President Donald Trump’s effort to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to remake the federal government would gut agencies that have existed for decades or longer. His larger plans would remake elements of the government infrastructure that have been around for centuries.
There’s some detail towards the beginning of this epitope (they like to say epitope rather than episode because they are nerdy virology folks, gotta love 'em) of TWIV #1215 What’s the worst that could happen?: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-1215/
I can’t find a transcript, or I would point you to the specific quotes. I listen to most of this podcast since 2020,
“NIOSH’s frozen tissues include commercially produced immortalized cell lines—cells that can proliferate indefinitely and enable small tissue samples to grow into larger ones that can more easily be experimented on.” - These cell lines allow experimentation on animal cells, instead of using live animals. Which is beneficial for reducing cruelty to animals, as well as in decreasing costs, and increasing the shear volume of research that can be done.
There is a huge expense / loss engendered by such rapid closure of labs, in terms of lost equipment, lost cell lines from literally cutting power to the freezers and other equipment so the cell lines defrost and rot.
That’s the best I can do for you at this time. You might want to look up topics like Primary Cell Line, Immortalized Cell Line.
Could you (or someone else here) expand on what that means? What were these cell lines used for on more concrete terms?
There’s some detail towards the beginning of this epitope (they like to say epitope rather than episode because they are nerdy virology folks, gotta love 'em) of TWIV #1215 What’s the worst that could happen?: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-1215/ I can’t find a transcript, or I would point you to the specific quotes. I listen to most of this podcast since 2020,
This article (https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/health/harvard-biodata-trump-cuts-wellness) details some of the losses, of tissue samples used in long term research, such as The Nurses Health study (https://nurseshealthstudy.org/)
This article https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-job-cuts-niosh-human-samples/ - goes into some detail as well:
“NIOSH’s frozen tissues include commercially produced immortalized cell lines—cells that can proliferate indefinitely and enable small tissue samples to grow into larger ones that can more easily be experimented on.” - These cell lines allow experimentation on animal cells, instead of using live animals. Which is beneficial for reducing cruelty to animals, as well as in decreasing costs, and increasing the shear volume of research that can be done.
There is a huge expense / loss engendered by such rapid closure of labs, in terms of lost equipment, lost cell lines from literally cutting power to the freezers and other equipment so the cell lines defrost and rot.
That’s the best I can do for you at this time. You might want to look up topics like Primary Cell Line, Immortalized Cell Line.
Thank you!
Medical research.