TK (Takashi DY) Kozai

100,000 people signed a petition to save Mass Effect in 48 hours. I keep thinking about that number. The brain implants in that game aren’t science fiction anymore. I work on the real ones.

100,000 people showed up for the game. I’d take a fraction of that for the thing the game is about. Call your rep at (202) 224-3121. Ask them to fund the NIH and NSF and keep politics out of peer review. More on why these implants fail: bioniclab.substack.com/s/why-bcis-f...

100,000 people signed a petition to save Mass Effect in 48 hours. I keep thinking about that number. The brain implants in that game aren’t science fiction anymore. I work on the real ones.

No company pays a student for six years to chase a question with no product at the end. The NIH and NSF do. Those grants are being pulled right now. My own funding slowed this year. I know people who’ve watched a lab empty out, and years of training walk out with them.

100,000 people signed a petition to save Mass Effect in 48 hours. I keep thinking about that number. The brain implants in that game aren’t science fiction anymore. I work on the real ones.

At Pitt, a man paralyzed from the neck down moved a robotic arm and felt it touch, through electrodes in his brain. Then the feeling faded, in about a minute, while the stimulation kept running. That gap, between what we can do and what lasts, is where I work. www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1bO...

I support replacing animal testing where we can. I also study why we can't yet. The FDA just took a step that treats the replacement as closer than it is.

Cut the animal work now, betting these methods will someday integrate, and you lose the ground truth they are measured against. New approach methods deserve funding. They are not yet ready to replace the living animal.

I support replacing animal testing where we can. I also study why we can't yet. The FDA just took a step that treats the replacement as closer than it is.

My lab works in live transgenic mice, bred so specific cells glow while the brain is awake. In one animal I watch the inhibitory neurons, the blood vessels, and the immune cells at once, under the same stimulation. The failures I study live in the cross-talk between them.

I support replacing animal testing where we can. I also study why we can't yet. The FDA just took a step that treats the replacement as closer than it is.

The rule looks small: swap "animal" for "nonclinical" across its drug safety regulations. The word change is minor. The direction behind it is not, and it rests on a promise that new approach methods can stand in for animal research now.

One day left to comment. NIH wants to hide the peer review score, not just from applicants, but from the program officers and councils who decide what gets funded. The comment window closes tomorrow, October 13.

A grant at the 2nd percentile and a grant at the 24th percentile get the same label under this plan. A program officer choosing between them can no longer see which grant the panel ranked higher. Remove the score, and the choice still gets made, where no one can watch it.

One day left to comment. NIH wants to hide the peer review score, not just from applicants, but from the program officers and councils who decide what gets funded. The comment window closes tomorrow, October 13.

Program officers could already do that. A program officer could always fund a 28th-percentile grant that fills a gap over a 20th-percentile grant that repeats funded research, through select pay, with the score in plain sight and the decision on the record.

One day left to comment. NIH wants to hide the peer review score, not just from applicants, but from the program officers and councils who decide what gets funded. The comment window closes tomorrow, October 13.

Not the applicant. Not the institution. Not the program officer who writes the funding plan. Not the council that approves it. The score gets made, and the score gets buried, from every person who uses the score to decide what comes next.

One day left to comment. NIH wants to hide the peer review score, not just from applicants, but from the program officers and councils who decide what gets funded. The comment window closes tomorrow, October 13.

The list still cannot tell you whether the work is any good. I am happy to be on the list. I would never fund or judge anyone by the list. NIH wants to repeat that error and go further.

One day left to comment. NIH wants to hide the peer review score, not just from applicants, but from the program officers and councils who decide what gets funded. The comment window closes tomorrow, October 13.

Touch evoked by cortical stimulation dies within minutes. Tired neurons get the blame. However, inhibitory cells in mouse cortex keep firing while the excitatory ones fall silent. BRIDGE-STIM 2027 puts the human, monkey, and mouse teams in one room. Pittsburgh, May 17–19.

When I interviewed at Michigan for their Biomedical Engineering PhD, the chair told me I was an experiment. He meant it descriptively. The program had only ever accepted engineering majors. I had a biology degree from Colorado. 🧵

That flexibility is not free. It requires funding that supports wider training pathways than a strict-payline system allows. Right now it is eroding, because funding pressure forces programs to take only the safest students.

When I interviewed at Michigan for their Biomedical Engineering PhD, the chair told me I was an experiment. He meant it descriptively. The program had only ever accepted engineering majors. I had a biology degree from Colorado. 🧵

A more rigid system would not have admitted me. A more rigid chair would not have said it out loud. That combination is something I have tried to replicate as a PI.

When I interviewed at Michigan for their Biomedical Engineering PhD, the chair told me I was an experiment. He meant it descriptively. The program had only ever accepted engineering majors. I had a biology degree from Colorado. 🧵

He wasn't sure the program could absorb someone with my background. He was saying out loud what every admissions decision implies when it takes a student off the expected track. We don't know if this will work. We'll find out.

496,769 people commented on OMB's rewrite of how federal research grants are awarded. Rules like it normally draw a few hundred, that gap is the whole story.

I filed a detailed comment and wrote a full breakdown of the rule and these next steps at bioniclab.org/news/OMB. If you commented, you're part of the record. Thank you for showing up for science. #NIH #ScienceFunding

496,769 people commented on OMB's rewrite of how federal research grants are awarded. Rules like it normally draw a few hundred, that gap is the whole story.

Of the comments analyzed, about 94% opposed it. Under the APA, OMB must answer the substantive ones on the record before finalizing, and that record is what a court reviews. Silence is read as consent.

496,769 people commented on OMB's rewrite of how federal research grants are awarded. Rules like it normally draw a few hundred, that gap is the whole story.