Corticosteroid resistance is predetermined by early immune response dynamics at acute graft-versus-host disease onset Steroid-resistant acute graft-versus-host disease is set at disease onset and leads to distinct cell-to-cell cross-talk and immune trajectories.

Scientists uncover pre-treatment signatures in monocytes, myeloid cells, and T cells that predict corticosteroid resistance in patients with acute GVHD, hinting steroid resistance is an intrinsic property of immune cells. #ScienceTranslationalMedicine https://scim.ag/4t6Y4ar

Huge congrats to Professor @loisher.bsky.social who was
awarded the @nhmrc.bsky.social Elizabeth Blackburn Award - recognising the nation’s top-ranked Investigator Grant application - her work securing $2.9M to advance immunotherapy in breast cancer.

More: www.petermac.org/about-us/new...

Parkes lab pre-print alert! ‘TMEM33 deletion potentiates anti-tumor CD8⁺ T cell immunity.’ Led by mtjackson101.bsky.social. Full bluetutorial follows! 1/10 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Molecular effects of indoor tanning The skin cells of tanning bed users have distinct mutational features as compared to people who only experience natural sunlight.

Proud to share our new paper in Science Advances.

We show that indoor tanning beds cause widespread mutational damage across the skin to increase melanoma risk, especially in body sites that rarely see sunlight.

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

#Melanoma #SkinCancer

Deconvolving SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine impact on immunotherapy-related survival in a pandemic Real-world data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines, administered within 100 days of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment (“peri-ICI vaccination”), may improve ICI effectiveness, potentially ...

There was something different about patients receiving treatment for cancer in the pandemic. Less treatment was given, so it may have been restricted the fittest/ those who would most benefit. This may explain the Covid vaccine enhancement of ICB recently reported.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Brian Huntly and I are looking to recruit a postdoc to investigate a promising novel therapeutic target in B-ALL @scicambridge.bsky.social. This new CRUK-funded project will involve collaboration with Prof Sir Steve Jackson's group @cruk-ci.bsky.social and the CRUK Functional Genomics centre.

If you have meningitis you are too unwell to have tumours resected.

It would be surprising if there was an undetected burden of subacute/chronic gram negative bacterial meningitis that was presumably asymptomatic.

Does this suggest microbiota could get into tumours and yet not survive to be cultured in media that should be very amenable to them.

The microbiome has perhaps left a calling card and departed. Alternatively, contamination is more likely to reflect a patient's microbiota.

Murder in London Rolling 12-month murder total View: In numbers / rate / teens / London (since 1990 / 2003) 200 150 Oct '25 93 100 50 0 Jan '05 Jan '10 Jan '15 Jan '20 Jan '25 Includes manslaughter, infanticide, corporate manslaughter. Met Police data; excludes jurisdiction of City of London Police (for the square-mile financial district) & British Transport Police. Data to Oct 2025. published Nov 2025. updated month/v.

The murder rate in London is now the lowest in decades, perhaps centuries. (The Times)

Conceptual and methodological flaws undermine claims of a link between the gut microbiome and autism Claims that the gut microbiome causally contributes to autism regularly appear in the scientific literature and popular press. Mitchell et al. critically examine influential studies underpinning these...

“Critically assessing the literature, we found it beset by conceptual & methodological flaws & limitations, undermining claims that the gut microbiome is causally involved in etiology/pathophysiology of autism”
Crucial PSA from @wiringthebrain.bsky.social @statsepi.bsky.social @deevybee.bsky.social🧪

Oxford scientists map the cells that drive Crohn’s disease fistulas Researchers at the MRC Translational Immune Discovery Unit have identified how rare populations of abnormal cells drive the formation and persistence of fistulas - painful, tunnel-like tracts that dev...

#WIMMReads: New @nature.com study, led by the Simmons & Antanaviciute Groups, used advanced single-cell and spatial analysis techniques to map the cells that drive #Crohn's fistulas - paving the way for targeted treatments 🧪

Learn more 👇

@rdm.ox.ac.uk @medsci.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk

Impact of CMV Infection and Cancer Treatment on Vaccine Efficacy in Oncology Patients Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection leaves lasting effects on the immune system, particularly shaping T-cell populations. In patients with advanced cancer, persistent CMV exposure may influence vaccine re...

