always a pleasure to be a guest on @publichealthpod.bsky.social , though its usually because some respiratory virus is running amok. this is episode 995 and i'm hoping i get a chance to be on #1000!

Happy Godzilla Day to all those who celebrate. Give a little love to the man-in-rubber-suit 50s-70s era Godzilla we all love - either openly or secretly! #GodzillaDay

The anti-vaccine movement has the same talking points now as it did in the 1800’s. It’s always been a rejection of science, scientists, and progress, with a soupçon of paranoia. Below is a slide for a talk I’m preparing that illustrates the identical strategies. I have more examples, too.

My department at Dartmouth Medical School is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor. We are looking broadly for a biochemist or cell biologist. Please share this add! apply.interfolio.com/171438 @dartmouthbcb.bsky.social @futurepislack.bsky.social

If you need more scary fun this weekend, the documentary “A Shot In The Arm” is free on PBS until 11/9. Lots of interviews with RFK Jr pre-HHS fame. Narrated by @neildegrassetyson.com from @scotthamkennedy.bsky.social. #Virosky #LoveVirology #TruthisScarierThanFiction www.pbs.org/show/shot-in...

A new preprint from the lab led by PhD student Elgin Akin is up at medRxiv: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/6

Baked and decorated 100 cookies for our Fundamental Virology class! Hopefully everyone will do well on their final exam tomorrow, but if not, a cookie can’t hurt, right? @andrewpekosz.bsky.social

Last class in our Fundamental Virology class. Record number of students this term @karidebbink.bsky.social @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

Viruses and Gel electrophoresis in vibrant watercolor #sciart artologica.etsy.com

I do biomedical research to help people. When people come in this space making things up, it makes it harder for people not in the field to trust the extensive studies that we do and distinguish fact from fiction. Baseless claims reduce future cures. Willful ignorance drives us backwards.

PhD Candidate & @andrewpekosz.bsky.social Lab member Camille Wouters defends her PhD thesis tomorrow. Good Luck, Camille! 📆 Friday, Sept. 26, 2025 ⏰ 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. 📍 @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social 🏢 W2030

A profile in @jhu.edu's HUB highlights JH-CEIRR's @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social important influenza research, led by co-directors @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social virologist & professor @andrewpekosz.bsky.social & @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social Richard Rothman, MD More here: hub.jhu.edu/2025/09/10/j...

Virologist, @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social Professor & @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social vice-chair @andrewpekosz.bsky.social explains mRNA vaccine technology on @npr.org @wfae.bsky.social Charlotte Talks Listen here for answers & clarity around COVID-19 vaccines www.wfae.org/show/charlot...

Found this book in my department mailbox yesterday. No envelope, no shipping information, no note and I was the only person to receive this "gift". Clearly, someone needs to come to my lecture on the origin and evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic to get educated on the facts.

Shop is restocked with itty-bitty paintings #sciart ko-fi.com/1626SLXL3044F neuro, micro, genetics, algorithms

“It’s not so much that the virus has become less dangerous, it’s that we have immunity, so we fight off the virus more efficiently than we did early in the pandemic,” said @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @jhu.edu Professor and Virologist @andrewpekosz.bsky.social www.iflscience.com/rfk-jr-pulls...

Requiring grant review by political appointees will continue to delay and disrupt critical research and interferes with scientists’ ability to help protect the nation’s health and security. Read our statement: asm.org/press-releas...

Congratulations to Jerome Edwards on defending his PhD thesis on mechanisms driving the attenuation of Live attenuated measles vaccine virus replication. Jerome did great things and is yet another example of Diane Griffin's mentoring. @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

📢New job posting!📢 Are you excited by the idea of building global infrastructure to make pathogen sequencing more accessible, interpretable, and equitable? 🧑🏻‍💻🧬 My group at @swisstph.ch has an opening working with ARTIC2, @pathoplexus.org, & Loculus - read on! 1/5

There it is artologica.etsy.com/listing/4338...

Covid vaccination saved ~2.5 million lives between 2020-2024 jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Our two summer students wrapped up their stays in the laboratory with posters on the influenza viruses that circulated this past year. One preprint is up and another is coming. lots of thanks to @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social and @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social for support and collaborations!

