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| Anna Vlasits |
Seeing clearly is literally the life work of Anna Vlasits.
She is a young neurobiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago, studying how neurons work together in the retina of your eye to make vision possible.
"I'm a basic researcher," Vlasits said. "I'm brand new to UIC. I started my lab about a year ago."
Jane Miglo is a biology graduate student trying to cure ovarian cancer, which kills 140,000 women worldwide every year.
"My whole lab focuses on women's health," Miglo said. "It's already an area that's underfunded in comparison with the lethality of the disease."
Michael Schultz is a senior director at Portal Innovations, a biotech venture capital firm in the West Loop that operates shared lab space for startups. He knows firsthand how the most obscure research can blossom into practical applications.
"You don't know what's going to come from it," he said. "One example are these GLP1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy treating obesity. The first one was discovered in the saliva of a lizard, and now it's the biggest drug ever and hugely helping the obesity crisis."
None of the three are professional agitators. None have ever organized a public protest before. But the trio is part of the effort behind Chicago' s "Stand Up for Science" rally Friday at 12 p.m. at Federal Plaza, one of 32 rallies taking place nationwide to draw attention to the enormous damage caused by the Trump administration's wholesale slashing of National Institutes of Health research.
"I'm at the stage I'm just building," Vlasits said. "I got a startup fund from the University of Illinois to get going, but after that I need NIH funding. That is the way biomedical research happens in the United States, through this funding, and to have it get slashed and denigrated — it's a really scary place to be as a new researcher."
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that rally will draw less than 50 people. thats what's scary. afraid of mine suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and my aunt died from ovarian cancer. but we need tax breaks for the rich. lets go! meet you all in the plaza Friday. ill be wearing a black headband
ReplyDeleteThe loss due to Trump and his followers are incalculable. We won’t begin to see full impact for many years.
ReplyDeleteFine column!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any of the brainiacs who helped to elect this regime are using ozempic or any other of the medicines or devices or techniques which medical research has brought forth. This is just another manifestation of voting against one’s self interest. “Oh, I didn’t know THAT would happen!”
ReplyDeleteThe most important aspect of this post to me is the demonstration that's going to occur in the federal plaza Friday at noon who's coming?
ReplyDeleteDentist appointments be damned You're busy you're tired You're cold get up get off your ass and get to the plaza
Yes I'm talking to you jakish. Prove to me that it's not your fault and griz find a demonstration that's going on in Cleveland if you're not in Chicago attend a demonstration get out into the street we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore
Events are scheduled in Lansing, Detroit, Buffalo, Columbus, and Pittsburgh.
DeleteHell, there's even one in Morgantown, WV...at West Virginia University.
Cleveland? Zilch. Disgusting. Cleveland is a blue island in a red sea.
Trump 1.0 brought thousands into the streets from 2016 to 2019.
Once the Plague hit....only crickets. Tired of marches...but this one matters!
If that's you at 10:23, Franco, (and I assume that it is since you misspelled my name yet again), I don't need to prove anything to you, nor do I particularly appreciate being called out. I realize that you're mad as hell, though, and rightfully so.
DeletePissing off people in Chicago and cities like it, while not the entire rationale behind the "shock and awe" dismantling of government, must surely be seen by the orange felon and his henchmen as the cherry on top of this shit sundae.
It may be cathartic and encouraging for thousands of people to protest in Federal Plaza and elsewhere. With regard to Il Douche, however -- if anything, I believe it will simply demonstrate to him that he's on the right track, as alluded to by Tate, below.
This is part of the reason we're so screwed. They don't care what 10,000 Chicagoans, or Gov. Pritzker, or the Lincoln Project have to say about anything. Only when members of the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party realize that, yes, their faces will be eaten too, and refuse to contribute their votes and money to the Leopards will there be a possibility that the party might change course. Sadly, it may even be too late for that.
I hate to be so pessimistic, and I applaud those who will take to the streets. I suppose it's about the best thing one can do at this juncture.
No disrespect meant Jakash.
DeleteI'm sorry you're feeling so utterly .
defeated I share that sentiment much of the time it's just that this particular demonstration does not seem aimed at being against something it's purpose is to be for something and that thing is science.
I'm for science. Again I'm not against you it's frustrating that people who generally agree can be at odds even about something so simple as the name they use when they comment on a blog.
