Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽

@needhibhalla

Cell biologist and geneticist, Professor, mom and consumer of alcohol. Those might all be related. I grind til I own it. She/her/hers. ORCID: personal account

1129 Siguiendo14.153 Seguidores8457 Publicaciones

Instagram Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y needhibhalla.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· 24d

Cross section

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· 24d

I might (?!) have it?! Next step: testing whether parbaking makes a crispier crust

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· 24d

Listening to the new Allison Russell album, sipping a tomato water martini and making focaccia and focaccia pizza #FriYay

Tomato water martini in a coupe glass on a butcher block counter

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jul 4

Listening to Madonna’s new album, prepping chicken cutlets with a panzanella salad and sipping a Negroni #FridayNight

Negroni on a butcher block with tomatoes and chicken

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jul 2

The impact of the partnership between the federal government and America’s research universities is borne out by the evidence. Whether measured by the long-standing dominance of America’s innovation-oriented industries or by the gap in productive capacity between America and major industrialized democracies, it is clear that the research and the skilled graduates produced by US research universities, with foundational support from the federal government, have served as a major driver (8–10). The same is true for so many of the technologies that have ensured American military preeminence. Economists estimate that government-supported nondefense research since World War II has generated a return on investment of 150 to 300% to the American economy (11). During this same period, far more Nobel laureates in the sciences were affiliated with institutions in the United States than any other country in the world—and the overwhelming majority of those institutions have been research universities (12).

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jul 2

At the core of the system that would emerge were several audacious ideas. First, the federal government would assume lead financial responsibility for solving the problem of private underinvestment in basic research, owing to its character as a public good. Second, instead of distributing the majority of funds to a limited number of established research institutions, the government—through intermediary agencies—would allocate funds on a competitive basis to individual researchers to support discrete projects they would propose. This reliance on funding to individuals, rather than institutions, differed from the dominant European model. Third, and most important, the system would be deliberately designed to insulate the selection of scientific projects from political influence or bureaucratic fiat. Its lodestar would be scientific merit as determined by the views of thousands of established scientists who would volunteer their time and expertise to the grant-awarding agencies.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jun 13

"the 10-year probability of the dismal outcome 'retention without promotion' for assistant professors was 41%." 👀 with alt text

Consistent with the concerns raised by Nonnemaker and Griner (2001), the proportion of medical school faculty members on tenure-eligible tracks has declined substantially, driven principally by an accelerating erosion of tenure track appointments among new hires dependent on “soft money” (Bunton and Mallon, 2007, Bunton and Sloane, 2015, Liu and Mallon, 2004). The ranks of academic medicine faculties now include burgeoning populations of new hires who are stuck in place, in part because at many institutions promotion to the rank of untenured associate professor requires at least one if not two R01 research project grants.4 In one national analysis, Jeffe et al. (2019) found that the 10-year probability of the dismal outcome “retention without promotion” for assistant professors was 41%.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jun 1

Listening #VibeCheckPod, sipping a Negroni and making a caramelized onion and goat cheese tart with a French potato salad for dinner #SundayEvening

Negroni on a cutting board counter with a log of goat cheese next to it

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· May 29

Such an important argument that is particularly relevant since Democrats will very likely perform well electorally in the midterms and 2028. They need to actively govern to change people's lives for the better to avoid another GOP authoritarian

Trump was defeated in 2020, only to return in an even more dangerous form four years later. So we already know that it is not enough to beat MAGA once at the ballot box. If Democrats do not pair their next electoral victory with a strong record of governance—one that reflects the Mamdani commitment to positively improving people’s lives, not the Spanberger model of selling out to corporations—we are going to be right back in the maws of fascism one election later. And this time, we might not be facing an authoritarian as incompetent and self-defeating as Trump has been.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· May 19

I deleted the original post to avoid confusion

BlueSky post highlighting the additional guidance for NIH biosketches for the MIRA application. The suggestion to include a link to MyBibliography is superseded by more recent guidance from the NIH in a series of FAQs: https://grants.nih.gov/faqs#/common-forms-biographical-sketch-current-pending-support.htm?anchor=57884

