Jeff Bourgeois, PhD

Biological Laboratory | LEGO® Ideas This is a two-floor realistic Biological Laboratory building. In this design, I try to tell stories about biologists, introduce biology concepts to general publ…

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Motion to stop referring to it as Next Generation Sequencing. That's like saying The Matrix is a recent movie

Showing this to my students when they ask why we only have computer-free, in-person assignments.

This is so cool and SO exciting!!

Congrats Brian!!!

Scientists have seen Asgard archaea crawling for the first time. When it comes to the origin of eukaryotes, this is like seeing a feathered dinosaur in the wild. (Video courtesy of Philipp Ralder)

Faculty should not get drunk with graduate students. Drinking in general around graduate students is a bad idea. Grad students already have issues with stress, anxiety, and mental health. They see faculty drinking as an example.

Right now I’m culturing them to turn them into macrophages before I mix in the Lyme bacterium (B. burgdorferi)! Goes is to get a good look at how the human cells respond to the bacteria.

Happily! These are human monocytes (which grow up to be macrophages) isolated directly from human blood!

My first time doing an independent tissue culture experiment in Worcester since 2016. Godspeed, little ones.

The Cost of Confusion: Dispelling Myths about the NIH Public Access Policy and Article Processing Charges Last July, the NIH issued an RFI on limiting direct spending on article processing charges (APCs). Over 900 public responses offered valuable perspectives but also exposed widespread misconceptions ab...

V useful piece dispelling myths about NIH policy on open access
upstream.force11.org/cost-of-conf...

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

A super handy database to help support academic society journals and other ethical publishing. academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

An Open Letter to Graduating PhDs in a Post-Federal Science World July 15, 2025

Not exactly advice I give, but I believe this period is shaping the next gen of scientific leaders with unique skillsets. I wrote a bit about it here: uncultured.carinilab.com/p/an-open-le...

Lipid scavenging by the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi Author summary Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, which has an unusually small genome; it scavenges most of the nutrients it needs to survive from its hosts. This scavenging ...

New publication from Pete Gwynne from @TuftsLyme in PlosPathogens doing a deep dive into lipid scavenging by B. burgdorferi. Once again and example of Bb being lazy and depending on its environment 😀 journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

My process for writing emails

🚨My department is hiring a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor to teach undergrad Genetics & Genomics, upper-level Genomics, and an inquiry-based Computational Genomics course where students can do authentic research. 🧬💻

I’m on the search committee. DM me if you’re interested. Please share! 🙏

Congrats!!!

Thank you!!

As always I remain immensely grateful to everyone involved with the DoD CDMRP for Tick Borne Diseases for making this possible. The experiments are underway and I’m very excited to see how this all turns out!

Press release was delayed because of the change in institution and the shutdown, but we’re officially doing stuff! www.wpi.edu/news/wpi-res...

It also saves me so much time not having to explain why their sequencing reactions fail.

The most consistent experimental work I do in my lab these days is sneak into all the molecular biology kits and throw out the elution buffers and write “elute with water” on all of the printed protocols… all while my lab laughs at me.

PI life is weird.

“Nice” NIH study sections screw their applicants because of the way NIH calculates percentile. I often write blog comments about NIH grant review matters that exist in an uncomfortable tension between what NIH wants us to do on study section and what I see as our professional obligation to t…

"Nice" NIH study sections screw their applicants because of the way NIH calculates percentile. drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/11/20/n...

“Overly honest methods”

Breaking News: The Supreme Court denied a request to consider overturning its landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage a decade ago. nyti.ms/3Ju2Ayd

Yes, some people's legacies are complicated. For example, Watson. After all, though he was racist, don't forget his other traits. For example, he was also sexist. And also anti-semitic. And a data / idea thief. So let's not forget all the different facets.

As a PI I am like a dilettante hobbyist of cell culture

Once in a while I like to glance at some cells

I use the hemocytometer to manually count cells just to show my lab members it’s possible

I walk through and give the incubators a nice pat daily

Molecular dissection of Class A PBP function uncovers novel features of the non-canonical Clostridioides difficile divisome complex Author summary Bacterial cell division is an ancient and essential process, but our molecular understanding of this process is primarily based on studies in a select few model systems. Recent work fou...

Excited to share my latest postdoctoral work in the Shen Lab at Tufts! In this study, we follow up on an exciting finding by former grad student @shailab.bsky.social that C diff uses its Class A PBP (PBP1) to drive cell division (unlike previously studied bacteria)! journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Thanks Brian!!