week exposes the dire nature of the threat we are facing. 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Another red alert for American science
Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation’s s...
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I am grateful for every person taking action to prevent these f*cking a**holes from rewriting history
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
What's really astonishing is not the far right authoritarian party doing this, but the near-total lack of <loud public collective action> by university chancellors & presidents to oppose this existential crisis. Almost impossible to overstate how total a failure of leadership this is.
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Excellent summary of how Vought’s proposed rule will destroy science. Please be ready to comment tomorrow, call Congress, tell your friends. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to speak up, that moment is now.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I am so tired of these disgusting, selfish people who don’t believe in humanity. It cost us next to nothing to provide aid that could help contain this type of epidemic.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 27/05/2026
The shame of it is that Trump's failure is America's failure.
lnk.thebulwark.com
Trump’s Iran War Was a Failure
And a few Republican senators admitted it—for a moment.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
“Memorial Day reminds us that it is possible to sacrifice for people you disagree with, and that unity does not require total alignment.”
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Noah Shachtman @noahshachtman.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Yeah, I know. I know. Print is dead. This is still a thrill for me.
NYT sunday opinion covermy NYT opedNYT a1
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Max B 💙 🔶 🇺🇦 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 @maxbrockbank.com · 22/05/2026
Hands up if you know what they're talking about.
You know the part of the movie where the thieves are robbing a jewelry store and then an alarm goes off so they just start smashing display cases and shoving everything in bags on the way out the door? That’s the part of the movie we’re in now.
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
It’s pretty surreal to see my name on this list… I am so fortunate to be at the Cold Spring Harbor Retroviruses meeting this week celebrating with the best community of scientists Wins are harder to come by these days and this is a big help for keeping motivated!
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Most people at NIH who comply do so out of fear or a misguided (IMO) sense that this is the best way to save science & NIH. Then, a few over zealously leverage the recent changes into career opportunities: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w... And then of course there’s Jay Bhattacharya himself.
nytimes.com
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Jared Polis is so completely full of shit. His commutation of Tina Peters' sentence has nothing to do with freedom of speech. What a joke. What an insult to the law-abiding citizens of Colorado. What an assault on free and fair elections. An embarrassing profile in cowardice.
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Piece is from two months ago. Abrupt pushback in March forced him to delay. Now it’s apparently time for accountability. Paywall has been removed, and it’s up to @coloradodems.org now…
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Glad to see the attack on scientists getting traction at broadly focused media outlets. Sh*t is bad, folks
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
This is pretty f*cking shitty
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Well this is bad
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Melissa Kane PhD @cornymel.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
🤣🫠
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Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Fantastic paper from @jollylab.bsky.social at QMUL. HIV-1 env-mediated signaling through CD4 on resting T cells during cell-to-cell transmission primes the cell for infection by remodeling nuclear pores to make viral core nuclear entry more efficient www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
HIV-1 signalling remodels nuclear pores to licence infection - Nature
HIV-1 capsid nuclear import at the nuclear pore complex is a bottleneck to resting T cell infection, but HIV-1 overcomes this by triggering receptor-mediated signalling during cell–cell spread to driv...
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Faculty everywhere should be incredibly concerned that our employers will steal our teaching materials just as Arizona State has. Absolutely shameless.
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Greg Proops @gregproops.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
What a state of affairs. We don’t believe the President or the Press. We’re right.
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Jon Ossoff @ossoff.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
A wave is building, the kind that comes once a generation, when people have been pushed too far and they decide all at once and all together that enough is enough.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 25/04/2026
It’s insulting to suggest that Americans are indifferent to the spectacle of a sitting president laying siege to their democracy—especially when the evidence of Americans’ awareness and alarm is greater than ever.
lnk.thebulwark.com
Hungary Proved That Liberalism Can Win
Péter Magyar ran against authoritarianism, not the price of eggs.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 24/04/2026
It *could* happen to you. And even if it couldn't, you should care.
lnk.thebulwark.com
America Just Shrugged at the Largest Mass Shooting in Years
A horrifying massacre in Louisiana can teach us a few things, but first we need to pay attention.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 23/04/2026
"Expanding the Supreme Court is no different that redistricting in California and Virginia. It is a proportionate response to Republican attempts to degrade liberal democracy and move America toward a post-liberal order."
lnk.thebulwark.com
It Is Time for Ruthless Aggression
The national battle over gerrymandering should be just the first step. Next up: expanding SCOTUS.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 18/04/2026
HANK, 49 Twice divorced, twice widowed, and looking for fun. Are you a buxom seventeen-year-old and also first cousin to my late second wife and also willing to ignore that I am nearly thrice your age and also in my direct line of sight?
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Henry VIII’s Dating App Profiles
“Grieving widower seeking comely maid to provide comfort and more male heirs in time of deep sorrow over the passing of my favorite wife from childbed fever....
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