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· May 15

"In...2019, NIH published NOT-OD-20-031: Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity, the formal scientific policy foundation that authorized & guided...training & health disparities programs...It was a deliberate, evidence-based, democratic process of the kind federal agencies are designed to conduct"

A chart indicating the 47 NIH training grants cancelled in 2025. All 47 programs named specific underrepresented populations. Every stage of the scientific career pipeline was cut.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Apr 18

Negroni and #Friday night dance party

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Apr 15

Addition of auxin further exacerbated the phenotype in P1 cells but not AB cells, consistent with a role only in these cells. Also supporting this developmental role, a GFP tagged version of NPP-21 was enriched in and consistently localized to a spindle matrix structure in P1 cells. SO PRETTY! 👀

NPP-21-GFP (green) forming a spindle matrix around mitotic chromosomes (magenta) in metaphase in P1 cells

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Apr 15

We collaborated with @adernburg.bsky.social's lab, who had generated a version of NPP-21 with an auxin-induced degron tag, and showed that in worms expressing AID-NPP-21 and TIR1 (the auxin receptor), germline cells had a weaker checkpoint, more similar to AB cells than control P1 cells.

portion of Figure 1 depicting a cartoon of the two cell embryo, mitotic timing in AB cells and mitotic timing in P1 cells.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Apr 4

Boy #1 making arepas with friends while I sip a negroni and watch Dark Winds #FriYay

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Mar 28

Listening to Sandana Maitreya, prepping chorizo chili with the vaquero beans Boy #1 got me for my birthday and sipping a tomato water martini

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Mar 18

😭😭 grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

screen shot showing the percent change in R01-equivalent awards between 2024 and 2025

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Mar 17

Heatwave in Santa Cruz DEMANDS the year’s first tinto de verano 🍷🍋

A wine glass with a tinto de verano on a table awash with sunlight

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Mar 14

Ending a FUCKING hard week with a Negroni, prepping ma po tofu and listening to the @fatedmates.net episode about Heated Rivalry with Christopher Rice THIS is the convo I needed 🥰

Negroni on a cutting board with tofu and ginger in the background

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Feb 22

Tomatoes roasting while rolls cooling 🤩

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Feb 14

Sipping a boulevardier, prepping shepherd’s pie in potato skins with keema and listening to Vibe Check’s Romancelandia episode 🥰🥰 #FriYay

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Feb 3

gonna get a whole lotta use from this pic

the Lying Cat from the graphic novel Saga

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Feb 2

I got you!

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Feb 2

Prepping Detroit style pizza, one with sausage and one with pepperoni, while sipping a tomato water martini and listening to Lemonade #SundayEvening

A tomato water martini in a coupe glass and garnished with pickled onions

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 31

Snacking on apples and cheese, sipping a Negroni, listening to the Chicks and roasting chickpeas for dinner #FriYay

Negroni next to a wedge of Cotswold cheese and sliced apples

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 24

Dancing and sipping a Negroni made with St. George Terroir gin, trying to improve a shitty ass mood #FridayEvening A bartender used this gin in a negroni I had last week and it was TRANSFORMATIVE

Negroni next to a bottle of St. George Terroir gin

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 17

Boy #1 made lunch: potato and tuna croquettes with leftover black bean soup 👀

A plate with 3 potato and tuna croquettes, black beans and sour cream

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 17

listening to Taylor Swift, sipping a Negroni and prepping chicken curry #FriYay

Closeup of a Negroni in a coupe glass with the half-filled cocktail shaker behind it

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 12

TRYING to follow the Golden Globes, sipping a tomato water martini and prepping stuffed shells #SundayNight

Tomato water martini in a coupe glass next to a block of mozzarella

A tray of stuffed shells prepped to be baked

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla· Jan 10

Sipping a Campari and soda, bopping to Wet Leg and making pasta al norma for dinner #FriYay