Tim Stearns

Professor and Dean at The Rockefeller University. Cell biologist. Believer in the power of science education.

[Ming "Tommy" Tang @tangming2005]

solid foundation in statistics is even more important in the age of AI.
This interactive app explaining statistic concepts is great
https://t.co/dO0YSMF9hf

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

Great blog post from Matthew Schwartz about the power of working with LLMs to solve “Claude-shaped” probldems. Figure out what the tool is good at (and they are *really* good at many things science) and exploit those, with a large dose of human expertise. https://t.co/M9UgppN5U4

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@alexrives Very exciting news, Alex! 👏

[biohub @biohub]

🧵 Biohub, @ENERGY, @NIH, and new funding partners today announced a major expansion of an international effort to generate and make accessible the data enabling predictive AI models of biology. Together, the organizations are investing $1.8 billion in funding, data, computation and new measurement technology - largest coordinated commitment to map the biology of the cell to power development of digital models of biology. https://t.co/PaCs7ZV2Fg

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@MichaelLinLab Same! There is no feedback on most of what we do as academic scientists, but in the classroom you get instant feedback, seeing students learn something for the first time.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

Congratulations to Karl, Peter, and Georg! Another great example of how basic research - in this case, understanding how an algal cell responds to light - can have an enormous impact on our understanding of something as complex as the brain.

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

[Rockefeller University @RockefellerUniv]

Rockefeller grad student @NatJAlexander of @ElaineFuchsLab investigates the connection between #obesity and #inflammation in skin—a focus she crafted by following her curiosity through different labs and scientific disciplines.

🔗: https://t.co/UnyojMJIO0

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@begum_aydin_ @ColumbiaGenDev @CSCIColumbia Congratulations, Begüm, and it’s great that you’ll be in the area!

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@ControllingLMNT @rrbehringer @AMartinezArias @YouTube @SocDevBio Yes, I think it is just archaic nomenclature.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@WCMEnglanderIPM @landau_lab @WeillCornell Welcome to the neighborhood, Dan!

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

Great job pulling back the curtain on the polyclonal antibody industry. Fake validation, poor quality antibodies, absurdly high prices, and it has been like this for decades.

See paper by Kahn, et al. for a way forward: https://t.co/P2pdh6Gcu6

[Sholto David @addictedtoigno1]

A few months ago I was browsing google images looking at p53 western blots in the SK-OV-3 cell line for an unrelated project. I noticed an unusual western blot hosted on Thermo Fisher's website which I posted on social media. Usually I just post weird blots to PubPeer. 👇

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

I’m not saying that what’s described in the article isn’t important - it is - but rather that there are other variables with larger effect sizes.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

In my experience most people with "magic hands" at the bench actually just had a better understanding of their experimental system, and how experiments work. Harder to reproduce that in the roboticization of lab science. https://t.co/BXu8dNUbao

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

At the wonderful Zoological Museum in Palermo, Sicily, contemplating the extraordinary developmental plasticity that allows one eye of a flatfish to migrate from one side of its skull to the other during metamorphosis.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

The perfect species name doesn't exi...

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@michaelzlin The top is clad in a special type of stainless steel, but yes they must have to clean it to stay as bright as it is.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

96 years old and still the best spire in NYC.

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

🔥The NIH has funded our R25 grant to bring Night Science training to all 40,000 US postdoctoral fellows!
It all started with discussions at the Radcliffe Summit we organized 2 years ago at Harvard where the question was how bring creativity training into the sciences. Our R25 team includes the amazing @StearnsLab, @brangwynnelab, @OylerYanivLab, @JamesKaufman, Maura N. Polansky, Oliver Bogler and @MartinJLercher.

[Tim Stearns @StearnsLab]

@QiushuangW @CellCellPress Beautiful work!