We need to do better. If the government and the media can put a wedge between us Will come out the other side of another election having not won.
We can blame the other side for doing a better job of getting out the vote suppressing the vote of the other side disenfranchising
And causing people to feel disillusioned with the system.
We're struggling to maintain our Democratic principles but we're being beaten by people who are using those same principles.
I hope to see you in the federal plaza on Friday I'll be wearing the black headband I'm going to put a tie clip on it so you'll know it's me
In "The First Circle," Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel about Russian scientists forced by Stalin's regime to do research as prisoner/slaves, one of them blows up at his thickheaded captor: "How do you picture science to yourself? Do you think it is a matter of saying, 'Oh wonder-working steed, build me a palace by morning,' and in the morning there is a palace?"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that is probably how a lot of the ignorant people now running things in America do picture science to themselves. If there's no immediate, foreseeable payoff, they consider it a waste of time.
It's tempting to state that Trump and Musk are tone-deaf, but the truth is, in my estimation, that they delight in the cruelty and idiocy of their elimination of thousands of jobs, while enriching the already rich. Their message is all too clear: "We can do anything we want and there's nothing you can do about it. Go ahead and protest; we're listening and every thing you say will be held against you."
ReplyDeletejohn
Yes, our current Administration delights in the destruction of science. Musk, who likes to move fast and break things, can't comprehend the tedious work that was put into multi-year research projects that have already been destroyed by his acts of destruction. I believe he realizes that a lot of what he's destroyed will never return, even after the courts reverse his actions, but I don't think he can comprehend the magnitude of what he's done. He has a facile, "yes, we'll make mistakes, and when we do, we will fix them" approach, not realizing that his 'mistakes' are catastrophic and un-fixable. The medical profession quickly discovered this past weekend that they couldn't access PubMed, an online repository for scientific research articles. This was huge and it immediately impacted clinical practice because medical care is, of course, needed and provided 24/7. The resource came back online yesterday, but no one is sure whether this access will last, or continue to be accessible 24/7. Someone with computer savvy discovered coding changes, originating in NIH, were changed on Feb 27, and affected access. Thank you, Mr S, for bringing attention to Friday's rally, and for showcasing these early career scientists in your column. Grants are a foundation of academic research; I dont see how academic medicine will adapt to the recent cuts. NIH has experienced a huge personnel shakeup and grant reviews and approvals are still not going forward because staff are receiving mixed messages from the various new "bosses", and afraid to labeled 'insubordinate'. (the axe-ing of the entire USAID was done in a pique of rage because a small amount of funding was released after their governmental accounts were 'frozen'... but the source of the released funds was with a contractor, and USAID personnel didn't realize non-governmental accounts were also frozen). So workers who haven't yet been fired are anxious and fear they are being monitored to find cause for termination. In medicine, the reality is that there are significant differences in response to medications, or even in the manifestation of illness, based on race and gender. So this sort of thing needs to be studied, not banned! (One gender difference that is fairly well-known is that women experience different early signs of a heart attack than men, for example).
ReplyDeleteI attended the March for Science held downtown in March 2017. I was proud to be part of the large crowd, which included at least 2 dinosaurs, and some human bees!
The epidemic that effects our society more than any other thing has to be that the loudest group are the most ignorant, most hateful, least freedom loving, anti American, and -- more importantly -- the minority.
ReplyDeleteTheir success and riches have come on the back of the bottom 90% Americans and funded by government subsidies and handouts.
Until we as a society realize these facts and demand change, the dismantling of American "exceptionalism" will continue to hollow out everything we stand for.
I have found myself in a perpetual state of "which do I want?" Do i want the people to overthrow the oligarchy and demand fairness, or do I want the wheels to finally come off and crush us all, especially the Fox News fascists who suckle harder at the government's teet than even the most heinous of the Romanesque welfare queen trope.
The right is poison; their supporters are grifters, fools, lairs, and as anti American as Putin. If the rule of law applied, many of them would be in jail. Jesus doesn't forgive, especially not when you bastardize the bible and rape the poor.
When the undereducated get mobilized by crackpots into believing that common sense is king, and science and established knowledge are no longer to be trusted, this is what we get. God help medical science.
ReplyDelete