Chiara Manzini
chiaraman.bsky.social
Chiara Manzini
@chiaraman.bsky.social
Neuroscientist. Human, mouse, and zebrafish geneticist. Trying to understand and treat neurodevelopmental and neuromuscular disease.

If you recognize my avatar from the OG #scitwitter crowd, give me a follow and say Hi.
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Generational change is coming: Since Zohran Mamdani won on Tuesday night, more than 1100 young people have reached out to @runforsomething.net to explore a run for local office -- one of our biggest spikes of the year yet.
June 26, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
I am thinking a lot today about how heavy things feel in my world of faculty doing scientific research. There's the immediate chaos and panic about our ability to pay people and continue our research. But there's also a deeper grief at watching everything get bulldozed for no reason
May 15, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
The mayor of an American city exercising his constitutional rights being detained by force by armed, masked federal officers wielding batons.
HAPPENING NOW: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was just taken into custody while protesting outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention center
May 9, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Bluetorial: Timing of getting grants out the door at NIH

The pauses and low rate of releasing awards may be a problem in terms of getting the NIH appropriation spent by September 30, 2025
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
media.tenor.com
May 2, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
My trainee's F31 diversity from NIDDK "terminated" today. We received a NGA for $0.00.

He worked his butt off for it and would have been competitive in the normal F31 pool. This is just blatant discrimination. If there are large lawsuits being put together, please share that info. #contractlaw
All NIDA F31 diversity scholars officially losing their funding...

I barely have words.

Expected at this point but so so disappointing and unfair. We are effectively punishing some of America's best science students for telling the government they are from an underrepresented community.
April 30, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
This was the most accurate account I have seen done. Made me tear up a few times. So much trauma in such a short amount of time.
Here is the link to the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about RFK, Jr, public health, and HHS (including NIH)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H34...
RFK Jr. & HHS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
YouTube video by LastWeekTonight
www.youtube.com
April 28, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Hearing that NIH Research Fellows are being terminated willy-nilly by the DOGE and MAGA HHS crew.

These are senior experienced scientists that NIH wants to keep, but HHS is blocking their renewal.

This harms cancer research, and dementia, food, opiate, and mental health
April 24, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
SCIENTISTS: Schedule F is proposed, and it's here for your peer review.

Rules/regulations have the force of law. This rule, Schedule F potentially puts peer review into the hands of political appointees, and undermines the civil service.

Public comment here: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...
Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduc...
www.federalregister.gov
April 23, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
April is #Autism Awareness Month. This is a month to accept, understand and love those in the Autism Spectrum. Above all accepting that someone is different and respecting their differences is the most important thing we can do. Here are some facts to help understand (a thread):
April 21, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
85 years ago, Charlie Chaplin delivered his famous speech at the end of his first film with dialogue - The Great Dictator.

He spoke these timeless words as Nazis rose to power, and the drums of war beat in Europe, echoing across the world.

As relevant, and necessary to hear, today as ever

#Resist
Charlie Chaplin - Final Speech from The Great Dictator
YouTube video by Charlie Chaplin
www.youtube.com
January 21, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
This is a discussion at every research university right now and the biggest issue is that it is simply not sustainable. Bridge funding is meant to be a short-term solution and this is a long-term problem. Private philanthropy simply cannot replace public support.
On universities offering bridge funding to keep research efforts ongoing and people employed.

This is harsh stuff. It underlines how devastating the Trump attacks are on medical research and future cures. The US system is breaking down.
After Trump grant cuts, some universities give researchers a lifeline
“Bridge” programs are temporary help, officials say, but no substitute for sustained federal funding
www.science.org
April 11, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.
April 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
If you’re a scientist whose funding has recently been cut or impacted, I would love to interview you and amplify your work!

Hoping to release our first two podcast episodes next week.

Please share widely!
April 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Do not normalize children dying from measles. Measles was previously eliminated in the US, thanks to vaccines.

When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.
April 7, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Democratic leaders act like time travelers afraid to do anything that might change the future
April 7, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
April 5, 2025 at 10:17 PM
The Hands Off March in NYC had an amazing turnout! Walked back home close to the start and people were still coming 2 hours later...
April 5, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Spectacular view of 100,000 people attending the #HandsOff march in NYC
April 5, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
"If we cut or limit funding for curiosity-driven research, we risk shutting down the pipeline of future innovation. While the outcomes of basic science may seem unclear or esoteric at first, such work frequently forms the bedrock of future technologies, treatments, and therapies." 👏👏👏
April 3, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Do y’all know how much you have to piss off those three to get them to work together
* CHINESE STATE MEDIA: CHINA, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA REACH A CONSENSUS THAT THREE SIDES WILL JOINTLY RESPOND TO THE U.S. TARIFFS

@reuters.com
March 31, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
23andMe, maker of popular DNA test kits, has filed for bankruptcy and is looking for a buyer. Here’s why customers should delete their info before it’s sold. nyti.ms/42cnBma
March 31, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Good riddance. As a geneticist, I would have never given them my data they were sus from the beginning. A friend just posted a way to retrieve your data and delete it from their servers. Hope it's true 👇🏼
March 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
Schumer on Senate floor: "Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path"

"Because of that Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified" on the month-long CR
March 12, 2025 at 7:47 PM
As a NYer without a car congestion pricing has been magical. It's so much easier to get around and even my friends in NJ like it because they can find free street parking and coming into the city at night is overall cheaper. Now, please fix the subway!!
March 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Chiara Manzini
I know- it is absolutely devastating. Without a T32, I would have needed an NRSA (I did very different work from my mentor). But they're cutting the NRSAs too... so I would have been out of science. And the new OCD treatment now in clinical trial that started from my T32 would never have happened 😩
March 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM