We're recruiting! We're looking for two graduate students to join us at UBC in Vancouver. Fully funded and open to global applicants, with flexible start-date. Topics include theory, bioinformatics, and microbiology. More details: asherleeks.com/apply #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪

🚨Call for papers🚨 Microbial Evolution: Impacts on Human Health in the society journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health Guest Editors: Bob Woods, Silvie Huijben & Camilo Barbosa EIC: me This will be great, please submit and share! academic.oup.com/emph/pages/m...

"We propose that the X-chromosome is a promising marker to explore the genetic underpinning of menopause in matrilineal whale species and could provide a key comparison (and contrast) to the genetic basis of menopause in humans" royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

Happy to share this paper by doctoral student Mirabeau Mbong Ngwese who assessed gut microbiome associations with soil transmitted parasites for adults and kids in Gabon and corroborated findings with data from other studies from Africa www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A diet enriched in microbiome-fermentable substrates (more fruits and veggies) was shown to be associated with lower frailty and lower mortality risk in an older cohort (N>6000; 65+ y/o), with inflammation markers significantly mediating the dietary effect. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

“In addition to antibiotics…several human-targeted drugs, such as beta-blockers, benzodiazepine derivatives, glucocorticoids, PPIs, biguanides, and antidepressants, display effects on the microbiome observable years after previous drug intake”

Disruption to the gut microbiome by non-antibiotics is linked to infection risk http://dlvr.it/TN9lNG

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... This is a great explanation of emerging causal discovery techniques applied to biology, by the always readable @ajadmon.bsky.social and Erin Carlton

Hey HHS, look what scientists like me knew back in 2021👇🏻 We were right then and are right now. Vaccines don't *cause* variants. Rather, massive numbers of infections in people with no or waning immunity do. Evolution is no reason to avoid vaccination. theconversation.com/massive-numb...

Metformin is a weird drug - it works in the brain. But recall that there is a gut-brain axis too. What does this brain Rap1 mechanism do to the #microbiota?

If your goal as a government is to prevent death rather than enable and accelerate it, it's amazing what you can do.

Has any sepsis intervention worked in children after failing in adults?

Hosts use flagellin as a cue to stop feeding because it is adaptive for hosts to restrain the growth and proliferation of flagellin expressing microbes

Fascinating new paper reveals a new gut microbiome connection to heart disease. Microbes produce imidazole propionate (ImP), which directly triggers atherosclerosis through immune activation - even without high cholesterol. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Amadou Gaye plenary talk on the need for a representative human pangenome. #Isemph2025 #EvMed

Great talk on the risk of egg donation as a source of genetic conflict in pregnancy by @reallymccoy.bsky.social winner of the Omenn prize at #ISEMPH2025 #EvolutionaryMedicine #EvMed

As new Editor in Chief of Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, an OA society journal of ISEMPH, we welcome papers at the interface of evolution and medicine. I especially encourage studies in infection biology, broadly construed. We're a great and constructive journal! academic.oup.com/emph

Stress and the microbiome -Nice profile of our recent paper led by fantastic postdoc @crosellcardona.bsky.social @apcmicrobiomeirel.bsky.social @anatneuroucc.bsky.social @uccresearch.bsky.social

Causal role for gut microbes in hypertension and sleep apnea complications? Fecal transplant from obstructive sleep apnea patients to mice caused - higher blood pressure, vascular inflammation and endothelial dysregulation. doi.org/10.1016/j.in...

A comparison of 2 industrialised populations (Italy, Singapore) with 2 indigenous populations (Tsimane, Bolivia & Orang Asli, Malaysia) suggests inflammaging - age-associated increase in chronic inflammation, considered a hallmark of aging - is a byproduct of industrialisation, not a human universal

WTAF biology‽ 🧪 #EvMed

Targeting a lower (5% percentile blood pressure was safe in pediatric septic shock in a small trial. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40511998/

Inflammation is an urban industrialized phenomenon www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/w...

