Yesterday I got a COVID booster at a French pharmacy for 7.50€. In the UK last year it cost me £100. It's worth a cross-Channel day trip just to get immunised.

James D. Watson died on Thursday in East Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 97. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

The deadline for applications is Nov 15 - please repost!

Great last didactic at #MathOnco25 by @andriy-marusyk.bsky.social describing the complex landscape of evolutionary and ecological mechanisms aiding cancers become treatment-resistant. Andriy and I both share the idea of maps as an example of what models can be

In her #MathOnco25 plenary, Sarah Brüningk motivates mechanistic learning in mathematical oncology, drawing on her recent review paper: www.frontiersin.org/journals/imm...

Bob Gatenby finishes his phenomenal #MathOnco25 talk with this stunning figure and conclusion: "Cycles within cycles may allow metastatic prostate cancer to be converted to a chronic disease". The results are from a new paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Joel Brown at #MathOnco25 draws parallels between the evolution and ecology of cancer and of dogs, elephant shrews and (of course) squirrels. Cancer redefined as "a disease of uncontrolled proliferation by transformed cells subject to evolution by natural selection". aacrjournals.org/mcr/article/...

Now @kitcgallagher.bsky.social at #MathOnco25 presents his recent research on predicting treatment outcomes to identify which patients will benefit the most from adaptive therapy. Preprints and papers at scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Franco Pradelli presents one of the most beautiful slides so far at #MathOnco25, on the topic of exploiting the cost of addiction in anaplastic large cell lymphoma

Fantastic to have adaptive therapy pioneer Jingsong Zhang here at #MathOnco25 talking about a third-generation adaptive therapy trial for metastatic prostate cancer underway at the Moffitt Cancer Center, informed by Jill Gallagher's mathematical modelling. Preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thursday keynote at #MathOnco25 with @robjohnnoble.bsky.social showing a wealth of #MathOnco models of cancer evolution and evolutionary-enlightened therapies. Notice the bingo card: he showed enough different math models to fill up the card!

Really nice #MathOnco25 talk by Einar Bjarki Gunnarsson on optimal dosing of anti-cancer treatment under drug-induced plasticity, showing "that the optimal dosing strategy steers the tumor to a fixed equilibrium composition between sensitive and tolerant cells" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now at #MathOnco25, co-organiser @gliomath.bsky.social presents recent work showing that the predictions of an AI method massively improved when coupled with a mechnaistic mathematical model www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great talk by collaborator Joon Hyun Song from @ceel-damaghilab.bsky.social working on a simple model of the storage effect to explain the role of temporal fluctuations in intra tumor heterogeneity #MathOnco25

Great didactic at #MathOnco25 by @rrockne.bsky.social who starts his presentation with a very Freudian slip by thanking organizers @gliomath.bsky.social and #SINDy (meaning @sandyanderson.bsky.social)

How bowhead whales live for centuries—and how we might borrow some of their biology to extend our healthy lifespan. Gift link to my new column: nyti.ms/4hyD9ry

At #MathOnco25, @rrockne.bsky.social explains why he so loves SINDy (sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics).

Phenomenal talk. I've never seen a more elegant integration of mathematical modelling and molecular biology. #MathOnco25

Our own Tatiana Miti highlighting the importance of data to find out the initial configuration of an ABM describing early stages in metastasis, something which is hard to study with experimental models and clinical data #MathOnco25

Great didactic at #MathOnco25 by @dwodarz.bsky.social showing the importance of space...and turnover in #cancerevolution

A man after my own heart! @dwodarz.bsky.social on the importance of spatial structure in tumour evolution #MathOnco25

At #MathOnco25, @cancerevo.org talks about how to model the role of the tumor microenvironment in cancer initiation, progression, and treatment resistance. He finishes by advertising the Moffitt IMO PhD program www.moffitt.org/education/re...

Now at #MathOnco25, @ceel-damaghilab.bsky.social advocates "3D spheroids as a simplest model of tumor ecosystem". His beautiful data make a strong case.

First didactic of the day at #MathOnco25 is Stony Brook's @ceel-damaghilab.bsky.social about the breast ecosystem. The early breast cancer ecosystem is a tumor incubator

Setting the tone for #MathOnco25, @stroblmar.bsky.social (now based in London) outlines the benefits of theory-experiment integration

Co-organiser @sandyanderson.bsky.social is about to kick off the four-day #MathOnco25 meeting. And you can join us online! moffitt.zoom.us/j/95801446916

I started a new job in Montpellier, France! Happy about new opportunities, sad about the state of things in the US. abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2025/10/26/w...

