Dr. Candace Strang

Research scientist in chemical biology applied to neurobiology, systems research on protein-protein interactions

[Dr. Candace Strang @Nscience4ever]

Still true, as are most words and actions he said or did. From my UCLA years. Gone but never forgotten, John Wooden https://t.co/tO6eXZiPWo

[UCLA Athletics @UCLAAthletics]

"If I am through learning, I am through."
- John Wooden

#WednesdayWisdom

[Jon Douglas @atranscendedman]

NIH and UCSF researchers argue Long COVID trials should begin now.

They call for disease modifying trials of immunomodulators, antivirals, neurological drugs, GLP-1 drugs, monoclonal antibodies and devices.

https://t.co/sVDoahJdC1

[Satchin Panda @SatchinPanda]

Emerging research links vascular dysfunction to cognitive decline in aging & dementia.
Reduced blood flow and blood-brain barrier breakdown may play a key role—and could even be causally connected. Understanding this opens the door to new, much-needed therapies. #Neuroscience #Aging #Dementia
https://t.co/vcaZ7JMK3a

[Ruslan Rust @rust_ruslan]

Super interesting! We have observed changes in (hyper)vascularization many times during aging but never really followed it up. So cool to see these findings + amazing imaging:

Reversible hypervascularization drives cognitive decline and blood-brain barrier damage during aging. Great work by @erturklab. Congrats!

https://t.co/XeFsqVnzRs

[Vipin M. Vashishtha @vipintukur]

A NEW study found that people with #LongCOVID showed weaker communication between different parts of the brain on MRI scans. These changes were especially noticeable in those with:

➡️ High brain inflammation on PET scans
Brain fog and cognitive problems

➡️ Specific brain connections linked to movement, thinking, and brainstem control were particularly affected. 1/

[Ruslan Rust @rust_ruslan]

Expanding the human proteome with microproteins and peptideins | Naturef

https://t.co/o5xuqtAQpy

[Ruslan Rust @rust_ruslan]

Amyloid plaques don't just disrupt local activity; they reorganize hippocampal place coding at long range, in a behavioral-state-dependent way. SWS hyperactivity even weakly predicts where plaques will form next.

This is important because it reframes plaques as drivers of circuit-level remapping, and gives the field a functional endpoint that goes beyond plaque counts.

https://t.co/SRYl3l2rdh

[Oded Rechavi @OdedRechavi]

We built an AI that will tell you what will get your grant rejected. It’s a tough critique, but it’s better to know when you can still do something about it 👇 @qedScience

[Dr Steven Quay @quay_dr]

In 1923 Warburg published a paper showing that cancer cells generated energy by a metabolism that differed from normal cells.

Fast forward to 2026.

A group of @StanfordMed scientists genetically modify immune cells to 'sense' the changes in metabolism of cancer cells and home in on the tumor cells, killing them.

Imagine programming 'blood hound' immune cells to kill cancers, not based on 20th century surface proteins, but on their broken way of making energy, ATP.

This is the kind of exciting immunology research that belongs in a 21st century NIAID.

The paper: https://t.co/iuiuYNJShv

[Louisa Nicola @louisanicola_]

The hidden drivers of Alzheimer’s are not in your brain

New science shows Alzheimer’s may be shaped by an organ-brain axis, where the gut, lung, liver, and bladder influence brain inflammation.

1. In Alzheimer’s, immune changes outside the brain may help drive:
- chronic neuroinflammation
- blood-brain barrier breakdown
- harmful microglia and astrocyte activation

2. The gut-brain axis is especially important:
- Healthy gut microbes support anti-inflammatory immune balance
- Gut dysbiosis can shift immunity toward Th17-driven inflammation
- This may worsen brain immune activation and neuronal damage

3. Key protective gut metabolites like SCFAs help:
- strengthen the blood-brain barrier
- support regulatory T cells
- maintain healthy microglia function

4. Other microbial signals, such as AhR-related pathways, may also help suppress excessive inflammation in both the gut and brain.

The big takeaway:
Alzheimer’s progression may be influenced not only by amyloid and tau, but also by system-wide immune dysfunction.

The future of Alzheimer’s treatment may not stop at the brain, it may start with the body.

[Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) @MIT]

MIT neuroscientists have identified a brain circuit involved in processing new information that may be linked to schizophrenia, offering insight into why some individuals lose touch with reality. https://t.co/UGaI59lTH4

[Dr. Candace Strang @Nscience4ever]

@mistergeezy Tough tootie. You voted for a pathological liar with a dubious business history. Pay attention next time.

[Vaidehi @Ai_Vaidehi]

Anthropic just announced the "Claude Certified Architect" program.
And you can start today.

In 16 years of my professional career, I haven't done a single certification.
Not one.

Not AWS. Not Azure. Not Google Cloud. Not PMP. Not Scrum. Not any of the alphabet soup.

I learned by building. By breaking things. By shipping.
But I'm about to break that streak.

I'm going for my first-ever certification:
Claude Certified Architect — Foundations
Here's why this matters — especially if you're a developer, engineer, or any professional who feels like the AI wave is moving too fast.

Claude Code launched a few weeks ago.
And it feels like a paradigm shift.
Not an incremental upgrade. Not another chatbot wrapper.
A fundamentally different way of building software.
Agentic architecture. Tool orchestration. MCP integration. Context management at a systems level.

If those words sound intimidating — that's exactly why this certification exists.
It covers everything from agentic orchestration to prompt engineering to Claude Code workflows.

Not surface-level content.

And here's what got me:
It costs nothing.
Free. Zero. $0.

So if you've been feeling left behind... If you've been watching others ship AI agents while you're still figuring out where to start... If you've been telling yourself "I'll learn this next quarter"...

This is your sign.
Stop scrolling. Start building.

First certification in 16 years. Let's see how this goes.
Links in the comments 👇

Cc : Brij Pandey

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Every time you get a cancer biopsy, the lab makes a tissue slide that costs about $5. It shows the shape of your cells under a microscope, and every cancer patient already has one on file.

There’s a much fancier version of that test called multiplex immunofluorescence (basically a protein-level map showing which immune cells are near your tumor and what they’re doing). It costs thousands of dollars per sample, takes specialized equipment most hospitals don’t have, and barely scales. But it’s the kind of data oncologists need to figure out whether immunotherapy will actually work for you. Right now, only about 20 to 40% of cancer patients respond to immunotherapy, and one of the biggest reasons is that doctors can’t easily tell whether a tumor is “hot” (immune cells actively fighting it) or “cold” (immune system ignoring it).

Microsoft, Providence Health, and the University of Washington trained an AI to analyze the $5 slide and predict what the expensive test would show across 21 different protein markers. They called it GigaTIME, trained it on 40 million cells in which both the cheap slide and the expensive test coexisted, and then turned it loose on 14,256 real cancer patients across 51 hospitals in 7 US states.

The results landed in Cell, one of the most selective journals in biology. The model generated about 300,000 virtual protein maps covering 24 cancer types and 306 subtypes. It found 1,234 real, verified connections between immune cell behavior, genetic mutations, tumor staging, and patient survival that were previously invisible at this scale. When they tested it against a completely separate database of 10,200 cancer patients, the results matched up almost perfectly (0.88 out of 1.0 agreement).

Nature Methods named spatial proteomics (mapping where specific proteins sit inside your tissue) its Method of the Year in 2024, and specifically cited GigaTIME in a March 2026 update as a model that “democratizes” this kind of analysis. The full model is open-source on Hugging Face. Any cancer research lab with archived biopsy slides, and most of them have thousands, can now run virtual immune profiling without buying a single piece of new equipment.

[Christoph Burch @ChristophBurch]

Neurobiological, molecular, and systemic mechanisms of exercise in the treatment of mental health disorders
https://t.co/sAy1glqi52

[Christine Rabinak @BrainsBeesBikes]

Running a research lab is about leading people.

I created a free toolkit on the human side of lab leadership—covering hiring, mentoring, conflict navigation, lab culture, and performance management.

Open access: https://t.co/fr3dDnsJAi

#TeamScience #AcademicLeadership

[Dr sthanu subramanian @drsthanus]

Detailed anatomical diagrams and connectivity maps of the human brain's limbic system, with a specific focus on the hippocampus and its associated pathways.

https://t.co/2OMwZUDfy9

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Long COVID brain fog is real — and now, we know what’s causing it.