A new preprint from the lab describing an influenza B virus that emerged late in the 2024-25 season that underwent both reassortment and antigenic drift with @eakin.bsky.social leading my team in this collaboration with Heba Mostafa at Johns Hopkins Medicine ‪ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/5 The lab’s first paper on bovine H5N1 looks at preexisting antibody immunity in the human population and how influenza vaccination and infection effect it. @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

ASM lifetime achievement award winner Susan Weiss getting interviewed by her colleague Brenda Hogue ASM Microbe2025 #ASMicrobiology

about to get on WVON Chicago with Cleopatra Draper to discuss recent changes at ACIP and in vaccine recommendations. www.wvon.com/line-up/

Some really interesting work coming from the late Diane Griffin’s laboratory driven by @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social PhD student Jerome Edwards that looks at the mechanisms behind the attenuation of the live, attenuated measles vaccine or LAMV. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

End of our COVID-19 Era. We are leaving the laboratory space that was established in February, 2020 to increase our capacity to do COVID-19 research.

"Population immunity, either from vaccination or previous infection, also tends to wane by the summer," @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social Professor & Virologist @andrewpekosz.bsky.social, tells TODAY.com. #COVID #vaccination #PopulationImmunity #NB.1.8.1 #variant www.today.com/health/coron...

There is still time to apply; join our team to work on influenza virus replication mechanisms!

Lol just tried to talk to a virologist about artistic license in #sciart and she was not having it 😂

Anyone going to Artscape in Baltimore this weekend who is interested in science art needs to find their way to the @artologica.net booth. i already see things i want...

The first manuscript by my lab has been published🥳🎉 We investigated disease progression in B6 mice inoculated with bovine H5N1 or VN1203 via aerosols. Interestingly, although virus replication in the lung was similar, we observed drastic differences in neuroinvasion and pathology. rdcu.be/enhQU

“Because there are so many people who have been #vaccinated and #infected, there is a high amount of #immunity in the population,” said @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @andrewpekosz.bsky.social “I think we’re also seeing that as a way to dampen the spread of the virus.” www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Worked on a manuscript with @meghandavisdvm.bsky.social this morning, and now I see her receive the prestigious Stebbins award for public health teaching and contributions @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social . Congratulations!!!

Always a thrill to see the smiling faces of our @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social graduates...even on a rainy, chilly day. 61 countries represented and over 1200 different degrees being conferred.

We got a chance to celebrate our gradating ScM students from @JohnsHopkinsMMI this past week. Got to work with these 5 fantastic students and two more who I didn't get pics with.

Since i rarely post pics of myself, most of you don't know that i've grown out my beard recently. Seeing an article linking beards with toilets made me pause, but then my colleague Kim Davis' comments made me feel slightly better... www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...

lots of reasons why you (or your pets) shouldn't drink raw milk...pretty much no reason why you should. great article from @asm.org summarizing what we know.

Planning your travel for #ASV2025? For detailed travel and visa information check out the links on our webpage. asv.org/asv2025/travel/ #LoveVirology

There are still a lot of questions swirling around the executive order on "dangerous gain-of-function" research that Trump signed yesterday. I've written up for @science.org what we know so far and what it might mean for infectious disease research. #IDsky 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

The American Society for Microbiology is committed to ensuring that scientific research is conducted adhering to strict standards for biosafety and biosecurity, but pausing research is not the path forward. Read our statement: asm.org/press-releas...

virologists knew this was coming; this order is full of vague language that is more likely to slow down important research than provide greater biosafety and biosecurity. There was a framework that was supposed to be initiated today - but now we start from scratch www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Richard Kuhn talks about the scientific legacy of Diane Griffin during the @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social symposium celebrating Diane's many contributions to science

Questions about vaccines and autism have been around for a while despite scientific studies that show no connection. Learn where the concerns started, science behind why experts have concluded there is no link, and why these questions still persist. podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/869-the-evid...

Honored to have my lab's research highlighted in this video. Private foundation support, like what we have received from the Eliasberg Family Foundation, forms a critical part of the funding that allows academic research to move forward. giving.jhu.edu/story/avian-...

Got to chat with @publichealthpod.bsky.social and Stephanie Desmon about biosafety in the laboratory. Given some recent op/eds on the topic and the USG turning its COVID site into a conspiracy theory platform, I think this discussion is quite timely. johnshopkinssph.libsyn.com/884-why-bios...

Pretty good thread from @adamjkucharski.bsky.social debunking the 5 lines of "evidence" supporting lab leak on the USG new COVID site.

Nice to see the CDC ACIP committee meeting to discuss vaccine recommendations for the US. No votes on flu or COVID vaccines but interesting discussion about not recommending COVID vax for all individuals...some RSV vax discussions today www.cdc.gov/acip/meeting...