I wrote about curli and their consequences on the Evolutionmedicine blog. evolutionmedicine.com/2023/01/28/c...

Functional amyloid proteins confer defence against predatory bacteria | Nature #MicroSky #Microbiomesky 🦠🧫 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Selection effect into funding: early-career funding predicts later funding success because people who are successful apply more (but don't have a higher success rate!): www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Sheep with higher antinuclear antibodies are protected from parasites and survive better when times are tough. Tells us something about the evolution of autoimmunity. ethz.ch/content/dam/...

Do people really think extracorporeal blood purification will work in sepsis? #EMIMCC ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Early vitamin C in the ED doesn’t affect disease progression or sepsis mortality. No surprise there. #EMIMCC ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

A win for our #PublicLands and #wildlife

Too much of a good thing? Where things stand with oxygen therapy in critical illness. #EMIMCC evolutionmedicine.com/2025/06/28/t...

Protect our public lands!

Haenyeo divers have genetic and training adaptations to cold water diving environments. This is great work from Melissa Ilardo who previously studied the Bajau in Indonesia

Why does hypoxia cause inflammation, and what does severe acute mountain sickness have in common with sepsis? Hypoxia can impair the gut barrier and change the relationship we have with pathogens. I wrote more here: evolutionmedicine.com/2025/06/19/w...

Also in multiple septic patients, muscle/end tissue biopsies actually show adequate oxygenation but low ATP - shock is as much of a cellular state as a perfusion crisis and do we even need to perfuse “shocked” cells? #emimcc #CCR25

One of my many pet peeves is when every episode of fever in the ICU is treated. I have seen many patients who spiked a temp of 39 degrees Celsius overnight & next morning, I found them (shivering) in a cooling blanket in an attempt to "treat" the fever I know that the ICU is the kingdom of

Registration is open for our #WorldMicrobiomeDay lecture on June 27th, featuring special guest Curtis Huttenhower of Harvard Chan School of Public Health! Check out the press release and find the registration link in the story: www.psu.edu/news/huck-in...

#emimcc but are we surprised?

"To recap: hydrocortisone in shock is a classic example of an intervention that makes the numbers look better, but ultimately does not help the patient."

I started practice when many of these diseases were still all too common. Lots of positive LPs and sweating bullets with kids with epiglottis. Full retirement soon for me but this totally unnecessary nightmare will be playing out for many doctors and nurses. #Medsky #EMedsky

Post hoc Fragility index 1 No predefined criteria to start RRT ("préAKIKI" era...) 🚮

Big day for the Gurney lab, first paper from the lab is now published. @sczerwinski.bsky.social led this work and answered a simple question does phage steering work when other bacteria are around? Tldr: yes! journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....

Hydrocortisone, Ascorbate (Vitamin C) and Thiamine (or HAT) was the shiny new thing in sepsis once. Verdict after multiple trials: Nope, doesn’t work, and Vit C might kill. So….let’s try it in children then? A recent pilot trial of septic kids showed more numerically more deaths in HAT group

Good for me, not for thee #microbiota

Our latest paper is now out. A long standing collaboration with the Sunyer lab where our teams show the requirement for secretory IgM in the gut mucosa to control microbiota homeostasis and metabolism. Enjoy! #sIgM #mucosalimmunology www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I've never seen it so well put before.

#Publiclandowner everyday. Chiracahua Mountains

The House GOP just introduced the biggest climate rollback in U.S. history. What’s at risk: 🏔️ 460K+ acres of public lands 💰 $250B in clean energy credits 🔋 1M+ clean energy jobs 🌎 $6.5B in community climate funding 🌱 NEPA protections protectourwinters.org/most-dangero...

Protecting public land is American as apple pie. Get out there while it is still yours.

Nearly every kid’s fever is “treated” in our ED, but fever almost never needs to be treated. My piece with Ed LeGrand: theconversation.com/how-does-fev...