A breakthrough brain scan reveals the science behind the symptoms.

Scientists in Japan have identified a biological cause behind the cognitive “brain fog” experienced by many Long COVID patients—a breakthrough that could lead to reliable diagnosis and treatment.

A team at Yokohama City University used a cutting-edge brain imaging method to detect abnormal increases in AMPA receptors (AMPARs), molecules essential for learning and memory, in people suffering from Long COVID. These elevated receptor levels, observed using [11C]K-2 PET imaging, were closely linked to the severity of cognitive symptoms and inflammation markers, offering the first clear molecular explanation for the condition.

The findings, published in Brain Communications, show that AMPAR density not only tracks with brain fog severity but also enables near-perfect distinction between affected and healthy individuals—100% sensitivity and 91% specificity. This offers promise for both diagnostic tools and treatments, such as drugs that suppress AMPAR activity. With brain fog affecting over 80% of Long COVID sufferers globally, this research marks a significant step toward validating the condition and accelerating efforts to address it with targeted therapies.

[“Systemic increase of AMPA receptors associated with cognitive impairment of long COVID” by Yu Fujimoto et al., 1 October 2025, Brain Communications]

[Ruben Hassid @rubenhassid]

Anthropic is offering 13 AI courses & certificates.

It's free by following these 13 links:

1 - Claude 101. Learn Claude for everyday work. Core features and best practices.

↳ https://t.co/OvBmlvnnBd

2 - AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations. The foundational thinking course. Must need.

↳ https://t.co/cObZdwBP8h

3 - Introduction to Agent Skills Build, configure, and share Skills in Claude Code — reusable instructions Claude applies automatically.

↳ https://t.co/wZsD0PxbGK

4 - Building with the Claude API Full spectrum: function calling, tool use, streaming, SDKs, and production patterns.

↳ https://t.co/RcCbfNiNK1

5 - Claude Code in Action Integrate Claude Code into your dev workflow. Hands-on, practical, ship-focused.

↳ https://t.co/y29CC0G3lf

6 - Intro to Model Context Protocol Build MCP servers and clients from scratch in Python. Tools, resources, and prompts.

↳ https://t.co/Qnrn0NGZJa

7 - MCP: Advanced Topics Sampling, notifications, file system access, and transport for production MCP servers.

↳ https://t.co/0S5f4kEkK8

8 - AI Fluency for Students AI skills for learning, career planning, and academic success through responsible collaboration.

↳ https://t.co/YIOopqnA73

9 - AI Fluency for Educators For faculty and instructional designers applying AI Fluency into teaching and institutional strategy.

↳ https://t.co/54oLlYjdR5

10 - Teaching AI Fluency Teach and assess AI Fluency in instructor-led settings. Curriculum-ready.

↳ https://t.co/fHdgs6ufOe

11 - AI Fluency for Nonprofits Increase organizational impact and efficiency while staying mission-true.

↳ https://t.co/xFKngNysjO

12 - Claude with Amazon Bedrock The full AWS accreditation course, now open to everyone.

↳ https://t.co/dV6xi7TKld

13 - Claude with Google Cloud's Vertex AI Work with Claude through Google Cloud's Vertex AI, from setup to production.

↳ https://t.co/MEzAxODi6w

14 - How to master AI with words (not code) Shameless plug: it's my own (free) newsletter. Join 369,000+ weekly readers at https://t.co/psB7XxAv8w.

I made https://t.co/jw2qdIbLxJ to start mastering Claude.

And then https://t.co/uWTpOI3oyE to master Claude Cowork.

♻�� Repost this to help others access AI courses.

[Dr. Catharine Young @DrCatharineY]

We were told NIH funding cuts were about eliminating DEI.

But the data now shows grants are down across nearly every field of medicine: cancer, diabetes, mental health, brain disorders.

With the greatest cuts hitting Alzheimer’s research, down more than 50%.

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Professors: come learn how to teach creativity to PhD students and postdocs! We'd love to show you how to lead a 'Night Science' course on the creative process at our train-the-trainer event in NYC on April 24th!
Get a 10% discount from now until 3/31!
https://t.co/9MVrlNhJGg