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Brendan Harley

@profharley.bsky.social
3.2K followers 2.9K following 627 posts

#blacklivesmatter | #translivesmatter | 🍉 Harvard & MIT trained bioengineer Professor @ U. Illinois & Cancer Center at Illinois health | society | Imagination & discovery Partner @kateclancy.bsky.social | runner | dad | nerd

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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21h
Another Manuscript Monday from HarleyLab: Out in Regen Biomaterials and in collab w/ @abrahamkillianlabs.bsky.social: An interfacial hydrogel compartment within a multicompartment tendon-to-bone scaffold influences cell behavior under cyclic tensile loading academic.oup.com/rb/article/d...
interface biomaterial design
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21h
Manuscript Monday** from the #HarleyLab. Dr Aliki Kolliopoulos published a cool article in collab with Erik Nelson & Kara Spiller to create more effective tissue regeneration biomaterials for craniofacial bone injury. Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ** Yes it's Tuesday
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Reciprocal Macrophage‐<fc>MSC</fc> Crosstalk Drives Immunomodulatory and Regenerative Phenotypes in a Mineralized Collagen Scaffold
Macrophage-MSC interactions are dynamic. Following injury, neutral (M0) macrophages arrive at the defect site and polarize towards M1 (pro-inflammatory) macrophages, which can secrete inflammatory an....
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Kate Manne @katemanne.bsky.social · 20h
I wrote for @thecut.com about the Cornell case and what it says that, at my institution and many others like it, protesters are often punished more harshly than sexual assailants www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 6h
“The broader lesson may be that interrogating stress responses by unleashing chemical or genetic catastrophe on the cells tells you what the pathways can do but not necessarily what the cell uses them for.”
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 17h
The level of competence so many people, especially women or those with historically excluded group, need to have to even be taken a little seriously is astounding. Yet this guy can just show up with an entirely invented story...
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
ABSOLUTELY WILD THE LEVELS of incompetence on display here Meanwhile I lost sleep for several days from a reviewer pointing out a paper I should have referenced in a manuscript 🫠
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JT Hendrix @bmorechemistry.bsky.social · 17h
As someone who was a chem major at USNA with a great, entirely civilian, department- to have this- THIS- done on top of all the other damage to Academies in general. No senior officer who ‘followed orders’ to allow all this should have any career or pension, hell they should lose citizenship.
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 20h
“Well, you see, I have to stay on the White Supremacist Child Porn Rape Victim Doxxing site because that’s where my community is”
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21h
Another Manuscript Monday from HarleyLab: Out in Regen Biomaterials and in collab w/ @abrahamkillianlabs.bsky.social: An interfacial hydrogel compartment within a multicompartment tendon-to-bone scaffold influences cell behavior under cyclic tensile loading academic.oup.com/rb/article/d...
interface biomaterial design
132
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21h
Manuscript Monday** from the #HarleyLab. Dr Aliki Kolliopoulos published a cool article in collab with Erik Nelson & Kara Spiller to create more effective tissue regeneration biomaterials for craniofacial bone injury. Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ** Yes it's Tuesday
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Reciprocal Macrophage‐<fc>MSC</fc> Crosstalk Drives Immunomodulatory and Regenerative Phenotypes in a Mineralized Collagen Scaffold
Macrophage-MSC interactions are dynamic. Following injury, neutral (M0) macrophages arrive at the defect site and polarize towards M1 (pro-inflammatory) macrophages, which can secrete inflammatory an....
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
All it's missing is: “Please note, no support for Palestinian rights shall be articulated. Discovery of human rights advocacy and opposition to genocide will result in immediate, nonnegotiable expulsion, and where applicable, deportation.”
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Science peeps: Looks like SciENcv updated the digital certificate used to sign Biosketch and Current & Pending documents without notification. The old certificate expires Saturday, September 26, 2026. SciENcv docs before that date may fail validation in eRA Commons delaying or blocking submission.
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Please try to reclaim your precious precious attention, at all costs. Do puzzles. Take walks without a phone. Dear god, try to read, almost anything that isn’t a manifesto will really do. You are going to need your brain.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
@chbeillinois.bsky.social alum!! N congrats Dr Denard 🎉!!
