Melissa Kane PhD
@cornymel.bsky.social
www.kanelab.org
Assistant Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Retroviruses, genetics, immunology, and cell biology
Assistant Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Retroviruses, genetics, immunology, and cell biology
It was absolutely wonderful to meet the other new PATH recipients at the @bwfund.bsky.social New Awardees meeting! I feel so lucky to be a part of this group and to connect with my peers across many interesting areas of infectious disease research.
October 8, 2026 at 7:23 PM
It was absolutely wonderful to meet the other new PATH recipients at the @bwfund.bsky.social New Awardees meeting! I feel so lucky to be a part of this group and to connect with my peers across many interesting areas of infectious disease research.
My first PhD student is defending his dissertation in two weeks!! There will be mouse genetics, there will be retroviruses, there will be B and T cells, there will be champagne, there will be me trying (and likely failing) not to cry the whole time.
Congratulations to Robert Zhang from the @cornymel.bsky.social lab on his upcoming PhD thesis defense! 🎉👏
September 30, 2026 at 2:29 AM
My first PhD student is defending his dissertation in two weeks!! There will be mouse genetics, there will be retroviruses, there will be B and T cells, there will be champagne, there will be me trying (and likely failing) not to cry the whole time.
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Remember what this is about: There is no cause more important than a renewal of liberal constitutionalism. There is no task more urgent than defending and strengthening our constitutional government.
Why Do We Even Have a Constitution Day?
Because it’s the frame of silver for our apple of gold.
lnk.thebulwark.com
September 20, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Remember what this is about: There is no cause more important than a renewal of liberal constitutionalism. There is no task more urgent than defending and strengthening our constitutional government.
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
DOGE was sold as a “massive money-saving operation.” But it actually saved nothing. The story was always about gutting the federal workforce and reshaping the agencies themselves. A new GAO report estimates federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative
September 16, 2026 at 2:32 PM
DOGE was sold as a “massive money-saving operation.” But it actually saved nothing. The story was always about gutting the federal workforce and reshaping the agencies themselves. A new GAO report estimates federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative
Without saying your age, what’s your favorite movie that came out when you were 20 years old?
September 12, 2026 at 2:01 AM
Without saying your age, what’s your favorite movie that came out when you were 20 years old?
This is a bit familiar..:
"At our core, we are devoted to learning. Specifically, we want to learn how to extract as much value as possible from everyone and everything we interact with."
buff.ly/DUbh42r
buff.ly/DUbh42r
We Are Not a “School”—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team
“At our core, we are devoted to learning. Specifically, we want to learn how to extract as much value as possible from everyone and everything we interact wi...
www.mcsweeneys.net
September 7, 2026 at 1:43 AM
This is a bit familiar..:
I would like to thank each and every one of you that doesn’t “reply all” unnecessarily. It’s a silent gift to everyone.
September 4, 2026 at 2:17 AM
I would like to thank each and every one of you that doesn’t “reply all” unnecessarily. It’s a silent gift to everyone.
Ossoff has the juice. I think he’s going to continue to be fun to watch the next few years…
Jon Ossoff: "I don't think anything illustrates the times more aptly than that the draft-dodging crook president, who has plunged our nation recklessly into a war he knows not how to end or to win, tried to imprison this man who embodies American heroism."
August 19, 2026 at 2:11 AM
Ossoff has the juice. I think he’s going to continue to be fun to watch the next few years…
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
NIH has lost more than 20% of its staff. NIH has lost 1 in every 5 workers. This undermines the NIH mission. @27unihted.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...
open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...
Lost critical expertise is hindering the NIH mission
Concern 5 of the Bethesda Declaration: One Year Later
open.substack.com
August 8, 2026 at 12:30 PM
NIH has lost more than 20% of its staff. NIH has lost 1 in every 5 workers. This undermines the NIH mission. @27unihted.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...
open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social gammretrovirus-specific nAb induction is unique to infection, suggesting this is triggered by the infectious process rather than the unique nature of specific viral antigens
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cornymel.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cornymel.bsky.social
August 6, 2026 at 6:39 PM
@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social gammretrovirus-specific nAb induction is unique to infection, suggesting this is triggered by the infectious process rather than the unique nature of specific viral antigens
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cornymel.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cornymel.bsky.social
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
July 30, 2026 at 3:10 AM
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.
