Consultant and Board Member. Intrigued by the evolution of drug discovery based on an expanding understanding of complex biology. All opinions are my own.

MARCO ISLAND, FL
Joined October 2012
Excellent 2026 Virginia Film Festival, some excellent films and good panel discussions.
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George Vlasuk retweeted
Science magazine’s account is riddled with inaccurate and misleading reporting. Start with the verdict. The jury awarded David $500,000 for defamation, $3.2M for interference with contractual relationships in a category explicitly naming MIT et al., and $2.3M for interference with prospective professional relationships. It rejected Knouse’s claims of sexual harassment, hostile workplace and educational environments, and retaliation. These are findings in a court of law, not competing opinions to balance against the losing side’s disappointment. Of the $6M awarded, $5.5M concerned interference with David’s professional relationships. Science obscures the connection to MIT et al. and the administrators whose actions inflicted those losses. Causation was central to what David had to prove. In “but for” legalistic terminology, the losses would not have occurred without the conduct at issue. If David would have suffered the same losses anyway because of a culture survey, an investigation, or anything else independent of Knouse’s conduct, those losses could not be attributed to her interference or her words. Science never examines that implication. MIT et al.’s actions on based Knouse's behavior were how allegations became lost employment, a lost laboratory, and a lost career. Yet Science tells readers the verdict “has no direct impact on the conclusions of Whitehead’s probe.” That framing ignores the causal connection established by the interference and defamation findings and treats the institutional investigation as insulated from the verdict. Science also returns to allegations of a sexualized or “toxic” environment as something David merely denies. Knouse sued him over those allegations. The verdict form explicitly asks whether she proved a sexually hostile workplace or educational environment. The jury answered no to both. Recycling those allegations while giving the losing attorney space to attack the jury’s competence protects the institutional narrative from scrutiny. Allegations retain their authority. The verdict becomes an inconvenient opinion. MIT et al. exercised the power that destroyed David’s career. Science should scrutinize their actions with the same aggression it directed at him. Institutional prestige is not evidence, and “independent investigation” is not a magic phrase that makes the verdict disappear.
A Massachusetts jury has awarded biologist David Sabatini $6 million—plus interest—in damages in his defamation case against Kristin Knouse, a former colleague at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The physician-scientist’s claims led one research institution to fire Sabatini and precipitated his resignations from Whitehead and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a tenured faculty member. Read more: scim.ag/4jxig3b
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Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, he got shot up over North Korea. In 1951, he was a 21-year-old Navy pilot with Fighter Squadron 51, flying F9F Panther jets off the carrier USS Essex. He was one of the youngest pilots in the squadron. On September 3, 1951, he was flying a low-level attack run in North Korea, diving on targets in a valley at around 350 miles per hour. Then something tore into his plane. He clipped a cable strung across the valley, likely an anti-aircraft booby trap meant to snag low-flying jets. It sheared off roughly six feet of his right wing. Most pilots would've gone down right there. Armstrong kept the crippled jet in the air and nursed it back toward friendly territory. He couldn't land it. So over South Korea, he ejected. He was hoping to come down in the sea where the Navy could pick him up. The wind blew him back over land instead. He landed in a rice paddy near an American air base. The jeep that came to pick him up was driven by one of his old roommates from flight school. Armstrong flew 78 combat missions in Korea. Eighteen years later, the young pilot who limped home on one and a half wings was the first human being to set foot on another world.
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Momma dolphin and brand new baby hunting around the backyard dock this morning
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George Vlasuk retweeted
Introducing our next-gen “hypoxia in a pill” - we upgrade the combo by replacing GBT440 w/ 2nd-gen Hb affinity enhancer GBT601, and continue to pair with HIF-2α inhibitor PT2399. Highly effective in advanced Parkinson’s dz and Leigh syndrome mouse models tinyurl.com/35x36ayx
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Hmmm, intriguing results but may be dependent on mouse strain? insight.jci.org/articles/vie…
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Just another sunset last night.
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We’ve lost an icon. Margaret Hamilton, a computer science pioneer best known for her work at MIT leading development of the flight software for the Apollo missions to the moon, has died at 90. Read about her legacy via MIT News: news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-h…
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