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Hypothesis Fund @hypothesisfund.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
💫 Meet our latest awardees, who are pushing the boundaries of what we know about brain aging, protease specificity, immune inheritance, ocean food webs, & cell physics. Learn more about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees. Join us in celebrating the them in our 🧵 below! /1
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Scientists 🧪 need to meet this moment and help create a healthier future in this country. So I wrote something at @medpagetoday.com "A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH" www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco... cc @gfriedman.bsky.social
medpagetoday.com
Opinion | A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH
Proposed changes to the agency's budget threaten new cures
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Genes & Development @genesdev.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Read the G&D Perspective: ➡️ genesdev.cshlp.org/content/40/1...
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
“On Tuesday, department chair Danielle Clealand told faculty in the Social and Cultural Analysis Department that the provost’s office rejected all women’s and gender studies courses from counting toward UT’s core, according to an email reviewed by the Statesman.”
statesman.com
UT cuts all women and gender classes from core curriculum, drops race classes
The provost’s office also eliminated dozens of courses on race from counting toward the core curriculum.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Scientists 🧪 need to meet this moment and help create a healthier future in this country. So I wrote something at @medpagetoday.com "A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH" www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco... cc @gfriedman.bsky.social
medpagetoday.com
Opinion | A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH
Proposed changes to the agency's budget threaten new cures
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Reposting with the gift link: www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco....
medpagetoday.com
Opinion | A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH
Proposed changes to the agency's budget threaten new cures
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Dr Kim Reilly @drkimreilly.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Chilling indeed. "Deal to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from the NIH to the Department of Defense -- an agency that already has a budget 20 times that of the NIH"
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Scientists 🧪 need to meet this moment and help create a healthier future in this country. So I wrote something! "A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH" www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...
medpagetoday.com
Opinion | A Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Me in '95—That Wouldn't Be Possible With Today's NIH
Proposed changes to the agency's budget threaten new cures
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It is satire, but boy does it capture the moment.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
wtaf. the scale of the grift is so, so large
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The number of universities pulling variations of this shit is A LOT. And so deeply disappointing. I'm sorry...
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My uni tried this last year. Strong individual faculty push back coupled with faculty union beat it back. for now...
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Manuscript Monday from the HarleyLab! Out earlier this year, Dr Genesis Rios-Adorno published a cool article at J Mech Behav Biomed Materials detailing strategies to alter the mechanical performance of gelatin hydrogels via amination. Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
reaction strategy to create thiolated hydrogels
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Manuscript Monday from the HarleyLab! Out earlier this year in Tissue Engineering PtC, Sheridan Fok reported a study to look at the role of the size of cancer spheroids on their invasion and drug response phenotypes. Check it out: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
manuscript schematic
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Compared citations. Caveat: Polson has been faculty for 39yrs, me for 19yrs. I average ~10articles/year. Each are significant scholarly efforts Polson wins on total citations (google): 26750 vs 15750 But impact? h-index*: 65 (me) vs 60 (his). Why publish loads of articles people don't use? 🤡
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Politico @politico.com · 23/09/2026
Collins: White House drops effort to politicize health research grants
dlvr.it
Collins: White House drops effort to politicize health research grants
The White House halted a planned executive order that would have put control over NIH research grants in the hands of political appointees
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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 23/09/2026
NIH funding doesn't belong to Donald Trump—it belongs to the patients and families waiting for the next medical breakthrough. We cannot let Trump politicize federal research grants and give right-wing extremists a veto over lifesaving work. SPEAK UP FOR SCIENCE.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Legendary thread. Also 100% in alignment with every experience I've had with BA. You always get off a BA flight thinking, 'i thought the seat, plane, experience, etc. would have been better.'
