Andrew Wells
adwellspenn.bsky.social
Andrew Wells
@adwellspenn.bsky.social
Immunologist, molecular biologist, GenX Dad
And based on potential politicization of funding decisions?

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal
www.whitehouse.gov
November 24, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Some concerning changes to how NIH decides which grant applications to fund??

grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
Implementing a Unified NIH Funding Strategy to Guide Consistent and Clearer Award Decisions | Grants & Funding
grants.nih.gov
November 24, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
ft. K. Trang, M. Pahl, J. Pippin, C. Su, S. Littleton, P. Sharma, N. Kulkarni, L. Ghanem, N. Terry, S. Anderson, B. Zemel, @alessandrachesi.bsky.social A. Wells, @struangrant.bsky.social, J. O'Brien, W. Yang, @ptitchenell.bsky.social P. Seale & @kkaestner.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/95411
January 23, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Congratulations to the 3 @pennmedicine.bsky.social honorees elected to the National Academy of Medicine! Election to @nam.edu is considered one of the highest honors in the field of health & medicine. Check back this week as we profile each new member tinyurl.com/ysjzdrbk
October 22, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Reposted by Andrew Wells
My husband was detained by ICE today

Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away

I have had zero contact or updates since

#SOS
@duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov
October 3, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
A little thread: Science is defiantly anti-fascist because it pursues truth, is necessarily collaborative, and relies on open communication. And because its falsifiability is incompatible with the cultism, faith-based belief systems, disinformation, and propaganda of Christian nationalism.
November 9, 2024 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Our latest paper, just out in #GenomeBiology: "GWAS-informed data integration and non-coding CRISPRi screen illuminate genetic etiology of bone mineral density". @chopresearch.bsky.social @penngenetics.bsky.social
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
GWAS-informed data integration and non-coding CRISPRi screen illuminate genetic etiology of bone mineral density - Genome Biology
Background Over 1100 independent signals have been identified with genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for bone mineral density (BMD), a key risk factor for mortality-increasing fragility fractures; however, the effector gene(s) for most remain unknown. Results We execute a CRISPRi screen in human fetal osteoblasts (hFOBs) with single-cell RNA-seq read-out for 89 non-coding elements predicted to regulate osteoblast gene expression at BMD GWAS loci. The BMD relevance of hFOBs is supported by heritability enrichment from stratified LD-score regression involving 98 cell types grouped into 15 tissues. Twenty-three genes show perturbation in the screen, with four (ARID5B, CC2D1B, EIF4G2, and NCOA3) exhibiting consistent effects upon siRNA knockdown on three measures of osteoblast maturation and mineralization. Lastly, additional heritability enrichments, genetic correlations, and multi-trait fine-mapping unexpectedly reveal that many BMD GWAS signals are pleiotropic and likely mediate their effects via non-bone tissues. Conclusions Our results provide a roadmap for how single-cell CRISPRi screens may be applied to the challenging task of resolving effector gene identities at all BMD GWAS loci. Extending our CRISPRi screening approach to other tissues could play a key role in fully elucidating the etiology of BMD.
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com
October 3, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Super excited to share my final postdoc paper from Rabinowitz lab- on how whole-body and tissue metabolism changes in viral infection!
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40581045/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
July 7, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Here's the NIH's proposed budget - from $48 billion to $27 billion. NIAID, current ~$7 billion cut to ~$4.2 billion.

The proposed 15% cap on indirect costs remains.

Again, these budgets are passed, and our leadership in science, technology, and innovation is gone.

www.hhs.gov/sites/defaul...
May 30, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
How bad will it be? Catastrophic.

Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.

But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.

Speak up now before it is too late.

(inflation adjusted $-s below)
May 31, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
As the parent of a type-I diabetic, I would like to invite the ignorant piece of shit currently directing the FDA to kiss my ass.
May 26, 2025 at 4:09 AM
To my fellow colleagues at institutions denied federal funding by the current administration, will you serve on NIH study section panels when requested??
May 26, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
The @upshot.nytimes.com has put together a vivid illustration of how the Trump administration has hollowed out American science. Gift link: nyti.ms/4kBTVql
Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades (Gift Article)
The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.
nyti.ms
May 22, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees

Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday

📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful

Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj
May 21, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!
May 23, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Check this chart.
Purple line: NIH actual budget (as passed by Congress) after 2000.
This is in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars.

The Trump/Vought proposal for 2026 (yellow) is catastrophic, for US science and medical cures for Americans. That's a massive drop.

May 6, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
@maxdudek.bsky.social applied a deep learning algorithm to ATAC-seq from 170 livers to measure TF binding at non-coding variants. We show "footprint QTLs" (#fpQTLs) can fine-map causal variants. @ajhgnews.bsky.social @penngenetics.bsky.social @chopresearch.bsky.social
www.cell.com/ajhg/abstrac...
Characterization of non-coding variants associated with transcription-factor binding through ATAC-seq-defined footprint QTLs in liver
Dudek et al. use chromatin accessibility data in liver from 170 human donors to measure transcription factor binding at genetic variants. They observed 809 variants associated with binding. Given bind...
www.cell.com
April 17, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
Our new paper is out today in AJHG! We applied a "footprinting" algorithm to ATAC-seq data from 170 livers to find non-coding variants associated with TF binding. We show that these "footprint QTLs" (#fpQTLs) can fine-map GWAS loci at base-pair resolution.
www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltex...
Characterization of non-coding variants associated with transcription-factor binding through ATAC-seq-defined footprint QTLs in liver
Dudek et al. use chromatin accessibility data in liver from 170 human donors to measure transcription factor binding at genetic variants. They observed 809 variants associated with binding. Given bind...
www.cell.com
April 17, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
SCOOP: Internal budget doc reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts. About 1/3 of HHS discretionary budget. Our story w @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social @rachelroubein.bsky.social @joelachenbach.bsky.social @laurenweberhp.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...
Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts
HHS would be asked to absorb a $40 billion cut, about one third of its discretionary budget.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 16, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
They are now estimating 2.3 million across the country. Keep it going folks.

#handsoff #50501protests
April 5, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
open.substack.com/pub/pauloffi...
RFK Jr. should apologize to parents for his inaction during this measles epidemic.
Another Child Dies from Measles
RFK Jr. plans to attend the funeral. He should apologize to the parents for his actions during a measles epidemic that likely involves thousands of children.
open.substack.com
April 6, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Andrew Wells
New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024.

That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved.

Show me a better investment than that.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report
National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.
www.forbes.com
March 12, 2025 at 8:47 PM