Pearl Freier
45K posts
@PearlF
Founder of Cambridge BioPartners, Inc.
This one is hard to see. The NIH Early Independence Award, one of the most competitive grants in the country for young scientists, will not go forward in FY2026. NIH says this is due to “administrative changes to funding opportunity processing and delays in approvals.”
very sad! the DP5 grant launched my academic career
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the DHS Inspector General just opened an audit into a $38 billion warehouse-to-detention scheme that Kristi Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski rammed through. ICE bought 11 vacant warehouses in a matter of months, paying 11 to 13 percent above market value. The properties weren’t even zoned for detention. No working plumbing for thousands of detainees. But Noem and Lewandowski pressured ICE to open them by year’s end anyway. The result? At least $1 billion already spent on nine facilities. Nearly 50 contractors paid $1.7 billion since Trump took office. Companies with zero immigration detention experience suddenly winning massive federal contracts. One firm that didn’t even exist until June 2024 got a $6 million DHS contract this January. Noem is gone. Lewandowski is gone. But the bill is still landing on the taxpayer, and the IG investigation is just getting started. Accountability cannot end when the perpetrators walk out the door. Every contract needs scrutiny. Every dollar needs to be traced. Every official who steered money to inexperienced contractors needs to answer under oath. wsj.com/politics/polic…
Raising the salary floor for H1-Bs is an obvious fix. The current floor was set at $60k in 1990 and never changed. Adjusted for inflation, it should be $148k today. A $148k floor would filter out low-value uses of the program, like outsourcing firms. It would also ensure that H1-Bs are used for important R&D roles where salaries exceed this level. This one change could make the program fairer and better aligned with its original intent.
USCIS is applying long-standing law and prior court decisions to require certain aliens with temporary visas who decide they want to permanently reside in the U.S. to return to their home countries to apply for permanent visas through the @StateDept. We're returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly. Here’s what you should know: uscis.gov/newsroom/news-…
An alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply. This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. The era of abusing our nation’s immigration system is over.
"one [AI-designed] drug cleared Phase 3 in December 2025. one. after decades of promises. the field should be asking precisely why that method worked rather than assuming it validates everything else." More below:
I counted 31 titles with a topo1 ADC in P1, 23 of which have been created and developed in China 🤯 Could find only a handful of "western" ADCs from Abbvie, Lilly and Merck KGa plus some rare cases of ADCs developed by European biotechs. #ASCO26
Diamantas told anti-abortion activists on his first day as acting FDA commissioner he would convene a group of scientists and clinical reviewers to assess the status of a promised-but-delayed safety study on mifepristone. First byline w @ReporterOriana ! notus.org/healthcare/ant…
NEW: Records released tonight show that Reynolds, makers of Vuse vapes, gave $5 Million to MAGA Inc. days before the FDA wrote a policy that could allow them to make millions selling flavored vapes. Via @kenvogel nytimes.com/2026/05/20/us/…
The president’s proposed FY 2027 budget would cut $3 billion from CDC. Jan 6 defendants would get $1.7 billion.
