🎉 Congrats to 2026 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal recipient Judith Kimble of @uwbiochem.bsky.social! Her work has built an entire field and inspired generations of scientists through her mentorship and leadership. 🔗Read more: buff.ly/0yzHXvk

Brazen and unchallenged war crimes targeting academic institutions and medicinal pipelines.

“CELeidoscope: quad-fluorescent strain for tissue-specific spectral single-cell analyses”. Engineered a C. elegans strain that enables spectral sorting of multiple major cell types within a single strain population. Led by Clair Henthorn and Natalia Betancourt. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Equipped for success: genomes and metabolomes of the European Amanita muscaria are conserved in its novel South African range

Madison, Wisconsin — 2026 Built in 1917, the Wisconsin State Capitol is a Beaux-Arts masterpiece constructed materials such as Algerian onyx, Italian marble, and Wisconsin granite. Designed by George B. Post, its massive dome is one of the largest masonry domes in the world. FORWARD!

“Deep phenotypic profiling uncovers cryptic effects of antifilarial drugs”. We found that drug sensitivity is driven by environmental context and parasite age. We also profiled drug-induced changes in the adult secretome to id new leads for detecting surviving parasites in post-MDA surveillance.

Characterizing gut microbiome and parasitome transitions along an urbanization gradient in the Colombian Amazon using dual 16S/18S sequencing. Work led by GHI postdoc Sebastián Díaz.

Led by Katie Ryan in collaboration with the Handelsman lab, we discovered a Pseudomonas species that attracts nematodes while producing secondary metabolites (labradorin-1) that inhibit their development and motility.

Me giving advice to new faculty.

These people are interested in developing AI for the common good in the same way eugenicists are interested in genetics and military leaders are interested in particle physics.

Everyone should have the opportunity to live in the type of home that works best for their family, with access to transportation options. This proposal allows more flexibility for ‘missing middle’ housing and encourages more homes in places that are near transit.

Ken Burns pan-and-zoom with Peter Coyote voiceover is pure nostalgia for the wheeled in classroom VCR. Inject into my veins.

Wisconsin Evolution is accepting applications for our Seminar Series' Early Career Scientist Award. Come share your evolution research and visit UW-Madison's evolution community. Open to grad students and postdocs (<5 yrs post PhD) from outside UW-Madison. Apply by Dec 15th here: shorturl.at/4a4O6

In Madison, if someone honks their horn, it’s probably an accident. And if it isn’t, treating it like one gives them the time they need to quietly regret their out-of-towner energy.

Relatable. I once went off-grid for a bit, checked my email, and discovered a dozen frantic messages informing me I’d forgotten to renew my lease and had to immediately fly back and clear out my apartment. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

I commend Tao for speaking out, but it needs to be said that only speaking up when personally affected by a policy is part of the reason we are in this mess to begin with. At the institutional level, this has signified a willingness to trade away other people’s rights to protect one’s own share.

Bar has a Boris Spassky portrait, obliged to order a White Russian.

This is really cool! A rabies vaccine, applied as a gel to fur, spreads quickly among bats as they lick and groom each other. That prevents rabies outbreaks in other animals. www.science.org/content/arti...

Neat profile of a recent preprint led by a grad student in our lab, Cole Knuese, on orotopical rabies vaccination strategies in wild bat populations. Left field of most of what we do, but holds some promise!

Exploration of miracidia sensory biology with a powerful imaging platform.

4 am thunderstorm check-in

1/3 It’s official 🙌🏽 The Reyes Ruiz Lab is opening in 2026 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences. My lab will focus on host antibacterial effectors and adaptation of bacteria to host-imposed stress during S. aureus infections.

As part of the UW RISE-THRIVE faculty hiring initiative, our college is advertising three tenure-track positions focused on immunology, aging, and health span. Please share! rise.wisc.edu/rise-thrive/ #ttjobs

Came in this morning (my 40th birthday) to see my office and our lab thematically decorated with parasites! Dune vibes. The spice must flow, but ideally not past 50 µM.

Numbers continue to grow. (5x speed)

Strutting with the confidence of $7 eggs.

Ursula K. Le Guin on the true pain of being a writer

"biology tends to quickly humble the computer people" www.wired.com/story/openwo...

Lakeshore path.

Fancy new wrmXpress GUI led by @wheelerlab.bio undergrads and a significantly updated backend (v2).

Credit: ovjphotography #madisonwi

White to play and mate in 12. Beautiful puzzle.

It’s been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). I’m reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.

Welcome Dr. Nita Ahuja to UW-Madison! Thrilled to have you lead the School of Medicine and Public Health at this pivotal moment. news.wisc.edu/dr-nita-ahuj...

These days, Darth Vader feels like middle management.

Congrats to the newly minted Dr. Clair Henthorn! Her dissertation is a whirlwind of significant contributions to the fundamental questions that motivate our lab. Her talents and creativity will enrich whatever environment or goal she chooses next. #proudPI

The foxes of Lake Mendota.

Starting a new lab?! The most important factors for choosing the university/institute/company are: the colleagues, students & postdocs, the leadership, equipment, the lab space and start-up funds; IN THAT ORDER.

"A study of federally funded research projects in the United States estimated that principal investigators spend on average about 45% of their time on administrative activities related to applying for and managing projects rather than conducting active research" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I hate the direction lab equipment design has gone in recent years. I don't want touchscreens, I don't want wifi integration, I don't want centrifuges demanding to know what time zone they're in. I just want reliable instruments - with physical buttons - that do the one task they were made for.

Productive start to the new year.

Unsuccessfully trying to find his ornament on the Capitol tree.

Watched the Bob Dylan biopic. After it ended, a guy a few seats down casually walks over and says, “I wrestled Bob Dylan in the UW wrestling room back in 96”. Sir, that’s not a fun fact—that’s the plot of a better movie.

Love many Wisconsin traditions but E. coli on rye is hard pass.

Dommaraju Gukesh, an 18-year-old Indian grandmaster, won the World Chess Championship in Singapore on Thursday. In so doing, Gukesh became the 18th and youngest undisputed world champion in history.

UW-Madison Scientists starter pack go.bsky.app/TEnn93j

New preprint on modifying benzodiazepines to treat schistosomiases but not put people to sleep! t.co/A0SoOcfME4

Are we still doing this here? Check out our latest work investigating Zika virus evolutionary dynamics in Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes. Thought this work might never happen because it was totally disrupted by COVID shutdowns. Extra happy it is out. journals.plos.org/plosntds/art...