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Rajini Rao

@madamescientist.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.6K following 537 posts

Scientist, professor, dog mom, gardener and cook. I <3 ion transporters. Director, Graduate Program in Cellular & Molecular Medicine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine ORCID: 0000-0002-1833-5971

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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
There is a new bonus Wordle game!! Who has tried it? Wordle in 1 Bonus September 2, 2026 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 4:14
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Jason “Obstacle to Progress” Williams @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Dinner: from the garden; Mexico style green chiles rellenos.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I’ve made this ratatouille inspired medley twice and it’s a keeper! The trick is to start with lots of good olive oil and add the diced onions, eggplant, zukes, peppers and tomatoes in layers, cooking slowly so that the flavors meld. Lots of fresh herbs. 🌿 great slathered on crusty bread 🥖 #foodsky
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Sassy0210 @sassy0210.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Angie Nixon opens community center full of the books Republicans have banned in Florida. Nixon is currently the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Florida. Shero 🙌📚 jaxtoday.org/2025/07/02/t...
Angie Nixon wearing red top is on the left. On the right, a bookshelf displays various books, plants, and signs in a cozy, well-lit bookstore or library setting.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Our latest work linking the Golgi Calcium Pump to actin cytoskeleton defects in Hailey Hailey Disease keratinocytes has been accepted for publication in Am J Physiol-Cell Physiol. 🥳 Big thanks to our team and collaborators at UMich Skin Biol Diseases Res Ctr (UM-SBDRC) for making this happen! 🧪
Cell schematic showing insulin mediating cytoskeleton changes in normal keratinocytes. This signaling is defective in SPCA1 mutants which lack one copy of the Golgi Calcium Pump, modeling the ulcerative skin disorder known as Hailey Hailey Disease. These findings could explain wound healing defects in HHD and the usefulness of insulin in wound healing.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Creamy white bean dip with tahini, roasted garlic, olive oil and lemon 🍋 juice. Add some smoked paprika and cayenne for a kick. #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Upside down cherry tomato corn bread. Baked in a cast iron skillet by my daughter. Thunderstorms outside, cozy inside 😘 #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Wordle really scraping the bottom of the barrel today! Wordle 1,852 4/6 🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Spanish tostada, a Catalan favorite, on this scorching hot Independence Day. Grate (yes, grate) a cut tomato into a bowl and heap it on a toasted baguette or crusty bread. Sprinkle salt and a generous drizzle of good olive oil. I rubbed a cut garlic clove on the bread right after toasting. #Foodsky
Toasted baguette with grated tomato topping
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Falafel for dinner on a gorgeous summer evening. Served on a bed of baba ganoush and mohamarra. #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Most antibodies are rubbish. Western blots are the least productive scientific method and have shown no real advancement for decades. But now, companies charge hundreds of dollars for tiny aliquots of this garbage. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Science sleuths uncover more than 100 suspicious images in Thermo Fisher antibody catalogue
Scientists have long worried about the reliability of commercial antibodies, and the latest findings have sparked fresh concerns.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
What a great idea, more of this in the US please! And yes, I was thrilled to see Freddie Mercury flash briefly on the screen. Freddie, born Farrokh Bulsara, had roots in the Parsi community of India that originally fled Iran, and came to the UK by way of Tanzania. #ImmigrationWin #FreddieForEver
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Journalists have been reduced to spineless booklickers. As an ordinary person, I would never allow this level of disrespect from anyone.
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Science is good. We should fund it.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Thankful for providence for gifting me with this good boy who knows exactly how to pose when not one two legged member of my family will oblige #dogs #aussie #samwise 😂
Dog on pine needles
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Reviewer, review thyself! Not ONE of dozens of rubbish experiments forced on us by unpaid peer reviewers of our current manuscript in revision has made an iota difference to the conclusions. But it HAS wasted 2 months of two postdocs and $$$$$ that we can't afford.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
🧪Senate Agreement Reached to Restart SBIR, STTR Innovation Programs. 6 years of re-authorization and language to limit high volume SBIR "mills". Bill is not signed into law yet, but looks hopeful. www.nsbaadvocate.org/post/nsba-sb...
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
How did I miss this awesome tutorial on pH microdomains within organelles?! 🤩 🧪
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Join us for a day long workshop on Human Organoids featuring cutting edge science, including our keynote talk by Prof. Dan Huh from U Penn. Registration is required, but free! Zoom link available on request. 🧪
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Congratulations, Raghu! You will be brilliant in this role 👏
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Welcoming the New Year with black eyed peas and a cheesy gratin of collard greens for good luck 🎉 Happy New Year #foodsky ! What are you celebrating with tonight?
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Annual holiday tradition- Brie with caramelized mushrooms and onions, scooped up with toasted French bread #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
The best part of the holidays is that I can cook to my heart's content. Cornmeal blueberry pancakes for breakfast, udon noodles in a red curry soup with cabbage and carrot dumplings for dinner. Happy cooking! #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
🧪Our paper titled “The Christianson syndrome protein, sodium hydrogen exchanger isoform 6, is required for fat accumulation" was chosen by J Physiol Editor-in-Chief as the Editor’s Choice! 🥳 This is our 1st paper using a mouse model & venturing into adipocyte biology 😍 Open Access: lnkd.in/eGs6sPds
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
✅Are you a Pre-Med student looking to boost your chances of getting into Med School? ✅Want to try an intensive research program before committing to a PhD? ✅Honing your skills for a competitive job in pharma/biotech? Apply to our MS in CMM program: cmm.jhmi.edu/index.php/ms...
