Brandon Emanuel León
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brandonleon95.bsky.social
Brandon Emanuel León
@brandonleon95.bsky.social
PhD candidate at the University of Miami 🙌🏻 Cancer Biology Program in Bayik/DiscoverTME labs studying astrocyte cancer signaling in Glioblastoma
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Read about what the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy has been up to and how we support early-career scientists in policy advocacy and community engagement efforts!
October 28, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/14
jeremymberg.github.io
October 6, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Hear! effing Hear!

[Gift link]

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
www.nytimes.com
October 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Are you an alum outraged by Trump's attacks on universities? Defend your school now by signing this alumni petition in support of these 9 universities as well as campus communities across America. alumni.controlshift.app/petitions/tr...
Trump attacks 9 universities: Sign the alumni petition to defend your school now
Are you an alum outraged by Trump's attacks on universities? Defend your school now by signing this alumni petition in support of these 9 universities as well as campus communities across America.
alumni.controlshift.app
October 3, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
#VascularCalcification

#Glutaminase1 (GLS1)-derived Glutamate drives #SmoothMuscleCell #Osteogenesis via NMDAR (▶️Ca2+/β-at), not AMPAR, mGlu

Both GLS1 & NMDAR ⏫in 👤calcified arteries #CKD

BPTES (GLS1i)⏬🐭arterial calcification (VitD3)

#AdvSci 2025
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
August 2, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
The National Institutes of Health’s budget, and structure, would be preserved under a Senate bill for the 2026 fiscal year.
With boost to NIH budget, Senate panel rejects Trump’s plan to slash agency
Republicans on spending committee push back against proposed reorganization and overhead cuts
scim.ag
July 31, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Some potential policy requests you could make:

1️⃣ NO cuts to NIH budget for next year

2️⃣ Protective measures to ensure appropriated funds are spent as intended (see post below)

3️⃣ Any changes to multi-year funding must come with increased temporary $ support from Congress
At this point, Dems ought not agree to approps without (a) specific statuory exemption from rescission, (b) statutory language automatically apportioning funds, and (c) serious consideration of Holman Rule.
Oh my god, Russell Vought is a straight up sociopath. There is no rationale for this than a profound sadism. And this man calls himself a Christian. Like Torquemada I guess. How did he get to be so damaged? www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
July 30, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Remodeling of the immune-metabolic landscape triggered by long-term high-altitude exposure https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.21.665899v1
July 24, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Dynamic extracellular interactions with AMPA receptors https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.11.664166v1
July 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
So important
June 29, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Astrocyte cues boost neuron maturity in forebrain organoids, thanks to protein and nutrient-rich medium. From 2D to 3D cultures, neurons mature faster! PMID:40122897, Nat Commun 2025, @NatureComms https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58295-3 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪
Astrocyte-secreted cues promote neural maturation and augment activity in human forebrain organoids | Nature Communications
Brain organoids have been proposed as suitable human brain model candidates for a variety of applications. However, the lack of appropriate maturation limits the transferability of such functional tools. Here, we present a method to facilitate neuronal maturation by integrating astrocyte-secreted factors into hPSC-derived 2D and 3D neural culture systems. We demonstrate that protein- and nutrient-enriched astrocyte-conditioned medium (ACM) accelerates neuronal differentiation with enlarged neuronal layer and the overproduction of deep-layer cortical neurons. We captured the elevated changes in the functional activity of neuronal networks within ACM-treated organoids using comprehensive electrophysiological recordings. Furthermore, astrocyte-secreted cues can induce lipid droplet accumulation in neural cultures, offering protective effects in neural differentiation to withstand cellular stress. Together, these data indicate the potential of astrocyte secretions to promote neural maturat
doi.org
April 19, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Former Prep scholar. I wouldn’t be the scientist I am without those 2 years I spent in my former lab. I feel bad for those will lost out on the experience
Another terrible day for young scientists. The NIH just sent termination notices for the MARC, PREP, IMSD, IRACDA and Bridges programs.
April 2, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Lookin for a good read in between experiments? Check out the commentary article in @neuroonc.bsky.social @dbayik.bsky.social and I wrote on an insightful study on myeloid cells in gliomas 🙂‍↔️ link here: academic.oup.com/neuro-oncolo...
An in-depth survey of immunosuppressive myeloid cell heterogeneity in GBM
Brandon Emanuel León, Defne Bayik; An in-depth survey of immunosuppressive myeloid cell heterogeneity in GBM, Neuro-Oncology, , noaf080, https://doi.org/10
academic.oup.com
March 27, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Congratulations @brandonleon95.bsky.social for getting selected to represent University of Miami Miller School of Medicine at the 2025 CASE Workshop organized by AAAS! Can't wait to see what you will achieve in #SciPol #MakingOurCASE 💪
February 4, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
We have had IMSD and MARC grants at UCSC for 50 YEARS (someone checked on this and let me know)! These are not NEW programs, these are structured, long lasting programs that have existed for decades, experienced bipartisan support and in turn, enabled scholarship that demonstrates their value! 🧪
Several Graduate T32s (G-RISE, IMSD, Bridges to the Doctorate) and the MARC T34 (for undergraduates) training grants now have expiration dates of today, 1/30/2025.
January 31, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
Celebrating lab’s 2nd anniversary with the first successful QE from @j-mitchell.bsky.social 🥂🍾🎊! Congrats! Cheers to an amazing lab @orianateran.bsky.social @pathaka.bsky.social @brandonleon95.bsky.social along with the partner lab
@dionysioswatson.bsky.social
@iremkaraman.bsky.social
December 5, 2024 at 7:11 PM
🙌🏻
The U presence at the #SNO2024 @neuroonc.bsky.social ! Checkout posters from @pathaka.bsky.social (IMMU-04), @orianateran.bsky.social (IMMU-32), @j-mitchell.bsky.social (TMIC-35)
and connect w/ @brandonleon95.bsky.social
Proud PI moment w/ @dionysioswatson.bsky.social
November 22, 2024 at 5:31 PM
Family reunion 🦦🦦
November 22, 2024 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
@orianateran.bsky.social investigates T cell exhaustion and metabolism
@pathaka.bsky.social studies the basis of sex differences in immune response
@brandonleon95.bsky.social interrogates cancer-astrocyte communication
@j-mitchell.bsky.social studies cellular reprogramming by mitochondria transfer
November 18, 2024 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Brandon Emanuel León
I would like to introduce our lab at the University of Miami, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center to our new followers. We are interested in studying tumor-microenvironment interactions in brain tumors. Some ongoing projects that are led by an amazing group of talented researchers include👇
November 18, 2024 at 5:03 PM