I absolutely loved meeting the next gen of researchers. It was a wonderful event - congrats to you and your staff for organizing, advocating, and supporting.

Photo of Dr. Paul O'Byrne's opinion piece in the Hamilton Spectator with my photo chosen to represent -presumably because of my most snappy blue and white shoes.

I was so touched to be mentioned in @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social 's Dean of the Faculty of Health Science (Dr. Paul O'Byrne) opinion piece in @thespec1846.bsky.social. So nice to see so many of my infectious disease research colleagues mentioned. I love my job.
www.thespec.com/opinion/cont...

‼️ Only 10 days left until abstract submission and regular registration deadline for the Southern Ontario Neuroscience Association (SONA) 🧠 meeting at @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social on May 2, 2026! We have a fantastic lineup of speakers - see flyer! Registration and abstract links are also below 👇

Gearing up for the Paul O’ Byrne Trainee Research Day for the division of #respirology May 12 - it’s great to see the enthusiasm from trainees across different stages of training and expertise - fundamental science to residents to clinical fellows! We have 41 abstracts submitted! #PoBTraineeDay2026

She is a remarkably gifted experimentalist. Canada would be very lucky to have her.

Hey #medsky #pulmsky - The Lung Health Foundation is recruiting a Medical Director for their Primary Care Asthma & COPD Program. Ontario clinicians who want evidence-based programming that is responsive to primary care practice should apply to this remote, voluntary, part-time advisory role. 🫁

Immunotherapy has been such a revolution. Every time I hear a talk by one of the grad students in my centre I always want to shake them and say ‘you are so lucky to be part of this!’ and to my faculty colleagues ‘godspeed’. It all starts with #basicscience

It’s official: scientists aren’t funny. But it doesn’t have to be this way | Helen Pilcher It’s a world of bottom quarks and arsole compounds – so why is science still so serious? Levity can make it all a lot easier to understand, says science writer Helen Pilcher

*Some* scientists aren't funny. Others certainly are, but it's a difficult skill to learn and doesn't work for a scientific audience unless there is a lot of substance to back it up. My PhD supervisor gave me some great advice "People want to be entertained. Don't be boring."

Flu season still here, warns mom of Calgary cancer patient sick with influenza B | CBC News The mother of a young Calgary cancer patient is reminding Albertans the flu season is not over yet, and she's calling on people to consider the vulnerable when they're weighing vaccination this fall.

I often talk about the importance of getting vaccinated to protect the most vulnerable. Lately I've had Erin Nicholls and family in mind. She's an old friend who has a son (pictured) fighting cancer and recently he's had to fight influenza and 2nd infection too. Thanks to @jenleecbc.bsky.social

📅 SAVE THE DATE 📅 The 44th annual meeting of the Southern Ontario Neuroscience Association will be held on Saturday May 2, 2026 at @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social in Hamilton, Ontario. Abstract submission and registration will open in 2 days! More info sonasfn.org/meetings/ Please share🔄

A photograph that’s in black-and-white and it’s of a microphone. This is a podcast cover for a podcast called “No Ostriching Here.” cohosted by the ReSisters and this is a new episode dropping with Dr. Dawn Bowdish, also known as Ms. Macrophage

She known around these parts as @msmacrophage.bsky.social
& @theresisters.bsky.social got a chance to down w/ Dr. Dawn Bowdish to have a convo about “big eaters” (aka MPs), measles, a vaccine registry & then there’s aging chatter.
open.spotify.com/episode/3CXU...
podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/n...

Dr Ade is doing her Canadian funded post-doctoral fellowship in my lab. I can attest that she is an exceptional scientist who studies the immunology of age and teaches immunology and not someone who builds robots. Madness.

One of the clips from
the Episode #7 where Prof Bowdish (@msmacrophage.bsky.social) describes aging, inflammation, and the role of vaccines on cognitive health.

#Vaccines
#Dementia
#Inflammation

This was a fun episode.

We love getting to know about a scientist’s favourite field of study as well as their other interests and passions - which sometimes may even intersect.

We are looking forward to seeing examples of the beauty of the macrophage, @msmacrophage.bsky.social!

Sign of the European Phagocyte Workshop

Me surrounded by the ridiculous beauty that is every Oxford college.

