iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Leslie B Vosshall PhD @leslievosshall.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Transformative opportunity for early career faculty @hhmi-science.bsky.social #FreemanHrabowski Scholars competition opens 11/3/2026 but you can get started NOW: view application components, establish eligibility, and unlock example applications and other resources www.hhmi.org/programs/fre...

hhmi.org

Early Career Faculty Program | Freeman Hrabowski Scholars | HHMI

The Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program offers comprehensive support to outstanding early career faculty committed to scientific excellence in their own research, and to fostering labs that expand the ...

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Toxicologist here. If you have a working liver and kidneys then you are already “detoxing.” Supplement use is one of the leading causes of liver and kidney failure. The only thing you’re getting rid of when you fall for these predatory wellness grifts is your money.

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Anita Devineni @anitadevineni.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

My department (Biology at Emory) is hiring for a teaching track position! These are stable, well-respected, long-term positions with a path to promotion and ppl often staying for decades. The dept is wonderfully supportive and filled with amazing humans (faculty + staff) apply.interfolio.com/191814

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

CONCERNING NIH NEWS Administrator's access to ERA Commons has been taken away! Please share and confirm if true. Please correct me if I am getting bad information 1/3

static.klipy.com

Sesame Street's Cookie Monster: 'So Share It Maybe'

ALT: Sesame Street's Cookie Monster: 'So Share It Maybe'

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.

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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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Even with non-optimized PET agents, we show the approach can ID targets & confirm good signal:noise in xenograft imaging, making therapy w optimized targets possible! If it works for #HCC, it could be extended to other histologies! Link: thno.org/v16p8501.htm 10/10

thno.org

A multimodal pipeline for the identification and diagnostic immunoPET validation of hepatocellular carcinoma targets for radiotheranostic development

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Finally, we designed/engineered immunoPET agents against CD24, GPC3, TSPAN8, MET, EGFR, and CD147 and showed localization to liver-cancer xenografts! PET signal correlated with membrane staining by IHC—supporting imaging as an early in vivo test of target engagement. 9/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

We validated expression across liver-cancer cell lines by qRT-PCR, Western blot, and flow cytometry. Target patterns differed substantially across models—another reason target selection and biomolecule design must be matched to the biology, not inferred from one assay. 8/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

HCC heterogeneity means one target will not fit every tumor. At the protein level, GPC3+MUC13 covered 78.8% of cases. A 4-marker set—GPC3, MUC13, TSPAN8, and CD24—captured 88.5% of the 165-patient cohort. Feasible to go after multiple targets like this? TBD 7/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

One result I especially value: ROBO1 looked promising in the RNA analyses, but protein validation showed insufficient tumor selectivity or density for this application. A useful reminder that transcriptomics can nominate targets—but cannot validate them. 6/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Next came protein-level triage. We tested 8 candidates in 165 HCC tumors, matched non-tumor liver, and normal-organ arrays. GPC3 (positive control!), MUC13, TSPAN8, MET, and EGFR showed strong tumor membrane expression with relatively little normal-liver signal. 5/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

We integrated TCGA bulk RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, and normal-tissue expression data, then restricted the search to membrane-associated genes. The goal: move from a long transcriptomic list to targets with a realistic path toward imaging and therapy. 4/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Why it matters: HCC still lacks FDA-approved antigen-selective ADCs or radiopharmaceuticals. The bottleneck is not just building a drug—it is finding a target that is accessible on tumor, limited in normal tissue, and relevant across a heterogeneous diseases. 3/10

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

🚨Hot off the Presses!🚨 New work from our NIH team! We asked a simple question: can we systematically find cell-surface targets in #HCC for #theranostics development? Our answer: yes! A thread on the pipeline, the hits, and the caveats 🧵 1/10

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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

As Dr. Fleming famously wrote about that red-letter date: "When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did." /1

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Link to full paper: linkinghub.elsevier.... 2/2

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

🚨New work on #radiopharmaceuticals #immunology from our collaboration w @hhrosanguyen.bsky.social and Ravi Patel UPMC Rad Onc The interplay bt #radiopharmaceuticals therapy and the immune compartment is a hot topic ☢️! Work led by postdoc Constanza Rodriguez sheds some light! 1/2

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Jason Shepherd @jasonsynaptic.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I am still waiting on whether a 3% scored R01 will be funded at the NIA (reviewed in Jan) and even the NoA for my funded R01 non-competitive renewal is a month late 😭. And this is preclinical science that shouldn’t have any “dirty” words!

