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Jeff Lewis

@lewislab.bsky.social

962 followers 479 following 852 posts

Interested in understanding how organisms sense and respond to stressful environments, and why some individuals are more sensitive or more resilient. he/his

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

As usual, a very thoughtful post by Ran. Lots of gems in here.

So universities are giving students free access to generative AI tools, which naturally reads as encouragement to use them broadly. Then, where they issue any concrete rules at all, those rules are usually outright bans. What is missing is anything in between: coherent guidance on when and how to use these tools, disclosure norms, and support for the researchers, instructors, and students trying to figure this out themselves.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

So many emotions right now. I had almost given up hope that this one would get funded. Feeling relief, excitement to do the science, gratitude to everyone on the inside trying to hold NIH together, survivor's guilt. All the things.

NOA for R35 MIRA: The Genetic Basis of Variation in Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Stress Defense

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

From grants.nih.gov/faqs#/common...

3. Can I include citations or references on my NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement to products other than the 10 products allowed on my Biographical Sketch Common Form? Updated
No citations are allowed in the Personal Statement or Contributions to Science sections of the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement. However, you may provide in-text, parenthetical references for any of the ten products listed in the Products section of your Biographical Sketch Common Form that highlight your experience and qualifications for this project. These references can be used in both the Personal Statement and the Contributions to Science sections of the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.

There is no specific format for referencing the products in these sections, however, recommended styles include listing the lead author and year (e. g., (Collins et al., 2026)) or the PMCID or PMID (e. g., (PMCID0123456)).

Do not provide full bibliographic citations or include hyperlinked references in the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

With current AI, I pretty strongly disagree with this. I think that widespread use of AI may make differences in grantsmanship small, but that is probably a good thing (grants should be evaluated on ideas and not grantsmanship). I think that differences in ideas will still be large.

Researchers using agentic AI to apply for
funding might be maximizing their own
chances of success, assuming that agents
are deployed sensibly and with appropriate
oversight. But the collective outcome is dys-
functional — a landscape in which all proposals
meet the funding criteria and the differences
between them are small.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

From kitten to astronaut

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

I've seen it once. A dude would show up in jeans and a t-shirt, do one max bench rep, massage his muscles a little, and then leave. I would catch it about once a month or two for maybe a year. Never talked to the guy because, well, Gary Larson says it all. Still would rather have that dude run HHS.

How Nature Says, “Do Not Touch” by Gary Larson (Far Side). Panels show a rattlesnake, a puffer fish, a cat with raised hackles, and a guy wearing a pool floaty, a shoe as a hat, and carrying a large gun.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

This is us (with the grandparents‘helping’ for good measure). And the sign does nothing.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Holy shit, we share the same exact PhD birthday!

Ph.D. THESIS DEFENSE SEMINAR
JEFFREY A. LEWIS
Advisor: Jorge Escalante Semerena
Understanding how Salmonella enterica Utilizes
Tricarballylate, a Toxic End Product of Ruminal Fermentation

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Right, why did awards flatline in FY24 when more MYF was coming off the books? And then go down this year. The numbers pulled from Reporter make it seem like the extramural budget either was not flat, or wasn't spent out. Or (very possible) I'm missing something.

NIH projects funded and total funding for FY23, FY24, and FY25 from Reporter.

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Trying to wrap my head around the low paylines for FY25, and it seems like MYF shouldn't be a major factor then compared to at least FY23. So looked again at Reporter. Unless I did this wrong, did NIH really spend its full extramural budget for FY25?

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Vibes of

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

The graph is very useful. Looking at the notes, grants include Pell grants, so there's some mixing of research and education there. And then it's not clear what "educational activities" means over tuition and fees. Research revenue at even the UC system is less than educational revenue.

Graph of UC revenue sources, with Med Centers at 40%, grants and contracts at 16%, educational activities at 11%, student tuition and fees at 10%...

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Jeff Lewis @lewislab.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

This reminded me of a comment on an NIGMS Loop post about expanding the MIRA program that almost cost me a new laptop. Fuck this type of asshole who is so intellectually lazy that they have to outsource gatekeeping. And again, they're wrong about MIRAs being percentiled in the first place.

NIGMS MIRA grants have put many mid-level universities in a quandary. Obtaining an R01 by scoring under the pay-line was taken as a peer-review of assistant professors coming up for tenure. However, MIRAs are awarded to rankings up to the 40th percentile rank and they are reviewed by select committees excluding other applicants. On the other hand, those scoring well, but just outside the payline for R01 grants receive no funding at all, putting them them at a severe disadvantage during tenure review. In effect, MIRA grants are saving the proverbial chaff over the grain.

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