I love phagocytosis- the most ancient form of immunity (estimated at 1 billion yrs old!). Lucky to geek out with all the other macrophage and neutrophil geeks at beautiful Keble college, Oxford.

Having skimmed the paper I would say this is consistent with observations dating back a century where elements of immune responses to infection can help ‘undo’ some of the immune suppression that occurs in cancers but is not COVID specific. Nice paper but the COVID link may be an overstatement

Thank you to Jennifer Yang and all reporters covering science topics. I truly believe that public trust in science increases when scientists are portrayed as the passionate, empathetic people that they are and the scientific process is told so compellingly. More of this please! #scicomm

Canadian researcher Gerry Wright is searching for the next generation of life-saving antibiotics More than 5 million deaths every year are caused by or linked to superbugs

I ❤️ this @theglobeandmail.com piece on @gdwantibiotics.bsky.social. Such a beautiful story about his drive to discover new antibiotics against all odds, a tribute to his global leadership, not to mention the many trainee careers he has launched. So honoured to have been hired by this great man. #AMR

Lack of harmonisation in immunological data: challenges in synthesising data during the COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic drove the rapid development of assays to ascertain immune responses, and laboratories were required to adapt to difficult and qu…

Almost forgot... thanks to Nicole Shaver, Julian Little and team for putting this together. Happy to have contributed and will keep it bookmarked for the next pandemic (sigh).
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

... and follow a ROSES (Reporting of Seroepidemiologic Studies for Influenza) type guideline so others could reproduce our work and we could see what others were doing 5/5 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#olderandwiser #pandemicpreparedness

And immunologists have opinions - lots of them. Nonetheless, if there were two things I'd do differently, I would included open-ended questions for symptoms (we really didn't believe that loss of smell or menstrual irregularities were a thing in March 2020 as it had never been reported before) & 4/n

Of course on of the challenges is we still don't really know what the cellular immune correlates of protection are and that shifting variants means we still don't have a really level of protection for antibody based assays so even 6 yrs later I'm hard-pressed to pick the 'best' assays. 3/n

Table 2 from paper comparing areas for standardization and harmonization

One of the challenges is being able to compare immunologic assays done across the world when there is limited/no reference material. You can mitigate that by basic standards in reporting (e.g. level of detection), which we are now including in all our papers. 2/n

Lack of harmonisation in immunological data: challenges in synthesising data during the COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic drove the rapid development of assays to ascertain immune responses, and laboratories were required to adapt to difficult and qu…

I sincerely hope that there will not be another pandemic in my lifetime, but I suspect that's wishful thinking. When it hits we'll need some institutional memory of lessons learned getting serological assay up and running with limited materials and knowledge but a desperate need. 1/n

Just listened - really great job explaining the disease, the gene editing, and the outcome.

© CBC/Radio-Canada 2026. All rights reserved.

Great to talk with Matt Galloway on CBC The Current this morning about successful gene therapy for a human immune defect.

The Current with Matt Galloway - March 9, 2026: How a gene edit gave a B.C teen his life back.

www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

@mattgalloway.bsky.social @bcchresearch.bsky.social

What's better than an evening learning about the math of #epidemics?

Learning about the science of #measles too!

Another great Royal City Science "Science on Tap" featuring Drs David Earn & @msmacrophage.bsky.social.

Check out the RSC website for upcoming events.

royalcityscience.ca

So looking forward to this - come hang out in Guelph tonight with David Earn & me - his talk is going to be so interesting - he has digitized Seth’s certificates of measles going back to the 16th century! I’ll be all immunology all the time, and the immunology of measles infections is fascinating.

For the record I am spoiled for favourite mathematicians at @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social and don't worry, @jdushoff.bsky.social you are also on the list.

Science on Tap: Measles Outbreaks Learn why this infection is not just a minor childhood illness and how it causes the immune system to 'forget'. Plus all about vaccines!

Free public event in Guelph, Ontario. Come hang out with me and (one of) my favourite math/infectious disease modellers -David Earn and talk about measles. Why is it back? Why is it bad? Why is it so much more deadly than other respiratory viruses? Quiz! Beer! Geeky fun will be had.