Sometimes vaccine efficacy is subtle. Sometimes it isn’t. Graph showing the number of measles cases after the 1st and 2nd MMR vaccines were recommended.

@drneilstone.bsky.social

Pop-Up 2025 - Horror Show — Superbugs - The microbial world in, on and around us

A microbial horror show — an overview of some of the most devastating infectious diseases in history.

Dare to be scared, and be inspired by the stunning advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of life-threatening infections.

Featuring cholera, measles and the plague, and many more.

We asked two microbiologists, Antonella Colque and Nurdana Orynbek, to test a selection of AI tools built for scientific publishing and research. The goal? To see how well these tools perform in real research tasks. Here is what worked for them.
And what did not : buff.ly/rm3775c

Emblem of the World Health Organization on a glass door.

WHO statement on notification of withdrawal of the United States

WHO regrets the United States’ notification of withdrawal from WHO – a decision that makes both the United States and the world less safe.

Full statement: bit.ly/46dT0HF

The US is bracing for extreme weather. Republicans are making it harder to forecast and prepare for it. Headline screenshot: A massive winter storm will hit large parts of the US through the weekend. Picture of the winter storm moving east over a map of the US, with severity of the storm indicated in gradations of red to blue.

Republicans in Congress are shutting down NCAR. The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, is home to scientists that track and forecast our weather. They maintain large-scale models, collect data, and accurately pinpoint when dangerous weather conditions start to develop. Picture of two scientists looking at a monitor.

As weather becomes more extreme, accurate forecasts mean better preparation. Better preparation can mean the difference between saving people's lives, or stranding them. If Congress shuts down NCAR, we will be flying blind. Take Action to #SaveNCAR tr.ee/save-ncar

As Americans are hunkering down this weekend, congressional Republicans are stripping away the science that keeps us safe and prepared for future extreme weather.

NCAR isn't just a lab, it's the beating heart of US meteorology.

Write to your representative at tr.ee/save-ncar!
#saveNCAR #fundNCAR

Magical thinking will not prevent future pandemics or improve public health For much of human history, infectious diseases were the main causes of morbidity and mortality. The sciences of public health, epidemiology, microbiology, and vaccine and drug development have dramati...

In @science.org, our Senior Adviser @drsethberkley.bsky.social pushes back on policies that weaken pandemic preparedness. Abandoning surveillance, vaccines, and proven public health tools puts Americans at risk, evidence-based strategies must lead policy.

More here ⬇️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨 New Epi Alert this week: No new Marburg cases in Ethiopia for 21 days & Nestlé recalls infant formula in 49 countries after B. cereus toxin detected. Updates on MERS-CoV in Saudia Arabia, dengue in Sri Lanka, India's waterborne disease epidemic & more. https://ow.ly/t5S350XpQJT

#IDSky #clinmicro

Genetic difference may help explain wide variation in COVID severity | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health A specific genetic difference in a gene called RTP5—known to be involved in smell and taste perception—was linked to a higher risk of early death in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, a study...

A specific genetic difference in a gene called RTP5—known to be involved in smell and taste perception—was linked to a higher risk of early death in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, according to a recent study led by researchers at Harvard Chan School. @harvardenvhealth.bsky.social

Medical Product Alert N°7/2025: Falsified IBRANCE (palbociclib) Alert SummaryThis WHO Medical Product Alert refers to nine lots of falsified IBRANCE (palbociclib). These falsified products have been detected in Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Türkiye and…

In the latest @who.int Medical Product Alert #falsified IBRANCE (palbociclib) – a drug used to treat certain breast cancers - has been detected in Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Turkey #FakeMeds
Read more www.who.int/news/item/15...

Early-stage cancer classified with 100% sensitivity, using cell-free RNA. Read how researchers detected cancer early using Oxford Nanopore sequencing as a non-invasive tool, with the potential to inform cancer care more rapidly and accurately than before. https://bit.ly/4rqvHDH

A health worker wearing a mask and cap sprays insecticide. Text on the image reads: “Malaria control is facing new and harder challenges.” Yellow labels list the challenges: “Drug resistance,” “Insecticide resistance,” “New mosquito threat,” “Extreme weather events,” and “Conflict.”

New WHO report shows growing resistance to lifesaving malaria drugs:

🚩 Partial resistance to artemisinin confirmed or suspected in at least 8 African countries
🚩 Pyrethroid resistance in 48 countries
🚩 Anopheles stephensi 🦟 now detected in 9 African countries

🔗 bit.ly/3Y6IcXn #EndMalaria

Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides Phages often degrade the genome of their bacterial host to individual nucleotides and use these nucleotides to build their own genome. In this study, we describe a bacterial defense system that direct...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage

💚 Last night, the Institut Pasteur lit up its historic building in green: the color of Phelan‑McDermid syndrome.

This rare genetic disorder is linked to developmental & language challenges and autism.

It was here that researchers identified SHANK3, the gene behind the syndrome 🧬✨

Pathogen distribution and antimicrobial resistance among neonatal bloodstream infections in Southeast Asia: results from NeoSEAP, a multicentre retrospective study Neonatal sepsis in tertiary hospitals in Southeast Asia is predominantly caused by gram-negative bacteria, with high rates of non-susceptibility to commonly prescribed antibiotics.

