Elizabeth Gibbs
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gibbsem.bsky.social
Elizabeth Gibbs
@gibbsem.bsky.social
52 followers 140 following 0 posts
Neuroscientist in the cell/gene therapy world. Working on gene editing for neuromuscular disorders. Keen reader, tea drinker. Bluesky-curious.
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Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
jeremymberg.bsky.social
Washington Post story about #BethesdaDeclaration

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

1/n
NIH scientists have been angry for months. Now some are rebelling.
More than 90 NIH scientists sign their names to the “Bethesda declaration” in protest of Trump administration policies they say are harming people’s health.
www.washingtonpost.com
June 9, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
vestivisilab.bsky.social
The research enterprise is invaluable. We can easily see its importance in the cures or technologies available today. But sometimes it's difficult to see what research brings to people in the shorter term. Here is one of our participants talking about what it's meant to her. youtu.be/Yn9ywYj3UYQ
SKERI • Iris Thanking Eye-Head Movement Lab (Subtitled Version)
YouTube video by The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute
youtu.be
April 28, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
zebrafishrock.bsky.social
Published 25 years ago, “Effective targeted gene ‘knockdown’ in zebrafish” by Nasevicius & Ekker is the 2nd most-cited #zebrafish paper (www.nature.com/articles/ng1...). They describe use of antisense morpholino-modified oligonucelotides or #morpholinos that inhibit translation. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪
Structures of DNA and morpholino oligonucleotides. R and R' denote continuation of the oligomer chain in the 5' or 3' direction, respectively. Credit to Corey & Abrams (2001) Genome Biology.
April 4, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
jbwallingford.bsky.social
Director of the Nat'l Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) was summarily dismissed yesterday. So here's your reminder that birth defects kill twice as many American kids as cancer. But there is no St. Jude's for birth defects. Only the NICHD.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
‘One of the darkest days’: NIH purges agency leadership amid mass layoffs
In shock move, four institute directors at the US biomedical agency are removed from their posts.
www.nature.com
April 2, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
cyrilpedia.bsky.social
'Polls show that they think that 1/4 of our spending goes to foreign aid. In fact, on a budget for our global health work that is less than half the budget of the hospital where I did surgery here in Boston, we reached hundreds of millions of people, with programs that saved lives by the millions'
Hundreds of Thousands Will Die
The writer, surgeon, and former U.S.A.I.D. senior official Atul Gawande on the Trump Administration’s decimation of foreign aid and the consequences around the world.
www.newyorker.com
March 18, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
uclastemcell.bsky.social
For #RareDiseaseDay, we’re highlighting the scientists dedicated to advancing research for rare diseases — from Duchenne muscular dystrophy to KAT6A Syndrome. Meet a few of the UCLA researchers working to understand these conditions, develop new treatments and transform patient care. 🧬
February 28, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
iwashyna.bsky.social
Over on LinkedIn, the head of the Executive Secretariat of the NIH -- a central part of NIH leadership 🧪🩺-- resigned with a lettter worth reading