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

🔥 Published today, and just in time for summer conferences, here are your guidelines for presenting badly www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/fqa92

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

If our findings hold across other tumor types, it could open up possibilities for many more patients. Grateful for support of @NIH @IRPatNIH of our work. Shoutout to Joon-Yong Chung and trainees Divya Nambiar, Woonghee Lee, Hima Makala from my lab! 9/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Our findings suggest that while combining CAR T and radiopharm tx may not offer much additive effect in high antigen expressing NBs, there's some benefit in intermediate expressing NBs. 8/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Are two modalities better than one? We show that combining GPC2-directed CAR T tx and radiopharm tx improved OS in models of NB with intermediate but not high GPC2-expression! 🤔 7/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

We also confirm that GPC2 PET could predict for GPC2-directed alpha-particle-based RPT response in NB models with high GPC2 expression (also not surprising) 6/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

We first confirmed that in vitro expression correlated with in vivo GPC2 PET then confirmed that it could also predict response to GPC2-directed CAR T tx, and help assess treatment response in NB models with high GPC2 expression (not surprising) 5/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Combining the immunology and radiopharm chops across our collective labs we asked: ➡️Can we leverage non-invasive GPC2 #PET imaging for selection for CAR T or radiopharm tx? ➡️What happens when we combine GPC2 radiopharm & CAR T tx? 4/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

GPC2 is an oncofetal protein that is expressed in 50-80% of pediatric neuroblastomas (NB) and is being explored as a therapeutic target. Still, antigen quantitation remains mostly in the realm of IHC, which may not reflect expression states in patients esp w several lesions 3/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Link to full paper in Molecular Therapy Family of Journals: www.cell.com/molecul... 2/9

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

🚨New pub alert!🚨 Excited to share our @MolTherapy pub resulting from a massive collaboration w friends and colleagues Rosa Nguyen & @RPatelMDPHD & their teams! We explore GPC2-targeted #radiopharmaceuticals #theranostics CAR T cell therapy in models of #neuroblastoma! 👇🧵 1/9

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Science peeps, particularly trainees: When reviewing grants, it really, really helps if you have a Google Scholar page, an ORCID account, or a website that makes getting information about you, easy. Some sort of web presence. I'm begging you. Make it easier for study sections to give you money.

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

I have always found that my lab staff each contribute unique strengths. There is even greater reason to think this holds true at the level of a lab contributing to the science endeavor.

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

The Verge @theverge.com · 12/06/2026

If you were to count out a million seconds, it would take you 11 and a half days. A billion seconds would take you 31.7 years. But a trillion seconds would take 31,700 years — to reach that point today, you would have needed to start counting around the time that neanderthals went extinct.

theverge.com

A trillion dollars is a stupid amount of money

No one man should have all that power.

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Every. Single. Time. —recovering chemist

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 03/06/2026

1. How common is LLM use in scientific publishing, and how does it vary across field, publisher, journal prestige, author demographics etc.? @kylesiler.bsky.social has new paper in PNAS that addresses this question on a massive scale: 7.3 million papers from Elsevier, PLOS, MDPI, and Frontiers.

pnas.org

The diffusion of large language models in published academic articles | PNAS

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly changing academic research, raising questions of who is adopting these tools and under what conditions. Th...

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

When it rains it pours. The RasgonLab was just awarded 2 NIH grants (R01 and R21). This is also actually the first time in my career that I've successfully renewed an R01

media.tenor.com

a man in a suit and tie is standing in a desert with the word boom written on the ground

ALT: a man in a suit and tie is standing in a desert with the word boom written on the ground

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AZ Faust @azfaust.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

If we try to play this game, we will lose. Our biggest mistake is thinking we can tell who the winners are (or which research questions will be most important in the future).

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

💔 I’m so tired of this we all depend on caregivers to pretend otherwise is to reject our own humanity

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

My quote of the day I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it. Frank A. Clark

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Reposted by Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD

Mike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I don’t know how to feel about grant rejections anymore. When you get a score that would have been funded at any other point in history, except right now, how bad can you feel? I see scores from friends and colleagues (and my own) and it just breaks my heart more than anything.

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Freddy E Escorcia, MD/PhD @freddyeescorcia.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

🙏 Grateful to all the co-authors for a fun and productive collaboration and to @nih for support! Stay tuned as the final few papers from the lab make it throught he publication process. Link: jnm.snmjournals.org/... 5/5

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