IMP ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center (co-directed by Wendy Garrett & Curtis) will host its annual symposium on May 18 @ Harvard T.H. Chan School @hsph.harvard.edu. The theme is 'Translating the Microbiome'. Poster abstracts are due April 1. Register : hsph.me/hcmph2026

Announcing the 4th Lakeside Conference on Protein Toxins and Effectors 2026 Registration/Abstract Submission is OPEN (#lakesidePTE)! Come join this premier event on the structure, biochemistry, and cell biology of Microbial Protein Toxins Oct 12-15, 2026. event.fourwaves.com/lakesidepte2...

Free registration is now open for the: Inositol Phosphates 2026, the more, the merrier – 6th edition, a virtual international meeting on inositol phosphates across organisms -March 25-27, 2026- Schedule and registration link on our website: castagnerlab.com/inositol-pho...

🚨 Do you work on microbial-mediated biotransformation of chemical compounds? 🧪 We would value your input to help us develop a standardized reporting framework for Xenobiotics–Microbiome interactions! 👉 Take the short survey (6–8 min): forms.gle/JNATejDrV2LR... ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack ~ On January 29, McGill will honour the memories of the victims with a special ceremony and lecture, Impacts of Islamophobia on Muslim Mental Health, by McGill psychiatry professor Salam El-Majzoub, MD. 🔗https://ow.ly/BzwB50XY29F

Rencontre concernant la piste cyclable sur Atateken, lundi prochain à 18h30 à la salle du conseil de Ville-Marie. Cette piste devrait servir de détour de la piste Berri durant environ 2 ans. Je vous invite à assister si vous avez des opinions sur cette piste!

Just out in npj Biofilms & Microbiomes! Reilly Pidgeon and Arianna Giurleo complete another piece of the puzzle of polyphenol metabolism by the gut microbiome. Here they uncover a new 10-hydroxy urolithin dehydroxylase encoded by some Enterocloster spp. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#NewResearch A bile acid-bound structure of toxin TcdB revealed the mechanism of inhibition and guided the design of a synthetic bile acid that alleviated C. difficile infection in mice. #MicroSky 🦠💊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Calling Inositol Phosphate enthusiasts! The free virtual international meeting on inositol phosphates across organisms - Inositol Phosphates 2026 - will take place on March 25-27, 2026. Currently accepting abstract for oral presentation until Dec. 7. castagnerlab.com/inositol-pho...

Continuons d'avancer! 🚲 Le REV Saint-Denis, une piste cyclable qui atteint des sommets www.lapresse.ca/dialogue/chr...

This! Let's resist the politicization of science! 🇨🇦

Two conferences, one reg! Sign up for Microbiome Metabolism & Metabolites + get Human Microbiome FREE. Joint keynotes: Emily P. Balskus & Mohamed S. Abou Donia. keysym.us/KSMicroMetab26 @pieterdorrestein.bsky.social @mfgrp.bsky.social @inesthiele.bsky.social #KSMicroMetab26 #KSMicrobiome26

We are hiring! Tenure track position in the area of Pluripotent Stem Cells in Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at McGill University and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/McGill...

The gut microbiome has a key role in shaping the immune response to cancer and influencing the efficacy of immunotherapy. Read about advances in targeting the microbiome in cancer treatment in this Review in the September issue www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/eD8M5

New preprint on polyphenol metabolism by gut bacteria! We show that released urolithin M6 is metabolized by regioselective dehydroxylases including the novel Uxd present in a subset of Enterocloster spp. Interestingly, Uxd induction is controlled by Ucd substrates. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

IP6 is cool, but IT6 is cooler 😎 A thiophosphate swap makes inositol hexakisphosphate more stable, more soluble, and stickier to bacterial virulence factors. Great news for structural bio & drug design! 📖 doi.org/10.1039/D4CB...

A new paper in The Lancet, one of the world’s foremost peer reviewed medical journals, estimates that USAID prevented 91 million deaths across 133 countries over 20 years. The paper estimates that Elon Musk’s DOGE funding cuts to USAID will lead to 14 million deaths by 2030 (4.5 million children).

@mcgill.ca is recruiting an internationally recognized scientist in Human Immunology for the prestigious Canada Excellence Research Chair. Montreal offers a vibrant scientific ecosystem in a fantastic city. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Our review on gut microbiome manipulation for cancer immunotherapy is out. Thanks to Arielle Elkrief, Reilly Pidgeon, Saman Maleki Vareki, Meriem Messaoudene, and @bertrandrouty.bsky.social

Such a disappointing and infuriating message from @McGill.ca President. McGill is “neutral” in geopolitical crisis and cannot comment, YET they will invest in military weapons and do business partnership with the UAE Army for instance.

An alternative strategy to access inositol derivatives by stereoselective dephosphorylation. Happy to share the work by Markus Haener together with @gabrielschaaf.bsky.social and many others. chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

Echoing Trump, Pierre Poilievre's election pitch includes pledge to end "woke influence" in university research. My story for @science.org 🧪 #cdnpoli www.science.org/content/arti...

Evil. "Without continued PEPFAR programmes, models predict that by 2030, an additional 1 million children will become infected with HIV, 0·5 million additional children will die of AIDS, & 2·8 million children will additionally become orphaned by AIDS." Study: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🚨We're hiring another tenure-track at McGill University: focus on brain-body science! 👇 mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/mcgill...

Molecular dynamic simulations led to a better understanding of the C. difficile toxin B (TcdB) allosteric transition induced by inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6). Useful info for drug discovery. Great work by Lauren Finn, Rebecca Cummer, and @bettinagkeller.bsky.social! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📅 April 24 | Next-Generation #RNA Vaccines & Therapies This event is organized by McGill's Pharmacology and Therapeutics and will feature lecture speaker Dr. @annablakney.bsky.social from UBC (also a D2R-funded researcher!). More info: mcgill.ca/pharma/semin...

Important for us Canadians. We cannot let that happen.

The Inositol Phosphates international meeting will take place on March 25-27, 2026 (virtually)! Please mark your calendars and sign up below to receive email updates about registration and abstract submission! Organized with Inmaculada Couso, Martina Ried-Lasi. castagnerlab.com/inositol-pho...

We are recruiting! The McGill University Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences invites applications for a full-time tenure track Assistant or Associate Professor position in the area of toxicology. mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/McGill...

In this new publication, Rebecca Cummer shows that inositol thiophosphate is a useful bioisostere of inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) that binds more strongly to different bacterial virulence factors. In collaboration with Dr. Nagar and Dr. @bettinagkeller.bsky.social. pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A...

Indeed concerning. I will not be attending (or sending a student to) any conferences in the US because of the current trade war with Canada, but this is something else! Here is the article in French. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

We are good colleagues (if I may say do myself), we still believe in diversity, our students are amazing and the quality of life in Montreal is great. Come talk. To us!

I signed this letter of Canadians in support of science and in solidarity with our American friends and colleagues 🇨🇦🤝🇺🇲. And to my fellow Canadian, while our situation is better, anti-science is creeping up in our politics as well. So we need to work better to show the cool stuff we do!💊🧪🧫🧬(and vote)

New paper finally out! Reilly Pidgeon shows how the biologically active end metabolite urolithin A is produced by the microbiome from its dietary precursor derived from polyphenols. Great work featuring Sacha Mitchell and collaborator Dr. Corinne Maurice. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For 20 years, I have served WHO in various advisory groups Because @who.int is made up of nations and, thus, all of us. Today, I showed my solidarity by contributing to this 1 Dollar, 1 World campaign to raise 1B in these uncertain times Join me! whofoundation.donorsupport.co/page/FUNEKRB...

New paper! We used metatranscriptomics of a human microbiome sample after a short incubation with prebiotic glycans to identify consuming bacteria. Great work by Catherine Prattico and our cool collaborators. Featuring fructans, Blautia spp., and SACCHARIS v2. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

🦠🔬🚨 I have created a starter pack for those involved in research related to human microbiomes (there are other excellent microbiome packs by @claesengroup.bsky.social but this differentiates human from environmental/plant microbiomes). Let me know if you would like to be added! go.bsky.app/3eeA7BP

In 2 recent(ish) contributions published in Nat. Commun. and ACS Chem. Biol., we use FACS to sort gut bacteria that interact with fluorescent glycans in human microbiota samples. www.nature.com/articles/s41... pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Join the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4) for their Annual Symposium on Dec. 4. The theme "Microbiome: Decoding the Invisible World," promises an engaging lineup, including a keynote by Prof. Yasmine Belkaid, President of Institut Pasteur. www.mcgill.ca/mi4/events

Join us for a World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) special Seminar (hybrid) by Dr. Mark Miller on Nov. 21st organized by the McGill AMR Centre. Registration using the QR code or at www.mcgill.ca/amrcentre