🧪For anyone interested in EBV in autoimmunity, I strongly urge you to read this incredible study by @shady-myounis.bsky.social, Bill Robinson, and @tobiaslanz.bsky.social. It is not only a scientific tour de force, it has a deeply provocative discussion that everyone in the field should consider 1/

Whoah EBV not only causes multiple sclerosis, it also might be the root of SLE www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... An EBV vaccine to rid ourselves of these horrible autoimmune conditions (and many cancers)? #lupus #medsky #RheumSky @christosargyrop.bsky.social

New OA Article: "RNA m6A regulates the transcription and heterochromatin state of retrotransposons in Arabidopsis" rdcu.be/eM95H m6A is recognized by nuclear readers CPSF30-L and ECT12, which associate with SUVH4/5/6 and ATXR5/6 to enhance histone methylation...

Pitt faculty taking a stand against the higher education "compact" www.wesa.fm/identity-com... I know of a few other news stories about similar faculty action. Please share them here.

Welp. Thanks to the Republican gov shutdown I have a bunch of hours back in my week due to a NIH study section not meeting. These poor applicants. They will be waiting week by week for government to reopen and to find out what will happen to their grant application.

The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body 🧪 www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine #nobelprize E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

Strengthening nucleic acid biosecurity screening against generative protein design tools www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧬🖥️🧪

Imagine a scientific journal called Infection and Immunity not focusing on viruses and the immune response?!

Our enthusiastic student talk: Febri Gunawan Sugiokto from PMI #bgsa #symposium #studenttalks

Check out PMI talks tomorrow at the SOM Grad Student Symposium: @catmphelps.bsky.social (in @meisellab.bsky.social ), Daria Jelic (Doug Reed lab), Kelsey Ertwine (Abby Overacre lab), @febrigunawan48.bsky.social (in Renfeng Li lab), and @dariavantyne.bsky.social !

ASM 🥳

🚨 Microbiologists! We are recruiting Assistant / Associate Professors in 3 collaborative areas of our U. Pittsburgh School of Medicine. 1) MMG (my dept): fundamental research in med micro 2) Peds ID / I4Kids institute 3) Center for Vaccine Research 🔗 to all 3 w/info: www.linkedin.com/posts/vaughn...

Thanks to @asm.org and colleagues for stadning up for public health. Call Congress today and demand Kennedy's resignation asm.org/press-releas...

#1 Centromeres are epigenetic loci defined by CENP-A, positioned in unmethylated DNA flanked by highly methylated regions. Our work, published in @natgenet.nature.com in collaboration with @naltemose.bsky.social investigates the role of DNAme at human centromeres www.nature.com/articles/s41...

As RFK testifies in front of the Senate today, ASV wants to emphasize the risks posed by his decisions related to virus outbreaks and the public health of Americans. Together with our partner organizations, we call for RFK's resignation: asm.org/press-releas...

🧬 New preprint! We find PIAS1 regulates EBNA1, the key EBV protein for episome maintenance. PIAS1 binds oriP & SUMOylates EBNA1, stabilizing episomes + restricting lytic replication. 🚨 PIAS1 may also regulate KSHV & HPV → a potential pan-viral therapeutic target?

EBNA1 SUMOylation by PIAS1 Suppresses EBV Lytic Replication and Enhances Episome Maintenance https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673444v1

Win for #openscience!

Mars: simplifying bioinformatics workflows through a containerized approach to tool integration and management academic.oup.com/bioinformati... 🧬🖥️🧪 github.com/GenomicAI/mars

NIH PostBac program is open again! And I will be hiring! #JobPostComing www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...

Challenging times. Harvard at risk of losing $9 billion in federal funds as US launches review www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

New this evening (3/28): Major update in NIH grant termination numbers. ❌ 695 NIH grants now terminated (up from 429) ❌ 232 on HIV/AIDS ❌ 44 on cancer ❌ 28 on Alzheimer's ❌ 123 on Covid* *And this doesn't count cancelled non-NIH Covid grants. HUGE THANKS to @noamross.net for pushing the updates!

