Remembering public health pioneer Barry Bloom: a scientist, a mentor, a mensch Marc Lipsitch and Yonatan Grad pay tribute to their former colleague and mentor Barry R. Bloom.

Barry Bloom, former dean of @hsph.harvard.edu & a leading immunologist, recently died at the age of 88. Two colleagues, @mlipsitch.bsky.social & @yhgrad.bsky.social, have written a lovely tribute of the man and his work. www.statnews.com/2026/03/30/b...

Remembering public health pioneer Barry Bloom: a scientist, a mentor, a mensch Marc Lipsitch and Yonatan Grad pay tribute to their former colleague and mentor Barry R. Bloom.

www.statnews.com/2026/03/30/b...

@mlipsitch.bsky.social and I shared a few words about a giant of public health and immunology--and a beloved friend and mentor, who bridged basic science and its translation on a global scale.

Remembering public health pioneer Barry Bloom: a scientist, a mentor, a mensch Marc Lipsitch and Yonatan Grad pay tribute to their former colleague and mentor Barry R. Bloom.

“It was Barry who discovered that lymphocytes-not macrophages, as some hypothesized-that carry immune memory. showed that lymphocytes signal to macrophages through a chemical they termed MIF-which, together w/ interferon, were the 1st cytokines discovered” www.statnews.com/2026/03/30/b...

Genomic perplexity and the evolution of context-dependent function Abstract. The fundamental principle that selection acts on a gene's function often assumes implicitly that this function is fixed and intrinsic. However, e

I'm thankful to MBE for publishing this paper. I wan't sure anybody would. The handling editor (I now know was Jeff Townsend) was great, as were the 2 reviewers. It is not an outcome/product/discovery, it is my way of thinking about HGT & pangenomes 1/3 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Changes in paracetamol and leucovorin use after a White House briefing Changes in federal prescribing recommendations follow deliberate and transparent processes involving US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists, which normally include input from stakeholders an...

What happened after the weird Sept 2025 White House press conference on autism?

📉 Tylenol use in the ED dropped >10% among pregnant patients
📈 leucovorin rx jumped 93% among kids 5-17 immediately afterwards

new @thelancet.com today with @jeremyfaust.bsky.social

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

You know that annoying NSF form "List every coauthor/co-PI from the last 4y" ?

At @cevianlabs.io we built a free tool that drafts the COI form from your PDF CV in minutes. Check it out 👇

Dr. Bhattacharya recently came to U. Chicago for an "off the record" event. My strong impression was that he is truly unfamiliar with how most biomedical research works.

Something very different and cool for my lab. Sequencing a 4.4mb TB genome using the Artic-style PCR amplicon method with >5128 primers in two reactions 🤯

Enables culture-free WGS for TB!

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.

Kudos to @dhelekal.bsky.social for leading the work and to the great team from the lab and our collaborators.

Now published: our work using phylodynamics from surveillance data to quantify and experimentally validate the fitness impact of antibiotic resistance determinants & how this changes with patterns of antibiotic use: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Statistical methods for estimating the protective effects of immune markers using test-negative designs Abstract. While widely used to study vaccine effectiveness, test-negative designs (TNDs) also provide a platform for identifying and quantifying immunologi

Models can be powerful tools to study associations in data. But do they reliably reveal the truth?

🚨 In our new study, @danlarremore.bsky.social and I show that the model used to estimate VE from test-negative designs (TNDs) may not translate to other correlates of risk.

doi.org/10.1093/aje/...

Thank you, Alan! Very kind.

6. @yhgrad.bsky.social's group used modeling to ask how best to deploy new antibiotics for #gonorrhea.

Their findings suggest that introducing 2 new drugs alongside 1 current therapy is more effective at minimizing resistance than holding new agents in reserve!

🔗: academic.oup.com/cid/article/...

This is a great @cidjournal.bsky.social supplement for all you #gonorrhea, #STI, and #AMR enthusiasts. Or for anyone who’s heard about drug-resistant gonorrhea and wants to learn more.

Will link articles in 🧵 below - check it out and share! #openaccess

#IDsky #STIsky

bsky.app/profile/carb...

Dear #AMR #genomics and big data community: please be informed that the programme of the Wellcome AMR conference in Hinxton on March 23-26th is now online: coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/antimi... - please register before Feb 24th for onsite participation

Headshots of Yontan Grad (left) and Jeff Imai-Eaton (right) with a dark green background and graphics.

We are excited to announce that as of January 1st @yhgrad.bsky.social is the new Director of @ccdd-hsph.bsky.social, joining him is @jeff-imai-eaton.bsky.social, as Associate Director. Join us in congratulating Yonatan and Jeff in their new roles!

➡️ Learn about CCDD: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9URu...

Check out our new print that combines dense sequencing and phylodynamics to uncover a bunch of 😎 things about an understudied virus.

- Doesn't evolve for 10 months a year ✅
- Uses some mossies for maintenance, others for spread ✅
- Established in Northeast for ~300 years ✅

Comparing Strategies to Introduce Two New Antibiotics for Gonorrhea: A Modeling Study Immediately introducing 2 new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea alongside 1 currently used therapy is more effective at minimizing drug resistance than holdin

New publication! Comparing Strategies to Introduce Two New Antibiotics for Gonorrhea: A Modeling Study featuring authors: @mckline98.bsky.social, @kroster.bsky.social, @dhelekal.bsky.social, @rumpl-er.bsky.social, and @yhgrad.bsky.social. Read it here at bit.ly/3Z1Zplh

Looking forward to reading!

Fascinating story here!

We will need to monitor these mutations as we start to use these new antibiotics, especially in the Asia Pacific region, where ceftriaxone resistance is already nearly 30% and the ParC D86N is a concern.

N. gonorrhoeae is such a humbling bug...

#Gonorrhea #AMR

Learning how infectious diseases spread—and how to stop them YouTube video by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The mission of Harvard Chan School’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (@ccdd-hsph.bsky.social) is to understand how infectious diseases emerge and spread, to train the next generation of scientists and public health officials, and to guide policy with rigorous science.

Why are gonorrhea case rates declining in the US? A research agenda - PubMed After nearly a decade of rising gonorrhea rates, the United States CDC reported a decline in infection rates for two years in a row in 2022 and 2023, especially among young adults. While this warrants cautious optimism that control measures have been successful, the reasons for the decline are unkno …

U.S. gonorrhea rates fell in 2022 and 2023 after nearly a decade of increases—new paper by @kroster.bsky.social and @yhgrad.bsky.social maps out possible drivers, current evidence, and the data needed to understand what is causing the decline. Read more at bit.ly/4aWmc9i

And there it is: FDA has approved zoliflodacin for gonorrhea as well.
That makes two new antibiotics to treat this STI and it means a fascinating debate now about how to use these drugs in a way that will delay resistance as much as possible…
🧪 #IDsky

🧪 #gonorrhoea #mustread today's news about 2 new drugs to treat #gonorrhoea

Thanks @kakape.bsky.social for opportunity to say, "The availability of two new drugs will lead to an important and likely controversial debate about how best to use them"

And to @yhgrad.bsky.social @gardp.bsky.social

Antimicrobial resistant bacteria and genes move freely between people, animals and the environment By analysing Escherichia coli (E. coli) genomes, researchers have shown that antimicrobial resistant bacteria and the genes that confer resistance move between bacterial hosts and across ecological co...

New #MicroSky study showing extensive transmission of #AMR E coli transmission in East Africa under One Health framework, led by Patrick Musicha www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/an...

A challenge, for sure. But hopefully with lessons for how we can do things better.

It's never good news with gonorrrhea, is it 💊 🧫