Picture shows a composite image of a lab bench, microscope and graduate medical students
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Emily R. Trunnell, Ph.D. @ertrunnell.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
🍼 Milk: good for babies… and organoids too? Majood & Rao argue human milk—a living fluid rich in cells, bioactive molecules, & microbiome—could transform lactation biology & contamination research. 💡It's also a vital cell source for the development of 3D mammary #organoid models. 🧪
A dark purple, magenta, and white graphic with the following quote: “"[S]tudies on lactation historically rely heavily on animal models which fail to fully recapitulate human lactation physiology, or on healthy breast tissue that is difficult to obtain, especially during lactation, and has limited scalability. Differences between human and animal models include the number and location of mammary glands, the timing and trajectory of mammary gland development, and the composition of milk." The quote is attributed to the linked paper by Misba Majood & Rajini Rao in Pediatric Research, 2025. On the left, a photo of an infant nursing at their mother’s breast.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
🤣
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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
its remarkable to see random suburbanites in their fucking PJs have more courage than the vast majority of america's political, social, and civil elites
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Here come the exceptions! news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-...
news.bloomberglaw.com
Foreign Grads Seeking H-1B Status Avoid $100,000 Trump Fee (1)
Recent international college graduates who are sponsored for H-1B status while in the US won’t be subject to a $100,000 fee imposed on the program, according to new guidance from the Trump administrat...
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Expect deep cuts in PhD admissions throughout the US, including biomedical programs. The current model of PhD training and the current financial climate are simply not compatible. 🧪 www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
thecrimson.com
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
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Ricardo Juchem @ricardojuchem.com · 18/10/2025
I just want to leave this here, so you can block all the US.GOV accounts with a couple of clicks. bsky.app/profile/did:...
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
I saw a patch of evening sun on the Celosia and this good boy understood the assignment 📷🐾
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Hop and Change
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Remembering the NYT obit of Yvonne Brill, NASA rocket scientist, which began "She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children." 🤦‍♀️
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Wrapping up a great conference on acid-base regulation in Copenhagen. Beautiful venue at the Royal Danish Academy. Our Canadian and European colleagues are aghast at the rapid dismantling of science and democracy in the US.
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 04/09/2025
The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Ladies and gentleman, this is the state of Goddard Space Flight Ctr of NASA today. Spouse just returned from a trip abroad to this 🤦‍♀️
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Strawberry 🍓 crostata for 4 yo Rhys’ birthday next door 🎉
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
If I wrote a book on the joy of picking tomatoes, would you read it? My writing style is irreverent, self deprecating humor
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Today's lesson in pointless security: Digitally signed PDFs cannot be merged w/o the signatures disappearing. Apparently, merging is a disallowed modification. How do I know this? NIH returned the merged Other Support docs on our multi-PI RPPR because the signatures had disappeared 🤡
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Nature forgives. Rabbits decapitated the seedlings, bugs destroyed the zucchini and heat made the basil bolt. But we persevered - added chicken wire fencing, more compost and plenty of TLC. This was today's haul. No bushels of tomatoes this year, but a small harvest is better than no harvest. 🙏
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Too many cherry tomatoes? Arrange them cut side down on parchment paper lined skillet and pour corn bread batter over it. Voila! Upside down cherry tomato corn bread. Courtesy of my daughter Anjana. #foodsky
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
What does he want? 😂
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
The hypocrisy and political pandering from the NIH leadership is deeply disturbing and cannot be good for the future of evidence based scientific research in the US. 🧪
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
🧪BREAKING: NIH has laid out 5 options for funding publications costs on grants (yes, FIVE!). This is hugely impactful. Make your opinions known by September 15, fellow scientists. 🧪 grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
grants.nih.gov
NOT-OD-25-138: Request for Information on Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information on Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs NOT-OD-25-138. NIH
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
few outcomes, except for 99% of FDA-approved drugs, 174 recipients of 104 Nobel Prizes, training ~30K MDs and ~10K PhDs per year to enter the workforce, and a 34% reduction in age-adjusted cancer deaths since 1990 -- the largest decrease in history
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
One of the demands of being a 🌞morning person is a hot and savory breakfast. No cold muesli for me! By the time I’ve taken Samwise for a walk, tackled the most urgent and demanding jobs from work and checked on mom in India, I’m hungry! Thanks to Sammy 🐶 I made quick work of this pita melt #foodsky
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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
I used to have time for defeatism on this subject and then after 2 weeks of lockdown the canals of venice were clear enough to see fish and the dolphins were back in the Ganga so yeah, the climate doomerism also now feels like an op
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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Tell her, Hope!!
comicsands.com
Hope Walz Perfectly Claps Back After Laura Ingraham Rips Her For Supporting Mamdani
"Get well soon, Laura" 😭
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Rajini Rao @madamescientist.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Today's experiment - bagels! Easy and deliciously chewy recipe but not a winner in the looks department 😀 Next time, I'll try rolling the dough into a rope and closing it to make the hole. Also, I forgot the second (short) rise, oops! #foodsky
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