t-invariant: American biologist Sergei Mirkin: “People don’t believe that this is happening in the United States today”

American biologist Sergei Mirkin: “People don’t believe that this is happening in the United States today”

American universities are being stripped of government funding. Some universities have announced hiring freezes this year. Others are laying off their staff. Still others – Columbia University, for example – have been left without government grants. But beyond purely financial decisions, we are also seeing interference in the substantive work of science. Why is the Trump administration turning on scientists? T-invariant talked to Tufts University endowment professor, biologist Sergei Mirkin, who has been working in the United States for 36 years.

Sergei Mirkin was born in 1956 in Moscow. He graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University in 1978, then entered graduate school at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, defended his PhD thesis in 1983 and worked there until he left for the U.S. in 1989. From 1990 to 2006 he was faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (Professor from 2002). Since 2007, he has served as Professor and White Family Chair in Biology at Tufts University (Biology Department Chair 2013-2019). Mirkin’s research interests lie in the area of DNA structure and function: the role of genomic instability caused by repetitive DNA sequences and collisions between transcription and replication in human genetic diseases. He is a recipient of several prestigious scientific awards and honors.

The main enemy is university liberals...

https://t-invariant.org/2025/04/american-biologist-sergei-mirkin-people-don-t-believe-that-this-is-happening-in-the-united-states-today/