Michal Caspi Tal, PhD

On the balance of knowledge - Nature Reviews Immunology Ruslan Medzhitov shares his thoughts on the balance between generating data and developing theories in immunology, with a focus on exploring the rules that govern complex systems.

'Empirical data and the theories that make sense of them are the twin pillars of scientific progress. When one pillar is raised much higher than the other, they cease to be good pillars.'
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

MIT's MAESTRO study is looking for a few more #LongCovid male participants in the 18-28 yrs & 56-65 yrs brackets. See below screenshots for more info on Long Covid research study from posts by @immunofever.bsky.social & talresearchgroup.mit.edu/mitmaestro #medsky

I'm just delighted to announce our new preprint on genome-scale perturb-seq in CD4+ T cells. We learned both general lessons about the power of perturb-seq, and specific lessons about T cell biology.

Led by amazing postdocs Emma Dann and Ronghui Zhu, with my wonderful collaborator Alex Marson.

New preprint on the impact of vitamin D in regulating T cell migration to the brain. Great collaboration with Britta Engelhardt 😊

Sex Bias in IL-10 Production by Type I Regulatory T Cells Regulated by PI3K/mTOR Signaling | Neurology Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation Background and ObjectivesMultiple sclerosis (MS) is more prevalent in women, with a female-to-male ratio of 3:1. The molecular mechanisms driving this sex difference are still mostly unknown. MS resul...

In this study, we highlight a sex difference in Type I regulatory T cells, with potential translational application in MS to be further explored.

www.neurology.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

@saniya-kari.bsky.social @sexdiffimmunity.bsky.social

@lshtm.bsky.social will be running a 3-day online short course on using multiple imputation to handle missing data on 23-25th June 2026. Teaching staff include James Carpenter, Ruth Keogh, Clémence Leyrat, and myself. Further details about the course at www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/course...

Ultimately I don't think it's a branding problem BUT I do think that people really don't understand how vaccines work or what they do, so there is some merit in a straightforward description...

What if we rebranded/reconceived/reformatted vaccines as immune stimulants? They stimulate community immunity. Are you yay or nay

MIT’s Mikki Tal Joins HHS Roundtable to Redefine Chronic Lyme as a “Solvable Engineering Problem” • The MIT Center for Gynepathology Research Dr. Michal Tal addressed HHS Secretary Kennedy and key stakeholders on the critical need for Systems Medicine and Novel Alternative Methods (NAMs) to diagnose and treat infection-associated chronic il...

cgr.mit.edu/2025/12/19/m...

Multicentre retrospective detection of nailfold videocapillaroscopy abnormalities in long covid patients Background SARS-CoV-2 induces acute non-specific endothelial/microvascular alterations that have been identified by nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC). Details on NVC abnormalities in long covid (LC) ...

NVC test shows significant microvascular damage in #LongCovid patients vs matched healthy controls. Dilated capillaries, microhaemorrhages, abnormal shapes and reduced capillary density are still detectable in LC 12 months after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection

rmdopen.bmj.com/content/11/2...

Screenshot of abstract

From a Nancy Klimas team in Florida, USA

Inefficient energy consumption is related to post exertional malaise during cardiopulmonary exercise testing in long COVID

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

#LongCovid #PEM #PASC #PwLC #postcovid #postcovid19 #PostCovidSyndrome

#MicroSky: Clinical Treatments: In Crohn’s disease, gut bacteria may shape response to biologic therapy. Patients with more Fusobacterium were less likely to improve on ustekinumab, hinting that the microbiome could help predict who benefits most. Read Wang et al. doi.org/10.1111/1751...

The Long COVID Treatment Trial – Tirzepatide (LoCITT-T) is officially open for enrollment for people with Long COVID in:
Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah
longcovid.scripps.edu/locitt-t/?ut...