Excited to be in Florida for #MathOnco25 starting today. Nice place for it.

Applications for the MEME programme (www.evobio.eu ) are now open! MEME is a research- and mobility-oriented master’s in evolutionary biology (& I’m a proud alumna!), jointly run by the Unis of Groningen, Uppsala, Montpellier, and LMU Munich, with Harvard and Lausanne as partners. Spread the word!

We are hiring a postdoc to profile the evolvability of tumors in longitudinal samples from three clinical trials as part of the ARPA-H ADAPT program. This is essentially an evolutionary bioinformatics position. If you are interested, please apply here ASAP apply.interfolio.com/172521

📢 EvoMG-DN PhD applications are now open! Join our EU-funded MSCA network and explore evolution, ageing, and disease. 👉 www.evomg-dn.eu 📅 Apply by 30 November 2025 #PhD #DoctoralTraining #MSCA #HorizonEurope #Genomics #EvolutionaryBiology #BiomedicalResearch#EarlyCareerResearchers

We have two fantastically well-funded #PhD studentships available through the @evomg-dn.bsky.social #EU doctoral network (led by brilliant @mirimiam.bsky.social, @crg.eu). These enable students to move to the UK and come and work with us @icr.ac.uk to exploit #cancer #evolution for patient benefit.

Cross-species cloning in ants 🐜 These two males belong to different species—but share the same mother. How? Why? To celebrate the print release of our last paper in this week’s @nature.com (issue 8084), here’s a thread summarizing the results. Why? Let’s dive in🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

'I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own "bunker", who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn't seem to be joking.'

Just updated mine. The prompt was being asked for a headshot for a conference talk and realising my previous one was seven years old this month.

Delighted to see my second PhD student Blair Colyer successfully defend his thesis today. Thanks to @benjaminwerner.bsky.social for your insightful suggestions for building on Blair's research.

Congratulations @kitcgallagher.bsky.social! It was a pleasure to be your DPhil examiner today. I've also been enjoying catching up with friends and colleagues here in Oxford, including in the beautiful new Life and Mind Building.

No matter how much time I spend in Montpellier I will never get over how lovely it is

If you are interested in learning more about what an IMO Workshop is like check out our dedicated website: imoworkshop.org. Note the workshop this year runs directly after our #MathOnco25 meeting: mathematical-oncology.org/mathonco25.

Excited to announce that registration for the 13th @mathonco.bsky.social workshop on Treatment Revolution is now open. Held onsite @moffittnews.bsky.social Nov 2-Nov 7 #MoffittIMO more details: imo13.eventbrite.com. Deluxe travel awards are available on a competitive basis, apply by 10/03!

Do you want to study #Quantitative #Ecology & #Evolution? Are you interested in a research-oriented #MSc program? Apply & join us at @umontpellier.bsky.social in the #IDIL program. #Fellowships available for #international #students

Join @cmaley.bsky.social, @lucielaplane.bsky.social, Joel Brown and Benjamin Spada for a live EvoChat discussion about "How we define cancer matters", hosted by the International Society for Evolution, Ecology and Cancer (ISEEC). Oct 1st at 8am PST, 11am EST, 5pm CEST ucsb.zoom.us/j/8313111375...

The first race I even won was the Semi des Vendanges, a half marathon on rocky trails north of Montpellier. I never thought I'd get a chance to run it again so was delighted to finish fourth today, having gone up two age categories. This being France, every finisher got a bottle of local wine.

New paper out! 🤩 "Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time" with @kokkonut.bsky.social and @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1371/jour... A short thread:

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry

The @royalsociety.org neglects to add that Irène Joliot-Curie was a dedicated anti-fascist campaigner and a member of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes

Besides the fact that "unfunded" research often yields the greatest breakthroughs and generates necessary preliminary results for "funded" research, this idea is analogous to the FA proposing to cease supporting football outside the Premier League. Chip away at a pyramid and the pinnacle also sinks.

Could humans and AI one day form a single “evolutionary individual”? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology raise this question in a new publication exploring human–AI interdependence. www.evolbio.mpg.de/3836073/news...

Cancer is an evolutionary disease, but does knowing a cancer’s evolutionary past help predict its future? Out today in @nature, we learnt the evolution of 2000 lymphoid cancers and found it was highly correlated with clinical outcomes! (1/7) rdcu.be/eFrrc

The constant barrage of terrible news on bluesky has made me feel weird about promoting papers, but people in the lab have been doing so much amazing work over the past few months that I want to share a few brief teasers/links: