Enjoyed celebrity traitors. Bit disappointed that Nick and David miss stepped at the end. Who came out of it best, Nick. Who came out of it worst, Jonathan Ross.

Bucks, almost uniquely, favours mayonnaise with chips.* And rightly so. * No, it really won't be salad cream.

It's November, so it's time for the traditional fundraising for Movember. This year I'll be getting a tache named Hank. Please support my fundraiser: movember.com/m/dbrewer?mc...

ONE DAY TO GO. An exciting opportunity has arisen for a senior bioinformatician to join the Cancer Genetics team on the project “Identifying patients with aggressive prostate cancer by detecting molecular subtypes in urine”. 🧬🖥️ . 3 years starting in Feb 2026. Please apply. bit.ly/3Wt3Lk8

My most popular cartoon by a long chalk is also oddly niche, in that it mostly appeals to a generation who remember the song it refers to and enjoy the nostalgia for their youth. I can draw one for you if you like. www.worldofmoose.com/collections/...

Although I would love an alternative system, I don't like how this is being portrayed in the media as an increase in income for universities, rather than just keeping still in real terms. It will require more than this to sort out the dire state of the sector. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Come and join the Cancer Genetics team in the lovely Norwich. We have a three year position for a senior bioinformatician starting in Feb 2026. Click the link for further details. bit.ly/3Wt3Lk8 🧬 🖥️ @prostateukprofs.bsky.social @ueamedical.bsky.social @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social #postdoc

A one year opportunity has arisen for a lab-based molecular scientist to join the Cancer Genetics team on the Prostate Cancer UK funded project “Identifying patients with aggressive prostate cancer by detecting molecular subtypes in urine”. Starting Feb 2026. Please contact me. bit.ly/4o9a6xD

New studentship available in the cancer genetics team at UEA, UK. This PhD is about investigating whether the presence of bacteria is directly causing prostate cancer development.Feb 2025. Stipend and fees available to those that are eligible. @ueamedical.bsky.social www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a senior bioinformatician to join the Cancer Genetics team on the Prostate Cancer UK funded project “Identifying patients with aggressive prostate cancer by detecting molecular subtypes in urine”. 3 years starting in Feb 2026. 🧬🖥️ bit.ly/3Wt3Lk8

As blog about Jade Manning's recent 12-week placement in the Government Office for Science. She is a second-year Microbes, Microbiomes and Bioinformatics PhD student based in our team. www.uea.ac.uk/stories/jade...

A HEROIC Prostate Cancer Precision Health (PCaPH) Africa1K and Pan Prostate Cancer Group (PPCG) collaborative paper where through whole genome interrogation we reveal African specific candidate genes for prostate cancer germline testing, has gone live in @natcomms.nature.com. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Great result from England Women's rugby team. Made me remember how much I actual enjoy watching rugby union.

Our researchers have shown that colorectal cancer is unique in having its own microbial ‘fingerprint’. Read more 👉 www.uea.ac.uk/about/news/a... #ColorectalCancer #CancerResearch #FightCancer

The first of many I expect. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

A new paper is out from our research team at the @ueamedical.bsky.social at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social titled "The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer" available from doi.org/10.1126/scit.... Led by @abrahamgihawi.bsky.social 🧬🖥️ @cancerinnorwich.bsky.social

Many thanks to @danbrewer.bsky.social for your support and guidance through the years and to the other co-authors, funders, @genomicsengland.bsky.social and patients that made this work possible.

Last week I was wondering how many jobs in HE are currently being cut (despite ever increasing research, teaching, and admin workloads). Well an article in THE says around 20,000 (paywalled I think) www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ...

Sad news: The dataset behind this famous chart on the decline in costs of genome sequencing has had its NIH funding cut. I loved this chart because it was the first that made me appreciate the impact of dataviz. But it also tracked progress towards an ambitious goal ($1000 genome) that succeeded.

England through some how. What luck despite defensive terribleness.

