Ben Hall
Professor in computational cancer biology at UCL interested in disease, mutations, and aging. Funded by CRUK, MRC and Royal Society.
Personal account for science, code, music, photography! “Tired is the new awake”
- Reposted by Ben HallYesterday we came together to honour Professor Raymond Dwek through the naming of the Raymond Dwek Seminar Room. Raymond's family (pictured) joined the celebration and Raymond was visibly touched, saying: "Thank you for this amazing gesture. I'm humbled by it, but I will treasure it."
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallSo now we have it- not only the reduction from 12-13 to 3 grants from each board recommended for funding but the budget for applicant-led research to be reduced from £200 million to £113 million per year. This is appalling, Especially given all that is happening with medical research in the US.
- Medical Research Council ‘will fund fewer applicant-led grants’. Confirmation from deputy leader comes as council restructures investments, with calls on hold until summer. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
- Reposted by Ben HallA new study has found that 38% of the nearly 20m new cancers worldwide in 2022 were caused by preventable factors. Two risks stand out virtually everywhere
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- One week to our computational cancer careers event! With speakers (Marta Ewa Polak Elizabeth Coker and Cassandra Kosmidou, PhD ) from pharma, venture capital and academia, join us next Tuesday to learn about careers in this growing domain! register online! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shaping-ca...
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallPretty extraordinary to think about how much cardiovascular researchers figured out, and how that turned into public health campaigns, medicines, surgeries, and emergency care that changed millions of people's lives. ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...
- Reposted by Ben Hall#UKsciencefundingcrisis MRC,BBSRC,EPSRC paused researcher-led grants until Spring. This means no funds in 2026 as evaluation takes 6-9 months. Projects halted, staff, knowledge loss. We need to challenge this and the lack of info and clarity. #ScienceisVital #academicSky shorturl.at/ag03S
- Reposted by Ben HallOOOOH Researchfish Is going extinct 🐡🐟🐠 help.researchfish.com/en_US/resear...
- Reposted by Ben HallMRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates. Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
- Reposted by Ben HallAI tools are immensely powerful. The use of AI as a general purpose chat bot that is used like an encyclopaedia is the worst possible use of AI. AI is now, given good instructions from a knowledgeable user, capable of doing absolutely vast amounts of work extremely fast.
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallOne of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Ben Hall'Another Warrington has hit the North-West'.
- Reposted by Ben HallAn absolutely key first principle when using AI is that you, the human, are responsible for its outputs, and that you must *check* everything it churns out. Blaming Copilot doesn't wash.
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallAnd that's definitely what OpenAI/Microsoft/Whoever's insurance company will tell you when you make a catastrophic mistake.
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallAnyone curious about a typical academic workload might be interested (short thread). I crossed 17 items off my to-do list this past week. The list now stands at 59 items (this includes 15 items that were freshly added last week - a lower-than-average spawning number as we're just after holidays).
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallWith the start of our new study trying to find causes of bowel cancer in young people hitting the headlines today: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I'm so glad to see bold efforts to raise awareness, like this giant 5x3m poster on the Croydon station platform I pass by on my to the lab each day
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallWidely Targeted Metabolomics and Machine Learning Identify Succinate as a Key Metabolite in Sepsis-Associated Encephalopathy: iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
- Reposted by Ben Hall
[Not loaded yet] - Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall"revision requests can expand beyond what is feasible...we've been told reviews are unnecessarily harsh... reviews can seem formidable but usually represent constructive critiques" Interesting reflections and introspection from editors of Development 1/n journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
- Need to think about this some more but the availability of open access scientific papers and scientific code as a legitimate source for training LLMs should be recognised as a benefit.
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallMy blogpost on the success of universal chickenpox vaccination in the US, and why the UK should have made the move sooner: www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/13-the-suc... Chickenpox vaccines are really effective!
- Reposted by Ben HallWoohoo! Chickenpox vaccines are on the menu in the UK - finally!! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallLoved this brilliant biography of Crick by @matthewcobb.bsky.social But what struck me from the start: it's also a portrait of a lost time in science: no grant applications or teaching, big travel budgets: the job only to think, talk & get science done. Future scientific biogs will be so different.
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallOrganelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n
- Organelles harbour pH gradients biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Ben HallA new PNAS paper finds that polarization increased immediately after the release of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” and the advent of the late-2000s electro-pop era, which both appeared around the same year, 2008.
- A new PNAS paper finds that polarization increased immediately after the invention of smartphones and the advent of social media, which both appeared around the same year, 2008. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Ben Hall[Not loaded yet]