“If large numbers of academics working in the U.S. do decide to leave, Gold doubts other countries will be able to absorb them all. The end result, he warns, could be an exodus of talent from global science. “My biggest fear,” he says, is that “we’re going to lose a cohort of researchers.”” 🧪

Some scientists in the United States have told Nature that they are considering leaving the country in the wake of widespread disruption to research brought in by the Trump administration Are you thinking about leaving? https://go.nature.com/4bMGd0J

A #SciencePerspective by @zalaly.bsky.social and @erictopol.bsky.social identifies key issues that need to be prioritized in the study of #LongCovid. Learn more on #LongCovidAwarenessDay: scim.ag/3XKbds3

Uncovering the road to MIS-C… -TGFβ links EBV to multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children- Brilliant work by a massively brilliant team. #LongCovid #MISC #KD www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is really, really bad. Columbia made the mistake of thinking that placating the administration would spare them. Other universities made the mistake of thinking it would stop with Columbia. It won’t stop without disciplined pushback; it’s an existential question for American universities.

Breaking news: Thousands of researchers and their supporters, including recently fired federal workers, have gathered across the U.S. in response to layoffs and funding cuts ordered by the Trump administration. scim.ag/41zlPv4

If you like chromatin remodellers and centromeres, this might be of interest. In it, we generated omics data from isogenic PBRM1 cell lines, which we hope is of use to the community, freely available (when evil forces aren't messing with the publicly funded websites 🙄) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wow Just Wow youtu.be/G8ECt04qPos?...

Heartbreaking chats this week with students thinking of giving up on their dreams of getting a PhD. They worry about getting in PhD programs and careers post PhD. My suggestions: don’t be hasty, think broadly incl EU & Canada, & careers beyond traditional academia. What’re you telling your students?

Many US students don’t know how to seek opportunities outside the US. With some help from our colleagues in EU and Canada, we could put together a consolidated website of PhD opportunities and scholarships outside the US, organized by field. There might still be time for this year in some places.

Altered immune landscape of cervical lymph nodes reveals Epstein-Barr virus signature in multiple sclerosis | Science Immunology www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Wondering if your study section cancelled? I update this sheet daily. As of today, 56/124 study sections that should have met since Jan 2, 2025 have "not met as scheduled." docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

The University of Pittsburgh confirmed Friday that there would be no new Ph.D. offers of admission while Pitt works to understand how reduced federal aid could impact the institution.

Freeze meetings -> reviews stop Reviews stop -> no scores No scores -> no recommendations No recommendations -> no awards No awards -> no $ No $ -> job & career loss, projects halted, lost discovery/cures/innovation + more We have a narrow window before the science supply chain grinds to a halt.

Statement by the American Society for Microbiology. Their website @asm.org has links to actions and more info. bsky.app/profile/asm....

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, yesterday killed a $60 million program aimed at making universities’ STEM education more inclusive. scim.ag/3EtS0US

A long post about what’s happening to the science funding agencies in the US and why. As mentioned, this one just kept getting longer even as I kept stripping curse words from it. www.science.org/content/blog...

The gears of the grantmaking machinery at NIH have begun moving again, after a 2-week standstill following a controversial ban on communications imposed by President Donald Trump. scim.ag/4aLQ0U6

SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT NIH FUNDING Closed sessions of institute and center Advisory Counsel meetings are now permitted. This is where grant applications are discussed and approved for potential funding. Open sessions where there are public presentations and discussions are still not allowed.

ASM did a spotlight article on me last February and it has also been taken down as “under review”. Other spotlight articles are still up so not sure how else to interpret this besides the obvious. It feels pretty crappy to have been singled out and I won’t be engaging with them in the future.

What it’s like being a PI right now…

Since 1991, the NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) is dedicated to K-12 students & funds innovative STEM educational projects. It supports our EvolvingSTEM program that engages >1500 students/yr in authentic research. 🚨Its Program Announcement (PAR-23-137) is now GONE.😡 nihsepa.org

A mechanism for maintaining and spreading H3K9me3 in heterochromatin from the Fejes Toth and Aravin labs that depends on the local H3K9me3 density: HP1 dimers recruit SetDB1 to chromatin by simultaneously binding H3K9me3 on histone H3 and auto-methylated SetDB1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A thing I didn't know. You can see who you've blocked, who's blocked you (interesting!) and lists you're on on Bluesky if you go to clearsky.app (this time unlinked to me🙄)

Humans: “We should exercise our immune muscles by catching viruses.” Viruses: