One glimmer of hope in the Ebola response: Within hours of the outbreak in DRC being declared, researchers convened to prepare drug trials. A lot has changed on that front since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a decade ago. But huge challenges remain 🧪 My story in @science.org (🧵 to come)

This is unsettling. The #Ebola confirmed and suspected case count is at 958 already in DRC, with 5 confirmed cases in Uganda. (Uganda doesn’t often disclose suspected case numbers.) This has all the makings of an ugly and protracted outbreak. x.com/com_mediasrd...

Yet another top job in the #HHS universe appears to be vacant. Jeffery Taubenberger, who has been acting head of #NIAID, the infectious diseases institute of #NIH, reportedly stepped down ~2 weeks ago. But HHS will not answer questions about his departure. www.statnews.com/2026/05/21/n...

This is such a moving piece. If your interested in #Ebola — the damage it causes, the trauma families and communities and responders face during and after an outbreak — please read it. www.statnews.com/2026/05/20/e...

Update on Ebola outbreak from @who.int: "There is significant uncertainty about the number of infections and how far the virus has spread. As of 19 May, more than 500 suspected cases, including 130 suspected deaths, have been reported by the Ministry of Health."

Important to read the seminal paper on the discovery of the Bundibugyo virus. It is a different species from Zaire Ebola virus, differing in its genome by up to 32%. The vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for Zaire virus are unlikely to be effective here. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

The US government is working to extricate some Americans who had potentially problematic exposures to suspected #Ebola #Bundibugyo in DRC. But it won’t talk about it. When I and other journalists asked during a #CDC press conference, we got no answers. www.statnews.com/2026/05/17/i...

“Around 246 cases and 65 deaths have been reported, mainly in the gold-mining towns of Mongwalu and Rwampara” www.bbc.com/news/article...

“If one were to design a public-health intervention from scratch, it would be hard to improve upon vaccination. Yet the world is losing sight of the overwhelming evidence that vaccines save lives” www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/c...

“just as we now understand the risks of chokepoints in semiconductors and oil, particularly during an era in which trade is being weaponised, the true costs of a US farm system that prioritises only short-term high yields in a handful of crops are becoming more obvious.”

Okay. This is today's version 2. Hopefully, the typos are corrected and additions made. I greatly appreciate the feedback - I put it out in a rush. Sorry about that. I moved some text to a sidebar to allow a little breathing room.

It is with great sadness that we announce J. Craig Venter has died. 🧪🧬 www.jcvi.org/media-center...

“…the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) is to be dissolved, rolled back into Counter Terrorism (CT),…” cbrneworld.com/news/circle-...

Check Out the Largest 3-D Map of the Universe nautil.us/check-out-th...

SPLASHDOWN!!! Welcome home ArtemisII

Oh this is great: there’s now an #Artemis II Lunar Flyby Gallery on the NASA images site: www.nasa.gov/gallery/luna... (thx @dpmanchee.bsky.social for pointing it out)

"Humanity's next great voyage begins" #Artemis

Seems bad

@vscooper.micropopbio.org & @isabelott.bsky.social let me crash their high-school bacteria hunt while I was working on my book "Life's Edge." Their paper's now out, featuring lots of mutants (including my very own CZ1A).

2 years ago now the world learned US dairy cows were being infected with #H5N1 #birdflu, raising concern the virus would find a new route to move from animals to humans. Cow infections seem to have slowed & many questions remain, @cohenjon.bsky.social reports. www.science.org/content/arti...

In Talking to Parents About Vaccines, Pediatricians Navigate a Sea of Misinformation www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/h...

“used machine learning to sift thru the death certificates of infected patients who died in hospitals..used patterns observed in those records to evaluate death certificates of people who died outside hospitals..whose deaths were attributed to things like pneumonia.. www.statnews.com/2026/03/18/s...

If the White House doesn't nominate a person to serve as #CDC director by March 25, the administration will not be able to have someone serving in the role of acting CDC director. ⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰

🔵Our new pre-print examines how #AI might intersect with #bioweapons across seven key acquisition stages, emphasising actors, utilities, and processes rather than technology alone. ➡️https://ssrn.com/abstract=6299518 #disarmament #CBW #biologicalweapons #OPCW #chemicalweapons

Bio-attribution Challenge www.darpa.mil/research/cha...

“These growing cracks in the country’s public health armor will complicate efforts to protect Americans from future disease threats—whether an outbreak, a pandemic or a biological attack.” 🎯

Nature: China pledges billion-dollar spending boost for science by Xiaoying You @nature.com go.nature.com/4rqZQ4u

The Limits of Sequence-Based #Biosecurity Screening Tools in the Age of AI-Assisted Protein Design. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Evaluating AI-Assisted Customer Verification for Synthetic Nucleic Acid Screening. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

"All I can say is that I’m beginning to regret having lived so long — because we’re going downhill" www.statnews.com/2026/03/02/s...

If measles vaccination rates continue to drop just 1% annually for the next five years, the cost to the U.S. could reach $1.5 billion a year, according to a new report from the Yale School of Public Health.

Defense Industrial Base: DOD Efforts to Develop Domestic Biomanufacturing. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

On March 3 in DC, join us for the Johns Hopkins H5N1 Influenza Preparedness & Response Forum! H5N1 is already threatening livestock and poultry, but if it gains sustained human-to-human transmission, challenges will escalate quickly. We have to plan, now. www.eventbrite.com/e/johns-hopk...

After nearly 3.5 years of deliberations, researchers concluded their independent assessment of the origin of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 go.nature.com/4qUxijx

WTF?

Useful, as always.

“These latest findings once again underline the need to hold Russia accountable for its repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention and, in this instance, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.”

Joint Statement by the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands on Alexei Navalny's death www.gov.uk/government/n...

Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies say

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The TAK-003 story: key decisions that shaped development of a tetravalent dengue vaccine www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Moderna are being very careful in their responses about next steps here but given the likely arbitrariness and unreasonableness of an outright refusal to file (let alone the economic impacts), I expect they will appeal, with a range of options available: trendspotting.sidley.com/trends/fda

NEW: The FDA just shot down Moderna's new flu shot. From me: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

A chance to learn from the best in the business.

Macbeth: SHIT

FT: An oral history of the Fed’s Covid-19 crisis www.ft.com/content/cb9a...

We commend Senators Tom Cotton & Amy Klobuchar for intro legislation to est. a fed biosecurity framework. "This bill sets the U.S. on a path to continue its global leadership in biotech innovation, while enhancing our national resilience to emerging biological risks" said @t-inglesby.bsky.social.

Once had privilege of listening to Ian McKellen perform at Oxford. Seemed timely then - even more so now.

BREAKING: Federal health officials on Monday announced dramatic revisions to the slate of vaccines recommended for American children, reducing the number of diseases prevented by routine shots to 11 from 17. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/h...

JID: A BEACON for novel disease threats: Leveraging AI for informal event-based outbreak surveillance Nahid Bhadelia et al bit.ly/4joYsNd @bhadeliamd.bsky.social