Kathryne Ford Ph.D.

Ph.D. in electromicrobiology, synthetic biology, working with @m_teravest at @michiganstateu scientist & activist.
She/they

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Woke up this morning to a series of texts from my amazing labmate telling me I won the @NSFGRFP and am still freaking out!! 😁🤗🤗

Thank you to my awesome lab and mentor @m_teravest and the department that's been my home for 6 years @MSU_MMG

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Not a conspiracy theorist, but I've checked everyday and it still says my NC voted hasn't been counted. Says it may take a week or so to update so will keep an eye on it.

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.

While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.

And they’re right.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point.

Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it.  It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.

But these are all just symptoms.  The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.

Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.

Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment.  At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.

The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.

And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism.  They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.

So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

considering the already tight page limit? Or am I assuming too much of reviewers? Or is there something else I'm missing?

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Real question: can anyone offer insight to addressing reviewer comments for an NSF grant like more details on "how to determine diversity in metagenomic data" and "how comparative transcriptomics would be analyzed". To me the answers are common enough...

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

to these types of experiments that I don't need to go into THAT much detail (e.g., use one of many available programs to calculate things like Shannon diversity, identify the up/down regulated genes between conditions and hypothesize the potential impact/outcome) especially

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Anyone else ~know~ the difference between prediction and hypothesis, but the second you need to write one you need to look it up every few minutes to make sure you're right, or just me?

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Looks like my undergrads' first transformation with the anaerobic thermophile C. bescii worked perfectly! Couldn't be more proud 🥹

[MSU Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology @MSUMGI]

Congratulations to MGI graduate, Dr. Osama Alian, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation!

The title of his research is "Microenvironmental Characteristics of Serpentinite Hosted Habitats: Implications for Microbial Ecology and Life Detection."

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

The amount of papers I've found the past week with environmental samplings sites that have either wrong (otherside of planet wrong) coordinates, maps don't match site descriptions, incorrect names, or straight up no details ("site in this region") is astounding.

[Read Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) @JPHilllllll]

This video just popped up on TikTok and my god. How inconsequential, how unimportant and transparently distracting the silly talk of “property damage” at campus protests really is.

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

Shocking footage shows several officers at Washington University St. Louis beating a professor, slamming him, and dragging his limp body.
SIUE history professor Steve Tamari is reportedly hospitalized with broken ribs and a broken hand.
One doctor told him he's lucky to be alive.

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

I think the https://t.co/TPDVhdVsiG websites should have a little confetti animation if your proposal is funded.

[Friendly Neighborhood Comrade @SpiritofLenin]

Long live Irish-Palestinian solidarity on St Patrick's Day and on all days.

[Margaret Kimberley @freedomrideblog]

I told you. It is not about China.

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

*paraphrasing an electrochem book from 1973*
"MAYBE if Nernst hadn't slowed us down, we wouldn't now have climate change" 😅

[Kathryne Ford Ph.D. @katiford_micro]

Really wishing I had taken better (or at least more legible) noyes during my electrochemistry course

[bee 🍉 @beereadingshelf]

this happened while everyone was too busy talking about the oscars

[Read Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) @JPHilllllll]

Once again.