Daartey retweeted
Elon Musk stutters. Not occasionally. Consistently. In almost every interview and public appearance, there are moments where he pauses mid sentence for 3 to 5 seconds, searching for a word that his brain has processed but his mouth cannot produce. The pauses are long enough that interviewers visibly shift in discomfort. The audience holds its breath. The man who runs 6 companies simultaneously cannot always produce the next word in a sentence.
The speaking difficulty is not a performance. It is not a thinking pause (though he has those too). It is a genuine processing bottleneck between his thoughts and his speech. His brain operates faster than his verbal output system can manage. The thoughts are there. The words lag. The lag produces the stutter, the filler sounds, and the long silences that define his public speaking.
As a child in South Africa, the speaking difficulty was more pronounced. He was slow to speak. He was quiet in class. Teachers assumed he was intellectually behind. The boy who was reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica at 9 was perceived as struggling because his verbal output didn't match his cognitive input. The gap between what he knew and what he could say was the first version of a pattern that would follow him for life.
The irony is devastating: the man whose companies depend on public trust, investor confidence, and media communication is physiologically disadvantaged at the one activity that produces all three. Every keynote, every earnings call, every interview requires him to perform the skill his nervous system handles worst. He does it anyway. Poorly. Consistently. Without avoiding it.
He has never used a teleprompter. He has never used scripted remarks. He speaks live, stutters live, pauses live, and recovers live. The refusal to script is not bravery. It is authenticity pushed to a point that makes his communications team visibly nervous. The man would rather stutter through the truth than fluently deliver a script.
The most powerful communicator of the 21st century, the man whose tweets move markets and whose vision has redirected entire industries, cannot always finish a sentence without a 5 second pause. The words don't come easy. They never have. He says them anyway. And the world that watches him stumble through a keynote then watches him land a rocket and concludes that the stumble is what makes the landing believable. The man is not polished. He is real. The stutter is the proof.
Daartey retweeted
I’m thrilled to welcome John Issa to our department’s faculty! He’s looking for students and postdocs, so if you’re interested in memory, cognition, and optical imaging, come work with John!!!
neuralsignalslab.org/researc…
Daartey retweeted
We are searching for a new colleague in our Department of Biology at University of Oregon!
This is a super special opportunity-- an endowed chair position in Genetics/Genomics. Come join us!
I'm happy to answer any questions folks might have
careers.pageuppeople.com/726…
Daartey retweeted
Deeply honoured to have been elected a Fellow of the International Science Council (@ISC). Grateful for this recognition!
Proud to be flying the @KNUSTGH flag on the global stage as we advance science for the global good.
Professor Priscilla Kolibea Mante of the Department of Pharmacology at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (KNUST) has been elected a Fellow of the International Science Council (ISC), the highest honour the Council can confer on an individual.
Drawn from nearly 30 countries, the new Fellows represent diverse disciplines, sectors and career stages. They join a global network of more than 200 Fellows working to strengthen scientific cooperation and the contribution of science to society.
Learn more here⬇️
knust.edu.gh/news/news-items…
Daartey retweeted
Ready to lead the next wave of discovery in precision oncology? Fred Hutch is recruiting a Faculty Position, Bezos Family Distinguished Scholar in Precision Oncology within the Human Biology Division. Apply today: apply.interfolio.com/193908
Our latest work is officially out in Pharmacological Reviews! We explore existing and emerging therapeutic strategies targeting autophagy regulation to combat cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. sciencedirect.com/science/ar…. @parul09546300

ALT Screenshot of the header and title section of a scientific research paper published in the journal Pharmacological Reviews. The text reads: "REVIEW ARTICLE - Harnessing autophagy and its transcriptional regulation in tumorigenesis and neurodegeneration: Potential and existing therapeutic strategies." The listed authors are Parul Suri, Abel B. Daartey, D.M. Isha Olive Khan, Naga Pradeep Rayana, Rameswari Chilamakuri, Deepika Godugu, Mahan Gholam Azad, Katelyn L. Reeb, and Des R. Richardson. The ASPET logo is visible in the top left corner.