www.linkedin.com/posts/nathan...
February 18, 2024 TO: Dr. Matthew Memoli, Acting Director, NIH CC: John Burklow, Chief of Staff, NIH Julie Berko, Director, OHR, NIH FROM: Nathaniel James Brought, Director, ES, NIH SUBJECT: Resignation Dear Dr. Memoli, On July 3, 2001, I stepped off a bus on Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot Perris Island. Scared out of my mind, I stood on a pair of freshly painted yellow footprints, raised my right hand, and recited the oath of enlistment: I, Nathaniel James Brought, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. For the last 23 years, 7 months, and 15 days, I like to believe I have faithfully carried out the duties of each office to which I've been appointed in my military and civilian service to this nation. That Service has taken me from the Marine Corps to 3 different federal departments, spanned 3 continents, included service in one war zone, and has included: • For the Marine Corps and the National Security Agency, I worked on intelligence operations at the highest classification levels using bleeding edge intelligence tools to ensure America's special operators put boots-to-asses on America's enemies overseas (including commendations crediting my work for the kill or capture of dozens of terrorists), ensuring America's policy makers were able to track the movement of dangerous dual nuclear technology across international borders, and monitored the flow of terrorist financing across the international banking system. • Utilized information from all-source intelligence to ensure the continued security of America's homeland from international and domestic threats. • Worked with some of the finest lawyers in the world to ensure America's security operations were effective, while upholding the rights of all those who interacted with them. • Ensuring that America's rural communities had access to programs like rural development loans, farm aid, and that America's children wouldn't be hungry as they sat in their classrooms and tried to learn. • Most recently, and frankly most dear to my heart, working with each of you here at the National Institutes of Health to advance the future of science and medicine. Not for Americans. Not for any one group of people. But for ALL of humanity. I am unbelievably proud to be able to say that there are Americans who are alive, and terrorists who are not, because of the work I've done to serve this nation. I am proud to say that my service to this country has allowed me to ensure that my children have never faced the struggles of poverty that I grew up with. That service didn't begin because of some great altruistic impulse or drive. I didn't grow up saying "I want to do the great work that needs to be done to weave the fabric of America and ensure her people are not only safe, but healthy." Frankly, that service began because I was poor, and I was inspired. I grew up as a free lunch kid who lived in project housing. It was my fellow Americans who made sure I wasn't hungry in class and that I had enough food to excel academically the way I did. It was Americans who had more than we did that made sure I had good schools to attend where I could learn things that expanded my mind. As I approached the end of high school, I dreamed of going to college and figuring out how to make a living that would allow me to do more tha… to go to college. I knew my grades weren't good enough to compete for scholarships with kids who were as smart as me but also had private tutors and didn't have to work after class to be able to drive their brand-new cars to our school each day. So, I gave up. I nearly failed my senior year of high school with an attendance failure, even though I only needed two classes to graduate. I didn't see the point. What was the point of learning calculus? So it would be that much harder when my dream of being a brain surgeon died not because I was incapable, but because I didn't have the means to make it come true? I resigned myself to being one of the working poor. I resigned myself to needing a spinal fusion before I was 50, like my father, because he literally broke his back trying to make his dreams come true. The example of my father didn't inspire me at that time. It reminded me of the futility of trying to escape the rung of the social ladder I had been born onto. No matter how smart or "gifted and talented" I may have been, I saw no path that led me to a place where I could realize my potential. So, instead I accepted that it would be wasted. Ultimately, the reason I find myself here today, rather than in the place I saw as my only end, is because of another young man who committed to serving his country. Shamefully, I do not remember his name, but there was a young corporal from the United States Marine Corps who had been assigned as a recruiter in Reading, Pennsylvania at that time. This man spoke to me about my plans for my future during lunch one day at school. I told him I planned to do what my father had done. Work hard jobs until my body broke down, maybe start a struggling business, and try to do what I could to stay above the poverty line and off welfare. I told him I hoped to be successful enough that my kids never had to watch me use food stamps at the grocery store. It had been hard to watch my mom go through that. How sad is that? I was a smart young 18-…
February 20, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
adamfeuerstein.bsky.social
Duchenne gene therapy from Solid Biosciences $SLDB produces promising results in early study www.statnews.com/2025/02/18/s... via @jasonmast.bsky.social $RGRX $SRPT
Duchenne gene therapy from Solid Biosciences produces promising results in early study
Solid said that the first patients to receive its Duchenne gene therapy all produced high levels of the target protein, an early sign of promise
www.statnews.com
February 18, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
statnews.com
Austin Leclaire played a pivotal role in spurring the development of the first medicines to treat the condition
Remembering a remarkable Duchenne champion
Patient advocate Austin Leclaire, who died Feb. 1, played a pivotal role in spurring the development of the first medicines to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
buff.ly
February 6, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
blekhman.bsky.social
Yes, they can hallucinate papers that don't exist, discuss results that seem to be imaginary, and can be confusing and inconsistent. But talking to tenured professors may still be helpful
January 14, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
bairuiwen.bsky.social
Since UCLA decided to keep campus open, I’m here ready to my morning lecture class. But this is what campus looks like…
January 8, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Gibbs
mads100tist.bsky.social
Do not go gently into that zoom meeting
January 2, 2025 at 8:12 PM