Our lab's effort is a reflection of Mother Teresa’s quote: “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”

"Our real duty as teachers has always been challenging students to think. The task now is finding ways to engage them in the painful, essential work of critical thinking in a world where machines are willing to do it for them." #ScienceWorkingLife scim.ag/4azkcmF

🍁 🍁🍁🍁🍁 Monsanto wanted its growth hormone in every glass of Canadian milk. One government scientist stood in the way and his own bosses spent 14 years trying to destroy him for it. His name was Dr. Shiv Chopra. Born in India, 1934. Came to Canada in the 1960s. PhD in microbiology. Senior scientist at Health Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs. 35 years reviewing drug applications. Approve the safe ones. Reject the unsafe ones. Protect the public. For 20 years he did it quietly. Then Monsanto came knocking. A new drug. Bovine growth hormone. Brand name Posilac. Inject it into dairy cows, get 10-15% more milk. Bigger profits for the industry. Far bigger profits for Monsanto. The FDA had rubber-stamped it in 1993. Monsanto expected Canada to follow. The file landed on Chopra's desk. He started reading the science. He started finding holes. The data was thin. Long-term safety studies were missing. The cow studies that did exist showed lameness, mastitis, reproductive failure, shortened lifespans. If it was doing that to the cow, what was it doing to the milk? His recommendation: reject it. Demand real safety data. His managers had a different idea. Approve it. The Americans approved it. Why are you holding it up? Just sign off. He refused. So the pressure started. Closed-door meetings. Attempts to pull the file and hand it to someone friendlier. Gag orders don't talk to the media, don't talk to anyone. Suspensions. Reprimands. Demotions. Dead-end reassignments. He kept refusing. Two other scientists refused with him. Dr. Margaret Haydon. Dr. Gérard Lambert. Same data. Same alarm. Same answer. In 1998 the Canadian Senate launched an investigation into what was happening inside Health Canada. Chopra and his colleagues did something almost nobody does. They walked into the Senate and testified under oath. Said managers were pressuring them to approve unsafe drugs. Said industry was running the regulator. Said the system was broken. It made headlines around the world. In 1999, Health Canada rejected Monsanto's application. rBGH would not be approved. Europe banned it next. Then most of the developed world. Sit with that. One immigrant scientist in Ottawa beat one of the largest chemical corporations on Earth — and won. Then his own government fired him for winning. July 14, 2004. After 35 years of service, Health Canada fired Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert on the same day. Official reason: insubordination. Real reason: he embarrassed them in front of the country. The same year, the Prime Minister mailed him a gold watch for "illustrious service." While they were firing him. He called it comedy. He sued to clear his name. The fight took 13 years. He lost appeal after appeal. The final ruling came down in 2017. Three months later, in January 2018, he died. 83 years old. Never reinstated. Never given his pension back. Never owed an apology by anyone. But here is what they could never take back. rBGH is still banned in Canada today. Every glass of Canadian milk is still hormone-free — because one man refused to sign. And the United States? Never banned it. It's still legal there. Right now. He kept it out of Canada and they fired him. The system he fought is still pouring it into glasses across the border. So tell me below was Shiv Chopra a hero, or just a troublemaker who got what was coming to him? Pick a side. Because someone in those meetings is still telling scientists to "just sign off."

Congratulations nice work

Thanks for highlighting! ⁦⁦@BaharanMeghdadi,⁩ ⁦@Wajd_MD⁩, @DNagrathLab⁩, ⁦@DanWahlMD⁩ Brain cancer digital twin predicts treatment outcomes | University of Michigan News news.umich.edu/brain-cancer-…

In the first #ScienceEditorial of 2026, H. Holden Thorp focuses on #AI, discussing how it “will allow the scientific community to do more if it picks the right ways to use it.” He revisits the journals’ policies and approaches related to AI. Read more: scim.ag/48YI2rs

Brain tumor metabolism: the sequel just dropped 🎬 Patients get nutrients. GBM crashes the party, hogs the serine & misuses purines. We built it a digital mirror w/ genetics + isotope tracing. It glimpsed its greed & had an existential crisis. Come watch tumors face the music! #DigitalTwins #BrainCancer #CancerResearch

Excited to share that our digital twin framework predicting patient responses to metabolic therapies is now published online @Cell_Metabolism. One step forward to personalizing glioblastoma treatment. Thankful to my advisors @DNagrathLab @DanWahlMD doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2025.…

I’m grateful for working with supportive and collaborative researchers @AndrewScottPhD @abhinavachreja @SravyaPalava @Wajd_MD @LyssiotisLab @DanWahlMD @DNagrathLab

Check out @BaharanMeghdadi awesome tweetorial on her new study! The science is super interesting (metabolism, brain cancer, modeling), beautiful schemes and figures, and all the code is there for the nerds 🤓 Way to go Baharan! @DNagrathLab, @DanWahlMD

This was an exciting project to work on. And I think a great example of work that can uniquely done at a place like @umichmedicine where cancer surgeons, metabolism experts, and chemical engineers are pulling together on a big problem like brain cancer.

New @Cell_Metabolism paper from our team at @UMRogelCancer .Led by @BaharanMeghdadi (looking for a postdoc position!) and @DNagrathLab , we integrate complex data inputs (13C metabolomics, scRNAseq) to estimate metabolic fluxes in brain cancer cell types. cell.com/cell-metabolism/ful…

Thank you for highlighting our work, led by @BaharanMeghdadi (currently looking for a postdoc position) and @DNagrathLab. This was a collaboration between engineers, basic scientists, and cancer physicians at @umichmedicine that we hope may benefit to patients in the future.

The potential for developing digital twin models for helping treat patients with glioblastoma cell.com/cell-metabolism/ful…

Many Thanks for highlighting our work.

A metabolic atlas of mouse aging by @PeteMullen, @LyssiotisLab, @BKennedy_aging, et al. They develop organ-specific metabolic aging clocks that identify carglumic acid as a potential driver of aging and show that it is synthesized by human cells. cell.com/cell-metabolism/abs…

Happy to share our new review (featuring Joe Longo and McLane Watson) on how T cells use nutrient allocation to optimize immune responses. @VAIMetabolism @VAInstitute sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

#NatMetabPicks | In @Nature led by @DanWahlMD @LyssiotisLab @DnagrathLab WN Al-Holou (@UMRogelCancer) Gliomas take up serine from the tumor microenvironment, and can be targeted with dietary serine restriction. nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

Hiring committees take note! First author of nature.com/articles/s41586-0… and wonderful human being @AndrewScottPhD is on the academic job market. He is looking to find a great home to study metabolism in the central nervous system. Comes with a K99/R00 and fearless curiosity!

In this exciting work by our team @Wajd_MD @DanWahlMD @DNagrathLab @LyssiotisLab we have uncovered mysteries of brain tumor metabolism that will pave the way for new clinical trials and hopefully improve our patients’ lives. @umichneuro #BrainTumor #GoBlue rdcu.be/eD0sa

We worked with @DNagrathLab to quantify these changes and noticed something peculiar. The normal brain seemed to make most of its serine from sugar, while the brain cancers seemed to take it up from the environment. This is important-serine can drive cancer growth and recurrence!