Björn F.C. Kafsack

I feel extremely grateful to have been part of our amazing parasitology community for the last 25+ years and for the many friends, collaborators, and colleagues I met along the way. ♥️

After 10 years, my position at Weill Cornell has officially come to an end at the begging of the month. I am so grateful for the amazing people who spend time in my lab during the last decade and extremely proud of their work.

The government shutdown and the administration’s continued antipathy towards higher education and research, especially on infectious disease & global health, have severely limited the chances for funding here.

While Weill Cornell has always been supportive during my time there, this meant that there was no bridge funding available from the university and as an Associate Professor I didn’t yet have tenure at Cornell.

Unfortunately, my grants ran out right while Weill Cornell Medicine had a $100M+ annual deficit followed by Trump’s subsequent suspension of NIH & NSF payments to Cornell.

None of this would have been possible for the amazing mentorship over the last 25 years from @VernCarruthers, @LlinasLab, @deitschkirk, and many others.

I came to the US as an exchange student when I was 16 and have been here ever since. Finally got my citizenship earlier this year, so at age 47, I got to vote for the first time today. #immigrantstory

Surprise, surprise! #GTFO ICE

@elenagomezdiaz It's checking the work and makes the science better ? Otherwise you might as well just write a blog.

Anyone has convincing arguments on the benefits of reviewing papers? (provided that you're not an ECR and so there isn't a training benefit) · It is not a paid · It is "dispensable" for the CV (unless editor) · If it is a good paper you'll end up reading it afterall Thoughts?

Great collaboration between @GSK Tres Cantos, @WeillCornell and the Sanders Tri-I Therapeutics Discovery Institute. Co-led by Irene Molina at GSK and @RPMansell in @KafsackLab.

As standard screens for new antimalarials yield diminishing new targets & chemotypes, GSK Tres Cantos used media that mimics nutrients in serum & found many new hits. We then id'ed the targets and, amazingly, all 29 new chemotypes block PSAC!🤯 shorturl.at/dCCO8

Migrating to @kafsacklab.bsky.social .... See you over there.

Are the @veupathdb blast servers down? Simple searches that normally take seconds, are still running after 5-10 min.

It has now joined the wall

Put my 3D printer to work for this mosquito costume.

@wjsullivan What me worry?

What’s your choice? Do the hard things Do what’s good enough Do nothing

Prepared for years putting on the extra weight just so the abdomen looks distended with the blood meal! 😂

Happy to see this story out in Pathogens today. Not bad for summer internship project. Well done Hermela and @Riward! mdpi.com/2076-0817/13/1…

Malaria parasites have multiple 47S ribosomal RNA genes that differ in length, sequence & expression. Our @WeillCornell ACCESS Summer Student Hermela Samuel & @Riward found that their promoters have very really different responses to RNA Pol I inhibitors 🤯biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…