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Glad to hear it. But the federal government is doing untold damage to the engine of US science: US universities This guy is one of few who could actually do something about that. What's the line: 'Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value.' Exactly
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Compared citations. Caveat: Polson has been faculty for 39yrs, me for 19yrs. I average ~10articles/year. Each are significant scholarly efforts Polson wins on total citations (google): 26750 vs 15750 But impact? h-index*: 65 (me) vs 60 (his). Why publish loads of articles people don't use? 🤡
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Harvard Crimson article on the Bhattacharya-Vought feud, especially over funding to Harvard. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
NIH Director Bhattacharya Refuses Trump Demand to Cut Harvard Funding, Politico Reports | The Harvard Crimson
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, a former Stanford University colleague of Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, refused a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump to cut Har...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026
this is a genuinely crazy story
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The Center for Intellectual Freedom is a poorly run boondoggle. It's an embarassment to the state whose existence is based on a series of lies and conservative fantasies. It should not exist.
kcrg.com
11 members resign from Center for Intellectual Freedom Advisory Council
The Iowa Board of Regents has accepted the resignations of 11 members of the Center for Intellectual Freedom (CIF) Advisory Council.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Russell Vought cannot be given the power to decide what science is funded. He knows nothing about science; in fact, he seems to hate it and everyone who does it. And he has all of the worst characteristics of humanity. The Republican Congress is a fucking disease.
arstechnica.com
Russel Vought will reportedly be given veto power over all NIH grants
Pending move comes over the objections of the NIH director.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
IMHO university admin are now completely detached from the academic communities they serve. Layers of dean, assistant vice provosts, & the like separate managers from do-ers in higher ed This is bullshit from a Provost. Being too lazy to do the work is not an excuse. I'd die from embarrassment
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Manuscript Monday from the HarleyLab! Out earlier this year in Tissue Engineering PtC, Sheridan Fok reported a study to look at the role of the size of cancer spheroids on their invasion and drug response phenotypes. Check it out: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
manuscript schematic
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Manuscript Monday from the HarleyLab! Out earlier this year, Dr Genesis Rios-Adorno published a cool article at J Mech Behav Biomed Materials detailing strategies to alter the mechanical performance of gelatin hydrogels via amination. Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
reaction strategy to create thiolated hydrogels
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 20/09/2026
“Vought told Congress during a hearing in June that “when we find [a grant] that’s problematic that our policy officials would not have caught, we need to be able to turn it off,” he said.”’ That is as plain a statement of the unitary executive approach to running science agencies as I can imagine
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 20/09/2026
“The arrangement would give Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a direct role in determining how NIH distributes its $48 billion in congressionally-appropriated money.” Bypassing the many checks and balances at NIH on grant funding decisions.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Research units from across government have been gutted. More than 10,000 PhDs have left government. For example the research arm of the Department of Education lost 90% of their staff and the research office for the Secretary of Health and Human Services lost an estimated 60% of their staff.
figure shows dramatic cut in research staff
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 19/09/2026
When someone claims that a mistake just happens in the system, and it's always the same kind of mistake, and it always benefits the person who set up the system... It's not a mistake. It's happening on purpose.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Exactly this. Reminds me of the old IBM mandate: A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. Clearly we are failing
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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Each Friday night, I write a briefing on what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪  Sept 18 (Yr 2, Wk 38) - CDC slow-walking Childhood Vaccine Program - NIH sued for censorship - the latest on NSF repurposing - EPA ending emissions controls & so much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
buttondown.com
Year 2, Week 38
Sept 12-18 – and back again
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
NEW: As Trump loses ground and lashes out, some remain willing to capitulate when it comes to anti-trans hate. More alarming settlements from medical providers in states that have laws aimed at stopping anti-trans discrimination. On Friday, it was NYU Langone and UPMC. Law Dork:
lawdork.com
As Trump loses ground and lashes out, some remain willing to capitulate when it comes to anti-trans hate
More alarming settlements from medical providers in states that have laws aimed at stopping anti-trans discrimination. On Friday, it was NYU Langone and UPMC.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The risk to the NIH and NIH-funded investigators is not going away.
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Don’t forget, this is how the Kennedy center dismantling started. The folks at your institution doing equity work might be the first targeted, but the institutions themselves are always the target. Hope folks have learned this now.
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