Gunderlab

We published a paper out today in @Cancer_Cell. You can find a short summary here: linkedin.com/feed/update/ur… sciencedirect.com/science/articl… Congrats to @kirschstein13 and all the authors! @NIH funded research 💪🙏@OSUCCC_James @OhioStatePIIO @OhioStateSurg

Don't miss #OhioStateSurg's 2026 Pancreatic Cancer Symposium on Friday, May 8! Learn the latest on pancreatic cancer diagnosis, staging & treatment from Theodore Hong, MD, & Jen Jen Yeh, MD. Register: go.osu.edu/DEwy

Congrats @gunderlab - happy to see the reticular CAF-TLS story (w/ an appearance from our favorite TNFR1/2!) out in press @Cancer_Cell! @OhioStateSurg @timpawlik @isteaus

🚨 New publication alert in @Cancer_Cell from @gunderlab & team! Their study revealed that #myofibroblast programming (the most common fibroblast phenotype in #pancreatic_cancers) transcriptionally represses differentiation into fibroblastic reticular subtypes that are necessary to form #tertiary_lymphoid_structures in #tumors. Blocking these myofibroblast differentiation signals combined with agonizing lymphotoxin beta receptor reverses this, thereby inducing TLS and promoting anti-tumor immunity. 🧠These findings help us understand how to overcome resistance to TLS formation order to increase response to #immunotherapy. Congratulations to the team! Read More: cell.com/cancer-cell/fu… @OhioStateSurg @OhioStatePIIO

🚨 BREAKING: German researchers treated 15 severe lupus patients with CAR-T therapy. All 15 went into complete remission. Many stopped ALL medication. Now a larger trial just confirmed it — across 3 autoimmune diseases. This might be the biggest shift in autoimmune medicine in decades. 🧵

just got invited to peer review a paper I'm one of the authors on

🧵 During today’s National Cancer Advisory Board (#NCAB) meeting, I shared updates on where NCI stands—and where we’re headed. I see a research enterprise that is steady, focused, and ready to accelerate progress against cancer. Here are a few highlights:

BREAKING: @rosadelauro announces at a House Oversight hearing with NIH director Jay Bhattacharya that OMB approved the agency's apportionment last night. That means the agency should* have access to its appropriated funds — 42 days after its spending bill passed.

The same western blot image used 23 times in 14 different papers by one Japanese team. The image has been labelled as representing a range of experiments and proteins. This is the most I have ever seen. Perhaps it is a record?

I currently have three papers in review at "high impact" journals. One of them has been sitting there for two years. In that time my daughter was born and learned how to walk, but apparently publishing a PDF was still not possible for me. For another one, after four months in review the editor told me they cannot find a second reviewer and asked me to suggest more reviewers. A third one sent me a message in 2026 saying the PDF I uploaded was larger than 10 MB and that I should please reupload everything to make the file smaller. All of this just to eventually pay between 7,000 and 12,000 USD per paper so someone can officially approve that the science we do is "legitimate". Reminder: not a single reviewer will be compensated here. I still don't understand how we as scientists can collectively be so smart when doing science and still tolerate a system like this when it comes to sharing our findings. We should move to preprints plus open review, whether human or AI, asap. So frustrated about it. I'd suggest sharing your work on bioRxiv or medRxiv, reading and reviewing preprints when you can, and highlighting good research, especially if it is still a preprint. Try platforms like ResearchHub (that pay for peer review) and experiment with AI based reviewers for faster feedback. Instead I read this as a proposed "revolutionary" measure:

The pipeline that drives discovery - new knowledge and treatments for diseases that affect us all - is collapsing in the United States. New NIH funding opportunities are down 91% this fiscal year.

Experts know what they don’t know. Fake experts don’t even know what they think they know.

Operation Warp Speed compressed timelines by running trial phases in parallel and building manufacturing capacity before authorization. It didn’t skip the trials. Both Pfizer and Moderna completed 30,000+ participant Phase 3 RCTs before any EUA was issued. The FDA’s review of those data was publicly documented. If you have a specific methodological critique of the trials, make it.

In some good news: HPV vaccines remain one of the marvels of science

We are now at 1136 new measles cases - in just the first 8 weeks of this year alone. A preventable disease resurging. This is an abject policy failure.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇 For @Nature: nature.com/articles/d4158…

NIH is not issuing awards. You may think that it's because they it is coming up with new directions of research...The apposite is true. Here is a graph showing how many fewer new funding opportunities that NIH has posted over time. -91%, a trend that started on Jan 2025.

Federal funding for US biomedical research is moribund. Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars). Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science. To what end?

Took a look at Oregon IP28 (PEACE Act) today, & it’s a direct attack on hunters and ranchers. It’s gathering signatures now for 2026. Here’s exactly what it would do: - Bans all hunting, fishing & trapping. Deer season, elk hunts, bass fishing, even rodent control on your land? Criminalized. - Makes raising & slaughtering livestock a crime. Every steer I send to harvest becomes “causing death of an animal.” Family ranches shut down overnight. - Outlaws normal ranch practices. Dehorning, castration, branding, AI breeding (now called “sexual assault of an animal”) all gone. - Forces impossible pet-level care rules “Adequate” shelter, bedding, exercise for every cow in coastal Oregon winter = guaranteed citations. - Lifetime ban on owning animals after one conviction. - Takes effect in just 30 days, no phase-in. This isn’t stopping abuse, it’s ending our way of life. DO NOT SIGN. Spread the word and kill this at the ballot box

Both chambers of Congress have now passed the FY26 minibus with NIH provisions. The President will sign. (1) $48.7 billion for NIH (2) Full IDC recovery (3) No more multi-year funding (4) No NIH reorganization, maintaining the current IC structure.