🇿🇦🇳🇿🇺🇸Professor of Neurobiology @UUtah. Molecular mechanisms of memory, repurposed transposons, and virus-like intercellular signaling. Personal opinions.
Otago/Hopkins/MIT/Utah
- Tweets 27,291
- Following 2,951
- Followers 15,612
- Likes 76,394
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Very excited for our new paper, now out in @CellCellPress! /🧵The protein Tau forms intracellular toxic tangles in neurons in Alzheimer’s disease and Tauopathies. Tau pathology slowly spreads from cell-to-cell but the mechanisms of Tau transmission are not clear. /1
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
New study shows that as neural networks learn, they adopt patterns of activity similar to real-life neuron firing patterns in a part of the brain important for learning.
First author Jack Bowler & senior author Jim Heys, @UofUHealth
Learn more: healthcare.utah.edu/newsroom…
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Took a covid booster plus flu shot yesterday. Have been taking Novavax when I can find it but no other option this time.
My immune system went wrrrrr 😅
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The line between viruses, retrotransposons, and domesticated retroviruses continues to blur!
Direct cell-to-cell transmission of retrotransposons: cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092…
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Congrats @ZimmermanNeuro!!
Meet the 2026 cohort of Next Generation Leaders. This program recognizes emerging early career researchers in bioscience and is designed to foster community, exchange of ideas, innovation, and collaboration to make a broad, transformational impact on the future of science.
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Trump & Vought are politicizing critical medical research and make no mistake: in the long run, this will cost lives. Their continued attacks will put future cures and treatments at risk in service of their own political agenda.
Shameful.
nytimes.com/2026/09/20/scien…
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This is about one thing and one thing alone. Steering our research dollars for cancer, heart disease, and new infectious diseases to Trump’s political allies and friends.
Not only is it corrupt, but it’s going to interfere with life-saving scientific research—delaying possible cures for diseases that affect millions of Americans every single year.
Breaking News: Federal officials are drafting an executive order that would help cement President Trump’s ability to control billions of dollars in scientific grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. nyti.ms/4yhi6RS
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The attacks on US science continue. This is dictator level political control that stems from a crazed crusade by Vought against the NIH.
Breaking News: Federal officials are drafting an executive order that would help cement President Trump’s ability to control billions of dollars in scientific grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. nyti.ms/4yhi6RS
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Waiting for our senators to be all over this anti free speech BS from the WH….
When the White House opens its doors to the press, it must comply with the First Amendment. The president is as free as any other person to criticize media coverage. But he can’t ban outlets from the White House just because he doesn’t like their reporting or commentary. Press credentials aren’t a reward for loyalty to the government. A free, even adversarial, press is a sign of our country’s strength. The public deserves to hear about its government from independent voices, not just its leader’s loyalists and allies.
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
BREAKING: Judge Dennis Saylor (GWBush/MA) temporarily blocks Trump admin drive to impose a 4-year limit on student visas now issued for length of study. Calls the rationale for the new rule "exceptionally weak." Doc: documentcloud.org/documents/…
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
BREAKING: We just won in the United States Supreme Court to protect your right to vote by mail.
This is the final decision — Donald Trump’s illegal attempt to undermine our Constitution and prevent eligible voters from making their voices heard in this election by voting by mail has failed.
Nothing will change here in Pennsylvania. Counties will continue to administer free, fair, safe, and secure elections. And I’ll stand ready to continue protecting your right to vote — no matter what the Trump Administration tries next.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots ahead of the midterms. apnews.com/article/trump-mai…
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Congrats Fergil for finally getting this out!
Congrats to @fergilmills for leading our paper which just came out today in @NeuroCellPress
Amygdalostriatal transition zone neurons encode sustained cue responses to guide defensive behaviors: Neuron cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S08…
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
The “foreign students are taking American seats” argument badly misunderstands how U.S. higher education works.
International students are only 6% of total enrollment.
They are concentrated where America needs enormous amounts of advanced talent:
61% of CS PhDs
54% of Engineering PhDs
51% of Math/Stats PhDs
But here is the part everyone misses:
Over the last 20 years, S&E PhDs earned by Americans ALSO increased 61%, even as foreign S&E PhDs increased.
America didn't replace Americans.
It expanded its research machine by recruiting BOTH.
And now the domestic pipeline is getting smaller: U.S. high-school graduates are projected to fall 13% to 3.4M by 2041.
Meanwhile, global talent recruited through American universities helped produce the MOSFET, LASIK technology, digital-video breakthroughs, Nobel-winning chemistry , foundation of AI and countless other advances.
And this is why gutting OPT is so self-defeating.
OPT is the bridge between “study in America” and “build in America.”
Destroy that bridge, and the best students don't simply graduate and disappear.
Many stop choosing America in the first place.
Then the talent goes to Canada, Britain, Europe or more and so do the researchers, startups, patents and breakthroughs that would have followed.
That was America's genius:
Educate Americans AND vacuum up the best minds the rest of the world produces.
OPT helps America keep the upside.
Destroy the pipeline, and our competitors will gladly take it.
🚨 The proposed $100,000 OPT fee could be catastrophic for American universities and if universities are expected to pay it, the policy becomes almost absurd.
Think about it:
A student pays an American university tens of thousands of dollars, graduates, and gets hired by an entirely separate company.
Why on earth should the UNIVERSITY owe $100,000 because SOME RANDOM EMPLOYER hired its graduate?
Universities will respond rationally:
They will admit fewer international students.
International students will take their tuition, talent and research elsewhere.
Graduate STEM programs will get hit.
American employers will lose one of their biggest pipelines of U.S.-educated talent and universities already facing enrollment pressure will lose billions more.
This isn't just an immigration restriction. It risks turning an international student from an asset universities compete to recruit into a six-figure financial liability after graduation , that changes the economics of American higher education overnight.
You don't strengthen American universities by making their successful graduates a financial punishment.
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Stoked to be heading to Baltimore this weekend to see the Springboks play the All Blacks!
Will also be giving a seminar at @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Monday! publichealth.jhu.edu/events/…
Rugby's Greatest Rivalry is coming to Baltimore, and we had to put the squad to the test!
The All Blacks and Springboks will face off at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 12.
Get your tickets NOW: seatgeek.com/springboks-tick…
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Pls RT! Only 6 days left to submit your abstract - come join us in Florida on Oct 5-7 for this 🔥 🔥 🔥 conference, the line-up is awesome!!! Including @MEGNeuro @RWTsien @NadavAhituv @JasonSynaptic @BarcoLab @DayLabUAB @Gabel_Lab @apombo1 @SenguptaLab @Ryohei_Neuro @CreminsLab
A call from one procrastinator to all others: sign up now for the @FASEB SRC on “Neuronal Experience-Regulated Transcription” Oct 5-7 in Melbourne, FL . I just did and already feel so much better 😎 And: there are still slots for ShortTalks - trainees, pls submit your abstracts!
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I need…and probably everyone else needs..more time in places with no cell service! Like here in Fiordland, New Zealand.
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
I've written 70+ recommendation letters for students applying graduate programs in my career. This is the saddest one I have to redo.
// A former undergrad student got denial of entrance with a 5-year ban, when flying to the US for PhD study. As usual, no reason was given. I can't imagine what he have gone through.
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Jason Shepherd retweeted
The Psychology Department at the University of Utah is currently seeking applicants for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor position in Human Neuroscience. Please share the advertisement below with anyone in your professional network who is on the market!
utah.peopleadmin.com/posting…
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