‘England’s higher education system risks long-term decline unless ministers overhaul their “confused, if not incoherent” approach to universities’ FT interview with outgoing @britishacademy.bsky.social President Julia Black where she pulls no punches! www.ft.com/content/3162...

XKCD has a Tukey quote for Tukey's 110th birthday xkcd.com/3104/ Many of his specific inventions have been made obsolete over time, but he was a major contributor to data analysis and visualisation being serious and respectable parts of statistics research

Genomics of host–microbiome interactions in humans www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Many thanks to Alice Macdonald MP who kindly hosted a Parliamentary Reception, on behalf of the University of East Anglia, last night. The reception was titled "Faster Smarter Earlier – UEA’s Mission to Transform Prostate Cancer Diagnosis" and was a great success. @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social

I gave in! After students asking for it, I now made a simple figure design checklist. To help all scientists w/o graphic skills create clear, accessible, and truthful charts! -> Out in @nature Cell Biology: rdcu.be/erwl4 #DataVisualization #PhD #SciComm Thx for review @bethcimini.bsky.social + 2

So,as a little thought-experiment, tell me something about the United Kingdom that works well and is actually quite impressive. I am not trying to sound like some boosterish politician. I just genuinely believe that making people believe that all is lost is a convenient pretext for shady characters.

This article sums up the funding crisis in universities. - Loss on teaching domestic students - Loss on research - Profit on teaching international students With the Government making it increasingly difficult for international students to get here, so reducing the only profitable arm.

Happy 18th birthday ggplot2! #rstats

Well this is bleak. Looks like another punch to the gut for the university sector is incoming.

It didn't sound like it was pretty, but COYS!!!

Or to put it another way, overseas students now subsidise the cost of teaching each UK undergraduate by an average of £2,500 each. Take them away and you've got an absolutely existential crisis for universities. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

A forthcoming policy from the US NIH will target — and at least temporarily stop — funding to laboratories and hospitals outside the US, threatening thousands of global-health projects and international collaborations on topics such as emerging infectious diseases. https://go.nature.com/4lVmuAv

#rstats folks: If you have a habit of updating your library after an R upgrade by copying the old one and run update.packages(). --> DON'T DO THAT <-- Especially not with 4.5.0. You will overwrite base packages with ones from a previous version and as these are not on CRAN, things go bad.

Britain's latest kick in the face of its universities is a reduction in science spend. Ridiculous. Good luck with your growth mission! There won't be any. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

I wrote about how Trump is destroying American democracy, along with eight crucial lessons about how to counteract it, drawing on my 14 years of studying brave pro-democracy opposition movements in authoritarian regimes across the globe. We’re in serious trouble, but there’s still hope.

Exciting news article by our own Clinical Fellow Stephanie Smith on how dogs might be able to smell prostate cancer.

Today's university slashing and burning is Edinburgh, where about 10% of the budget will be cut. There'll be another case every single day until UK govts actually do something. A country so stupid it actively trashes one of things it's good at and famous for. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

This excellent interactive tutorial on misleading data visualizations explores the idea of a "counter chart" — the graph you draw in response to refute a misleading claims flowingdata.com/projects/dis...

Happy Valentine's Day (p<0.05). #rstats

The Guardian view on campus cuts: academics pay a high price for Westminster’s mistakes www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science. Your government might not support you. I do. #womeninscience

Anastasios Bampalis had his PhD viva yesterday on a thesis titled "Investigating Bacteria In Poor Prognosis Prostate Cancer". He passed subject to minor corrections. Massive congratulations, Dr. Bampalis.

"It is impossible to be a top-line manager and administrator and mentor and researcher and writer and outreach officer and IT expert and online instructor and pedagogical innovator and recruiter and teacher and marker and external examiner and press pundit and grant bidder and editor."

Come work at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in the beautiful science & university city Heidelberg as a Research Software Engineer on R/Bioconductor tools for biological data science and AI ! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hei...

Bad times

Five years of Brexit in five charts, with @amyborrett.ft.com for @financialtimes.com How five years of Brexit reshaped Britain on.ft.com/40AVBrH

This is very encouraging. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

This article hits home. Scary stuff.