This is a very interesting study that implicates CMV seropositivity with enhanced spike-specific T cell immunity post covid vaccination.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

#WIMMReads: Oxford scientists, led by James Davies at the MRC WIMM, have captured the genome’s structure in unprecedented detail. 🧪
Read the full story below 👇
@ox.ac.uk @davieslab.bsky.social @jojdavies.bsky.social @medsci.ox.ac.uk

Thank you Blair, that's really kind.

It was a wonderful meeting and it was a real privilege to be asked to talk at it!

We're really excited about the significant impact of CMV on cancer immunity and will definitely keep exploring this.

The immunomodulatory role of human cytomegalovirus in cancer in the era of checkpoint immunotherapy | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences This review discusses the role of chronic human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection in patients receiving immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) treatment against different malignancies, with an especial focus on malignant melanoma. We briefly outline the impact ...

Great to see our review of the immunomodulatory role of cytomegalovirus and the relationship with cancer and immune checkpoint blockade treatment published as an open access article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society:

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Comprehensive analysis of microbial content in whole-genome sequencing samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas project An analysis of TCGA whole-genome sequencing samples yields a comprehensive resource for investigating the role of microbes in cancer.

www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

CMV co-evolved with human. It is a master regulator of immunity and knows about our biology more than we do.

Super paper from some super talented colleagues… CMV positivity related to better outcomes and lower toxicity with PD1 blockade, and potential protection from MM development. Lots of interesting avenues to follow and very relevant to treatment stratification 👏

Related to lively discussion @brownmedicine.bsky.social this morning about the interplay of environment, genetics and immunotherapy - here CMV seropositivity associated with much lower G3 toxicity of colon, lung, muscle, higher in skin. Very intriguing irAE data from @bpfairfax.bsky.social 🤓

Genetic determinants of monocyte splicing are enriched for disease susceptibility loci - Nature Communications Our understanding of variation in monocyte context-specific splicing and transcript usage is limited. Here, the authors find genetic variants that affect gene splicing in monocytes in specific co...

#WIMMReads

Fairfax Group ( @bpfairfax.bsky.social ) map how genetic variation shapes monocyte gene expression and splicing across immune contexts 🧪

Read more 👇
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

#Genomics #Immunology #Transcriptomics

FREE Public Talk – Why are more younger people having strokes? | NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre

Why are more younger adults having strokes? Come along to our next free public talk on Tues 4 Nov 6pm to hear researcher Linxin Li discuss what is driving the recent increase and how we tackle it oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk/brc-event/fr... @ouhospitals.bsky.social
@medsci.ox.ac.uk
@ndcnoxford.bsky.social

New CRUK Post-doc position in our group. #mutationalorder #multiomics #cancer.
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Splenic granulopoiesis and S100A9 drive resistance to checkpoint inhibitors conferred by liver metastases Here, we investigate why liver metastases reduce the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (CPI). The poor prognosis of patients with liver metastases is associated with a systemic increase in neut...

Interesting paper from Becki Lee and colleagues:

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

Genetic determinants of monocyte splicing are enriched for disease susceptibility loci - Nature Communications Our understanding of variation in monocyte context-specific splicing and transcript usage is limited. Here, the authors find genetic variants that affect gene splicing in monocytes in specific contexts, including several diseases, and in response to stimulants.

New findings in @natcomms.nature.com demonstrate the impact of allelic variation on monocyte context-specific splicing.

@bpfairfax.bsky.social & colleagues show that many risk polymorphisms lead to differential gene splicing.

➡️Reveals putative mechanisms of diverse disease risk alleles inc. cancer

PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.

But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?

PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Great news Simon!

Defining the genetic determinants of CD8+ T cell receptor repertoire in the context of immune checkpoint blockade Immune checkpoint blockade influences the genetically determined relationship between TCR repertoire and HLA alleles in cancer.

📣First paper from the lab is out in @science.org‬! 📣https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu3461 It’s well known that HLA shapes the TCR repertoire — but how does this change under immune checkpoint blockade (ICB)?

Range extender mediates long-distance enhancer activity - Nature The REX element is associated with long-range enhancer–promoter interactions.

Our paper describing the Range Extender element which is required and sufficient for long-range enhancer activation at the Shh locus is now available at @nature.com. Congrats to @gracebower.bsky.social who led the study. Below is a brief summary of the main findings www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

It's hard to avoid recalling this passage from the English historian Tony Judt:

Will we habituate to the decline of democracy? The recent attack on science in the US is not only undermining knowledge; it is also undermining democracy. In a healthy democracy, public policy is guided by evidence, and truth is the shared foundat...

"The diminution and marginalization of science are thus central parts of the erosion of democracy itself."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...