July 27, 2026 at 2:39 AM
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.
120 Minutes was essential - I taped it many times to ensure that I could hear/see again all the interesting stuff that they weren’t playing the rest of the time
RIP - thanks for the tunes + the vision, Dave! consequence.net/2026/07/dave...
Dave Kendall, Creator and Host of MTV's 120 Minutes, Has Died
Dave Kendall, creator and former host of MTV’s 120 Minutes, has died.
consequence.net
July 15, 2026 at 3:48 AM
120 Minutes was essential - I taped it many times to ensure that I could hear/see again all the interesting stuff that they weren’t playing the rest of the time
This is awful and so sad
More signs of resurging HIV after USAID’s closure. African Neonatal Network reported at IMNCH (a global health conference): HIV+ pregnant women ↑50% & those not on antiretrovirals ↑>300%, year-on-year, across 22 hospitals in 5 nations. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social
July 14, 2026 at 12:32 AM
This is awful and so sad
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Four hours left. Do it. Two or three paragraphs of your own text are enough.
There are only a few hours left to comment on the proposed OMB rule that would eviscerate American science. This is the single best summary, and guidance for how to write a comment, that I have seen.
PLEASE submit something, even if it is only 2 or 3 paragraphs.
PLEASE submit something, even if it is only 2 or 3 paragraphs.
What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034)
What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice
elizabethginexi.substack.com
July 13, 2026 at 11:51 PM
Four hours left. Do it. Two or three paragraphs of your own text are enough.
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Maybe Scott Jennings can get Lindsey Graham on the phone to confirm the death of Lindsey Graham?
July 12, 2026 at 6:44 AM
Maybe Scott Jennings can get Lindsey Graham on the phone to confirm the death of Lindsey Graham?
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
let this be a lesson to deal with your feelings of gender anxiety and masculine inadequacy with a hobby or therapy or something and not a high stakes senate election
July 6, 2026 at 9:11 PM
let this be a lesson to deal with your feelings of gender anxiety and masculine inadequacy with a hobby or therapy or something and not a high stakes senate election
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Check out this paper from my friend Francis, they developed an method for isolating native capsids and identified previously unknown mechanisms of viral protein and RNA incorporation.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Capsid and integrase play essential apposing roles in viral ribonucleoprotein assembly during HIV-1 core morphogenesis
HIV-1 virions harbor a core composed of a conical shell of capsid proteins that encases the viral ribonucleoprotein complex (vRNP). The vRNP is compos…
www.sciencedirect.com
July 2, 2026 at 7:38 PM
Check out this paper from my friend Francis, they developed an method for isolating native capsids and identified previously unknown mechanisms of viral protein and RNA incorporation.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
OMB has proposed a new rule change. And, as @jvl.bsky.social describes it, it's goal is to disappear people and ideas. lnk.thebulwark.com/4uWvDvW
They Want to Disappear You
How OMB will politicize the federal grant system with this one weird trick.
lnk.thebulwark.com
June 27, 2026 at 2:00 AM
OMB has proposed a new rule change. And, as @jvl.bsky.social describes it, it's goal is to disappear people and ideas. lnk.thebulwark.com/4uWvDvW
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Fauci’s last act of public service should be to sue all these motherfuckers for every penny.
CNBC's Joe Kernen absurdly claims to an agreeing Rand Paul that Fauci "orchestrated the pandemic"
June 23, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Fauci’s last act of public service should be to sue all these motherfuckers for every penny.
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
The Trump administration is moving to weaken environmental protections for oil, gas, and coal companies operating on public lands. Today the Interior Department has proposed cutting drilling fees and loosening methane pollution requirements,
June 23, 2026 at 1:13 AM
The Trump administration is moving to weaken environmental protections for oil, gas, and coal companies operating on public lands. Today the Interior Department has proposed cutting drilling fees and loosening methane pollution requirements,
Reposted by Melissa Kane PhD
Trump is 80 years old and unhealthy, he’s one foot in the grave but all his enablers? They still have a whole life ahead of them and we all have a responsibility to make sure each and every one of them spends that remaining time in prison.
June 14, 2026 at 5:21 AM
Trump is 80 years old and unhealthy, he’s one foot in the grave but all his enablers? They still have a whole life ahead of them and we all have a responsibility to make sure each and every one of them spends that remaining time in prison.