Congratulations to the esteemed Prof. Abotsi🎉🎉. Anyone who hasn't experienced his teaching or leadership is truly missing out.
Daartey retweeted
🚨🧬 We are seeking a PhD student and a postdoc to join our team at MRC-LMB and investigate co-transcriptional splicing using cryoEM and biochemistry!
PhD project: mrclmb.ac.uk/careers-and-peo…
Postdoc call will open soon.
Please feel free to get in touch directly.
#PhD #postdoc
Daartey retweeted
Postdoc opening: My lab at NYU Langone Health is looking for a new postdoctoral fellow with wet-lab experience for an exciting project.
Daartey retweeted
New @jclinicalinvest study led by @BraunMDPhD @YaleCancer and super star Dr Madsen : HIF-2α inhibition with belzutifan preserves T-cell effector function in ccRCC—supporting the rationale for combining HIF-2α and PD-1 blockade without compromising T-cell activity.
Reassuring translational evidence!
jci.org/articles/view/204613
Daartey retweeted
People ask if I ever thought about quitting my PhD.
I never packed up my desk.
But there were seasons when I understood exactly why people quit.
Sometimes it is the healthiest decision a person can make.
Leaving a PhD is not a failure.
I have written about what it cost: the sleep, the evenings, and the toll on my health that I'm still repaying.
As a student-mentor, I haven't said enough about how many people reach out to me while struggling quietly.
We don't talk about it enough
A doctorate can be isolating in ways that are hard to explain.
→ Years of uncertainty about whether the work will hold.
→ Long stretches where nobody checks on you, because there is no syllabus.
→ The constant feeling that everyone else is managing better.
→ For many international students, all of it far from family and sometimes for family....
None of that is a sign of weakness.
It is the environment.
If you are in a program right now and it is wearing you down:
→ Tell someone early. Your advisor, a friend, your program's counseling service.
Most people wait far longer than they should.
→ Remember that timelines can move.
A degree finished a few months late is still a degree.
Your health does not come back on the same terms.
→ Know that stepping away is allowed.
A PhD is training for a career. It is not your identity, and it is not the only path to a meaningful one.
And if you lead a program or supervise students: ask how they are doing, and wait for the real answer.
My advisors asked about my family before every meeting. It made it possible to tell them the truth.
Sometimes I will just be blunt and tell my advisors that things are not going as expected.
Supervisor-student communication is a critical component.
To everyone who has left a program to protect their health: you did not lose. You chose yourself.
To everyone still in one: check on the person next to you this week.
Daartey retweeted
By building one of the most comprehensive datasets of neuroblastoma samples, St. Jude researchers and collaborators identified a gene expression signature that distinguishes high-risk, treatment-resistant neuroblastoma cells from lower-risk cells. The finding improves the ability to study disease linked to poor outcomes and provides new patient-derived models to help evaluate potential treatment strategies. bit.ly/4hDnGIM
Daartey retweeted
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”
Daartey retweeted
I have postdoc positions available to lead two new exciting projects! One is on in situ protein sequencing (collab with Ed Boyden at MIT) and the other is on modeling cryptic pockets for drug discovery (collab with Scripps and MGH). Reach out if interested! Details below
This is what I would have done!
If money wasn’t a problem, I’d probably spend my whole life studying.
A master’s in philosophy, then astrophysics, physics, ancient history, psychology… Whatever makes me understand this weird existence a little better.
Not for a career, not for a degree.
Just because there’s so much to know and one lifetime already feels too short.
Inspiring and amazing things
Thanks to everyone sharing in this moment!
I’m so grateful to my trainees & collaborators…
dlab.stanford.edu/group-memb…
(pic: optogenetics conference chairs, Tuscany)
Reading for all those asking:
for technical details: dlab.stanford.edu
for everyone: deisseroth.org/projections
Daartey retweeted
BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

