1/16

GitHub - aqlaboratory/openfold-3: OpenFold3: A fully open source biomolecular structure prediction model based on AlphaFold3 OpenFold3: A fully open source biomolecular structure prediction model based on AlphaFold3 - aqlaboratory/openfold-3

Looks like OpenFold3 has been formally released in a public "preview". Not quite on parity with AlphaFold3 on a few benchmarks shown, in particular for antibody interactions. All info on the github link. I am sure we will hear more about this from the developers github.com/aqlaboratory...

Pre-print alert! And this one really is a must read for anyone that does spectral #flowcytometry. It is a complete, fully-automated spectral unmixing pipeline that reduces error up to 9000-fold.

Want to get a tough sample, like lung, looking like this? Read more!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/ This is my first time posting a comment on a bioRxiv manuscript, but since I've been asked my opinion on this one a bunch, and I was actually one of the reviewers and waived my anonymity in review, I decided to post my review as a comment: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

2/ The TL/DR is that I think this paper is both very informative, and very important. However, it needs to be contextualized as a deep study of blood from a recovery cohort, which is then being compared to public data from tissue from cohorts where many did not recover.
Add your comments to discuss

1/ This is my first time posting a comment on a bioRxiv manuscript, but since I've been asked my opinion on this one a bunch, and I was actually one of the reviewers and waived my anonymity in review, I decided to post my review as a comment: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It should be noted that Google has noticed the backlash enough that they quietly published a code that would removed AI results for their searches.

An enterprising person built a default site to search without AI, and the results are goddamn refreshing as hell.
udm14.org

Half of Heart Attacks in Younger Women Aren't From Clogged Arteries Traditionally, most heart attacks have been blamed on clogged arteries causing atherothrombosis – where blood clots block flow to the heart.

Sex differences matter!
www.sciencealert.com/half-of-hear...

Epstein–Barr virus exploits desmocollin 2 as the principal epithelial cell entry receptor | @natmicrobiol.nature.com

sco.lt/6i4kd6

My cousin died from a vaccine preventable illness, and that's part of why it's so important to me to work on the immunology of infectious disease. I know what's on the line.

Post about my decision to vaccinate my baby ahead of schedule during a measles outbreak

What if this was your kid, you ask? I'll tell you. As an infectious disease immunologist, I protect my kids through vaccination. A measles outbreak reached my county when I had an infant. Knowing the risk for severe outcomes, I read the literature, vaccinated him EARLY and then rejoined the schedule

YouTube video by MicrobeTV Immune Booster #2: Sex differences in immune responses with Michal Tal

Immune Booster 2: Sex differences in immune responses with Michal Tal

YouTube video by MicrobeTV Vaccines save lives

"If you're not vaccinated...there may not be any time."-Michal Tal

From Immune Booster 2: Sex differences in immune responses with Michal Tal (@immunofever.bsky.social )

Hosts:
@cindyleifer.bsky.social @bioprofbarker.bsky.social

Doubling down as a Toxicologist. The benefits far outweigh the harms.

Linking to my full post from that time when I was faced with a measles outbreak with a kid that was below the recommended age for MMRV. I'm so sorry for the parents who will lose access to lifesaving vaccines for their babies.

Post about my decision to vaccinate my baby ahead of schedule during a measles outbreak

What if this was your kid, you ask? I'll tell you. As an infectious disease immunologist, I protect my kids through vaccination. A measles outbreak reached my county when I had an infant. Knowing the risk for severe outcomes, I read the literature, vaccinated him EARLY and then rejoined the schedule

The only question now is what huge problem do YOU (reader) want to address with this incredible data set? The world's sequences are your oyster. Go make pearls!

🌎👩‍🔬 For 15+ years biology has accumulated petabytes (million gigabytes) of🧬DNA sequencing data🧬 from the far reaches of our planet.🦠🍄🌵

Logan now democratizes efficient access to the world’s most comprehensive genetics dataset. Free and open.

doi.org/10.1101/2024...