Congrats to Ceylan Tanes, Shelley Buffenstein and the team on their fascinating study of the naked mole rat microbiome (PMID: 42012979). No change in the mole rat bacterial microbiome over decades. Notable differences associated with social structure and copraphagy.

Lying from the White House Podium is now a family tradition.

“Vaccinated” by Paul Offit is a brilliant account of where vaccines come from and why they work. Read the book, reach out and spread the word!

“Science Under Siege” is a jaw-dropping account of corrupt profiteering by anti-vaxxers and climate change denialists. Read the book, reach out and spread the word!

Congrats to Philadelphia Fight on their 35th Anniversary! Great party with a moving speach by Malcolm Kenyatta. It is critical to deliver health care to the needy and push back on egregious funding cuts. Fight on Fighters!!

Congrats to Alex McFarland, Friederike Herbst and the team on their preprint on novel methods for tracking off-target base editing. A much needed tool!

We are very fortunate to have Nicola Segata presenting a seminar Friday August 29, 2025. Please join us!

Check out new art at The SPACE gallery, featuring photographs of layered weathering graffiti. All proceeds to the artist are donated to Philabundance, to address food insecurity in our area. www.thespacephiladelphia.com/online-store...

In case you were wondering why research is important: check out the song from Mags McCarthy and Bruce Levine on saving lives with novel cancer therapy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkOr...

Thanks so much to Bruce Walker for the moving talk on HIV immunology and initiatives to mitigate AIDS in Africa. It is heartbreaking that federal cuts to PEPFAR over the next four years are projected to lead to 4 million additional deaths and 6 million additional infections (UNAIDS).

Congrats to Marie Seleme, Aradhana Kasimsetty and the team on their report of effective methods for increasing expression from AAV vectors by blocking SUMOylation. Effective boosting by treatment with an inhibitor presently in use in humans! (PMID: 40263936)

The recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2025 was a moving tribute to the importance of the HIV research field and efforts to eradicate HIV globally. Presentations are now up online. It was a great honor to deliver the Fields Lecture! www.croiwebcasts.org/console/play...

The misinformation from RFK Jr. around measles is shocking. Check out Rachel Maddow’s report. Vaccination beats magical thinking. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJQU...

Congrats to Carter Merenstein on completion of his PhD thesis! A blizzard of impressive first author papers on the human microbiome in health and disease. Well done!! Examples: PMID: 37217829, PMID: 36195943, PMID: 34399607

Fascinating paper from Lev Litichevskiy et al. on the microbiome in a very large cohort of diversity outbred mice. Exciting new insights into mechanisms linking the microbiome to diet, health and aging. PMID: 40164832

PLoS Pathogens just published on Virolithopanspermia, the idea that viruses may move through space inside rocks. Maybe Earth is spewing viruses into space, and going the other way, maybe viral particles would be a good target to evaluate for signs of life in extraplanetary rocks! PMID: 40100845

The projected cuts to PEPFAR and USAID will result in thousands of aviodable deaths world-wide. The US has led the world in helping the vulnerable under both Republican and Democratic leadership. Please write your elected leaders to support PEPFAR and USAID. 5CALLS.org makes it easy.

Terminating PEPFAR and USAID will lead to the avoidable deaths of thousands of people from HIV/AIDS. Add your voice to the protests! The photo shows a moving public event yesterday in San Francisco.

After >34,000 patients treated, CART therapy has a terrific record. We now have two examples of vector integration in tumor suppressor genes associated with T cell malignancies. PMID: 39908432; PMID: 39779930. Nevertheless, the overall safety record remains impressive.

Big congrats to Andrew Marques, Erick Gagne, and the team for their exciting PLoS Path paper on SARS-CoV-2 in deer in PA. At least 12 jumps from humans into deer! PMID: 39854608

Big congratulations to Julie Jadlowsky, Elizabeth Hexner, Joe Fraietta and the (huge) team on their recent Nature Medicine paper on safety of CART therapy. No detectable transformation due to vector integration in 783 patients. PMID: 39833408

Check out the updated booklet “Improving Your Scientific Writing”. The latest edition contains guidance on interacting with AI and use of respectful “person-first” language. The PDF is free! www.med.upenn.edu/bushmanlab/a...

Thanks so much to Eric Freed for a great talk today in the Penn Microbiology Seminar Series on HIV maturation and therapeutics. Beautiful studies using “forced evolution” of HIV to understand determinants of key pathways.

Excited to share updates to Microbiocode, the code repository for the PennCHOP Microbiome program. Numerous well curated software packages to enable Microbiome research. Check it out! www.med.upenn.edu/microbiocode/

Questions for RFK Jr.’s Senate Confirmation: Part I open.substack.com/pub/pauloffi...

Questions for RFK Jr.’s Senate Confirmation: Part II open.substack.com/pub/pauloffi...

"A Triple Threat to Humanity: Climate Change, Pandemics, and Anti-Science" | My new article with Peter Hotez in #SkepticalInquirer: skepticalinquirer.org/2024/12/a-tr...

.@EpgntxEinstein and Mark Ptashne fact-check the heavily criticsed New Yorker epigenetics piece https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/researchers-criticize-the-mukherjee-piece-on-epigenetics-part-2/

Excited to share updates to Microbiocode, the code repository for the PennCHOP Microbiome program. Numerous well curated software packages to enable Microbiome research. Check it out! www.med.upenn.edu/microbiocode/

The gut microbiome signature from different diets in 20,000 individuals. Red meat intake correlated with reduced cardiometabolic health; the opposite for plant-based foods or in omnivores with enriched plant-based intake www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NASA’s new rendering of the Christmas Tree Nebula

This work was led by Kangchon Kim in collaboration with Scott Hensley, Sigrid Gouma, Maddie Weirick, and @mvieira.bsky.social. It's obviously a first step toward a very big goal. Would be lovely to do for more populations, seasons, etc., with richer immune measures too.

I'll add something that isn't even on this list - August 2016 – NASA astronaut Kate Rubins sequences DNA in space for the first time. www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-se... Its not just the rockets. Sure they are great but they are mere tools. Its what humans do with them that matters.

Thank you to @contagionlive.bsky.social for covering our Cdiff mRNA vaccine work! And you know you’re a bit too excited about your teams research when they have to cut your interview into a 3-part miniseries 😅

Science affords us the luxury of forgetting the impact of infectious diseases - In the 1st half of the 19th century 40-50% of children in US did not make it past the age of 5 - TB killed 1 in 7 people in US and Europe - smallpox killed 80% of infected children theconversation.com/infectious-d...

Detlef Weigel @PlantEvolution our Managing Director, turns 60 today.🎂 🎉 🎈 We wish him all the best. #detlefweigel #weigelworld #maxplanck

Congrats to Aradhana Kasimsetty and the team on their publication in Molecular Therapy—topoisomerase poisons boost AAV transduction, and alter integration site distributions. PMID: 39618424.

Excited to be joining Blue Sky!