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Brendan Harley

@profharley.bsky.social
3.2K followers 2.9K following 637 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
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Trump admin's new rule adding prohibitively expensive new fees for "OPT"—temporary work authorization program for international students and new grads in the United States—is out. Would require colleges to pay $70,000 for year one. $30,000 for years two and three combined for STEM fields.
public-inspection.federalregister.gov
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Rep. Kelly Morrison @kellymorrisonmn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Republicans made the single largest cut to health care in our nation's history -- despite repeated warnings it would make health insurance significantly more expensive.
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Manuscript Monday from #HarleyLab: Out in J Biomed Mater Res Pt A and in collaboration with Dr. Andres Garcia, "Hydrogel Microdroplet Based Glioblastoma Drug Screening Platform." Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Hydrogel Microdroplet Based Glioblastoma Drug Screening Platform
Glioblastoma is the most common primary malignant brain tumor with a 5-year survival rate < 5%. The standard of care involves surgical resection followed by treatment with the alkylating agent temozo...
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Another Manuscript Monday from #HarleyLab: Out in Acta Biomaterialia and in collaboration with Andres Garcia, "A microgel bone marrow model of mesenchymal stromal cell paracrine signaling supporting hematopoietic stem cell retention." Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
And we identify significant depletion of long-term repopulating HSCs when both HSCs and MSCs are interstitially seeded in the granular matrix. Appreciative of the support from NIH (R01 DK099528).
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
By seeding HSCs amongst mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-laden hydrogel microgels, we establish paracrine-mediated interactions between HSCs and hydrogel encapsulated MSCs. We report MSC-density-dependent increase in maintenance of long-term repopulating HSCs in granular co-culture,
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Cell-laden granular hydrogels are an important new avenue for engineered tissues! Dr Gunnar Thompson reports a granular hydrogel to study multi-cell signaling in the bone marrow. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) within the bone marrow give rise to the full complement of blood and immune cells.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Another Manuscript Monday from #HarleyLab: Out in Acta Biomaterialia and in collaboration with Andres Garcia, "A microgel bone marrow model of mesenchymal stromal cell paracrine signaling supporting hematopoietic stem cell retention." Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This opens an entire new landscape for high-throughput drug evaluation with GBM cells maintained in precise local biomaterial environments. Congrats! Appreciative of the support from NIH (R01 CA256481; R01 DK099528; T32 EB019944).
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We establish a method to encapsulate GBM cells in gelatin and polyethylene glycol microgels. Collections of GBM-laden hydrogels can be used to quantify the effect of single vs metronomic doses of TMZ. Microgels can be integrated with a liquid handler for high-throughput drug screening applications
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Dr Brittany Payan created a cell-laden granular biomaterials platform to study drug response in glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of primary brain cancer. Microgels are microscale (~10–1000 μm) hydrogel particles that can be used to encapsulate cells in a tailorable 3D matrix.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Manuscript Monday from #HarleyLab: Out in J Biomed Mater Res Pt A and in collaboration with Dr. Andres Garcia, "Hydrogel Microdroplet Based Glioblastoma Drug Screening Platform." Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Hydrogel Microdroplet Based Glioblastoma Drug Screening Platform
Glioblastoma is the most common primary malignant brain tumor with a 5-year survival rate < 5%. The standard of care involves surgical resection followed by treatment with the alkylating agent temozo...
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Every manuscript submitted to preprint servers or for peer review should include a Pangram score to give an idea of how much of the paper's content was AI-generated. Journals need not draw a 'red line' (they should), but we should have this information before deciding whether we want to review it.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Yes. And assembloids made up of heterogenous cell populations. Those pubs are coming out soon
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
SaraAAAGHH A GHOST!!! Ford 🐍🎨👻 @angeloslh.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A NEW FIGHTER HAS ENTERED THE ARENA
independent.co.uk
Gang of eight sperm whales sink yacht after ramming boat in South Pacific
Crew described terrifying encounter as they were woken up by “loud thud” as the 52ft vessel was struck
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Unless Congress reclaims its power, this will just become the new normal. A good first step would be to impeach Vought. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Good end-of-FY coverage by the Times. The amount of unspent funds has wiggled but it was pretty clear for some time now that NSF was simply not going to spend a substantial portion of its congressional appropriation this year.
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Argument #1000 for a faculty union
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Paul J. Dauenhauer @pauldauenhauer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Cost changes at the U of Minnesota www.startribune.com/u-of-m-payro...
% change in teh number of employees by category
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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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 · 30/09/2026
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 · 30/09/2026
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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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“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 · 30/09/2026
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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Reposted by Brendan Harley
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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Reposted by Brendan Harley
JT Hendrix @bmorechemistry.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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 · 30/09/2026
“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 · 30/09/2026
Together, we provide a framework to consider mechanical stimulation when designing spatially graded biomaterials for the regeneration of interfacial tissue, such as the tendon-to-bone enthesis. Appreciative of the support from NIH (R01 AR077858; R01 DE030491).
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Inclusion of a hydrogel interfacial architecture modulates local patterns of strain across the biomaterial as well as differences in mesenchymal stem cell activity, secretion of pro-regenerative cytokines and expression of enthesis-associated genes.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Dr Kyle Timmer described a spatially graded biomaterial to replicate the fibrocartilage enthesis often injured in the rotator cuff. Mechanical loading shapes patterns of cell activity across a biomaterial that contains tendon and bone-specific zones linked by a continuous hydrogel interface.
academic.oup.com
Validate User
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Studying interactions between multiple cell types is complex, but is essential to improve how we treat injuries that affect a lot of people. Appreciative of the support from NIH (R01 AR077858; R01 DE030491; R21 DE026582; R01 HL130037; T32 GM070421) and NSF (DGE-1144245, DGE-174604).
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
We showed that biomaterial scaffolds can be leveraged as mediators of MSC-mediated immunomodulation to drive early-stage pro-inflammatory responses that in turn accelerate macrophage polarization and markers of increased regenerative potency.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Our focus was to leverage 3D biomaterials to study how dynamic crosstalk between immune cells, such as macrophages, and osteoprogenitors (such as bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs) shape inflammatory and regenerative phenotypes.
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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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Reposted by Brendan Harley
Genes & Development @genesdev.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Read the G&D Perspective: ➡️ genesdev.cshlp.org/content/40/1...
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I Scare You 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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