Across Southeast Asia most newborn infections are now caused #AMR bugs, making standard treatments for neonatal sepsis ineffective. Without updated, locally informed treatment guidelines and new antibiotic development, infant mortality rates will rise.

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

This is amazing! Researchers at McMaster University have discovered an antibiotic that could treat inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s Disease without killing beneficial gut bacteria

healthsci.mcmaster.ca/new-antibiot...

I had the great honor of representing Madagascar at the 15th International Symposium on Yersinia in Mongolia, where researchers working on the challenges posed by plague and other yersiniosis presented their work. I also presented some of the results of my PhD on the phylogeography of Y. pestis.

Novltex: A New Class of Antibiotics with Potent Activity against Multidrug-Resistant Bacterial Pathogens─Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation Increasing spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria demands antibiotics that combine potent activity with scalable synthesis. Novo29 (clovibactin) is promising but suffers from low yield (1%), dep...

💊 New antibiotic class

Scientists have developed Novltex, a new antibiotic with strong activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria like MRSA. It’s cheaper to make and highly effective in lab tests.

🔗 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

#SciComm #Antibiotics #AMR 🧪

Plague in Madagascar: a new model sheds light on the seasonality of outbreaks A new model has been developed to elucidate the seasonal dynamics of plague in Madagascar. In this country, where the disease remains endemic, and most often occurs between October and March. The asso...

A new model sheds light on the seasonal dynamics of plague in Madagascar — a step toward better prevention through a One Health approach.

🔗 Read more: www.pasteur.fr/en/research-...

@scauchemez.bsky.social
@abrault.bsky.social
@fanohi.bsky.social

Poster with the title "The Hidden Cost of Heat: Falling Productivity." Subtext reads: "Productivity drops by 2–3% for every degree above 20°C." The design shows a worker in an orange-toned outfit and a wide-brimmed hat, bending down as if farming or picking crops.

🌡️ Heat is already hurting billions.

Outdoor & manual workers in agriculture, construction & beyond face rising temperatures that slash productivity & threaten lives.

The new WHO / @wmo-global.bsky.social report shares practical, evidence-based solutions 👉 bit.ly/3JvqKI1 #ClimateAction

California resident tests positive for the plague after camping, officials say South Lake Tahoe resident was probably bitten by infected flea while camping in the area, local health authorities say

Plague is not a disease of the past
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

An exciting negative result!

“In a paper published in Nature Communications, the researchers have shown for the 1st time that mRNA can be delivered into the cells where HIV is hiding, by encasing it in a tiny, specially formulated fat bubble. The mRNA then instructs the cells to reveal the virus.”
The virus can no longer hide!

New study shows that E. coli can evolve antibiotic resistance during treatment This new study, led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, details the rapid evolution of resistance in an E.

New research from LSTM shows E. coli can evolve drug resistance mid-treatment by amplifying an existing gene, not gaining a new one.

A striking reminder of how quickly resistance can emerge.

🔗

Animated Maps with {ggplot2} and {gganimate} In this blog we are creating an animated map of the gapminder data using {ggplot2} and {gganimate}. In the process we will cover some of the common pitfalls when working with spatial data and how to get round them!

In our latest blog post, our Data Scientist Osheen MacOscar shares a great overview of how to use {ggplot2} and {gganimate}, when dealing with spatial data.

#rstats #datavis #spatialdata #maps

Figure from the preprint, on variations in chromosome sequences

Telomere-to-telomere assembly detects genomic diversity in Canadian strains of Borrelia burgdorferi

diversity & conservation among Lyme spirochetes, including the curious DNA chunk that is sometimes on the chromosome, other times a separate linear plasmid

#MicroSky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Plasmids link antibiotic resistance genes and phage defense systems in E. coli Phage therapy has been proposed as an alternative to antibiotics to treat resistant infections. However, we have a limited understanding of how antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) associate with bacter...

New pre-print from my lab!
Plasmids link antibiotic resistance and phage defense.

E.coli plasmids are hotspots for both antibiotic resistance and phage defense. Phage therapy has the potential to accidentally select for antibiotic resistance!!!
#microsky#AMR#phage

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....

📣 I'm recruiting a postdoc researcher to join my team for a project on mosquito-specific viruses and host interactions. Peep the job description & how to apply below. Perfect for soon-to-be or recent PhD graduates in mosquito vector biology 🦟 or arbovirology 🦠
🗓️ Application deadline 31 August 2025

🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity.

We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity.
Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Researchers value null results, but struggle to publish them Survey finds that fear of reputational harm and a lack of support and publication platforms are among respondents’ key concerns.

“just 68% of the 7,057 researchers whose work had produced null results had shared them in some form, and just 30% had tried to publish them in a journal.”

What a joke.

#NullEffectsMatter

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Les leçons de la peste YouTube video by Institut Pasteur

The plague, always... 😊
youtu.be/eBdwcqa39rc?...