Audrey John MD PhD

Projected impacts of climate change on malaria in Africa - Nature Projected impacts of climate change on malaria burden in Africa by 2050 highlight the urgent need for climate-resilient malaria control strategies and robust emergency response systems to safeguard pr...

Important study in @nature.com how climate change could impact malaria transmission in coming decades. An increase in malaria cases of over 100 million by 2050.
The authors emphasize a need for climate resilient malaria countering measure.
Climate change is real.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Official concedes 8-year-old who died in U.S. custody could have been saved as devastated family recalls final days The parents of 8-year-old Anadith Danay Reyes Alvarez told CBS News that their daughter died in Border Patrol custody because of negligence and discrimination.

Children are dying in the US concentration camps

www.cbsnews.com/news/anadith...

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.

Statement from VA fed workers on murder of Alex Pretti: As health care professionals dedicated to the care of US Veterans, e grieve the killing of Alex Pretti, a Veteran Health Administration ICU nurse and health scientist in Minneapolis. We ask that people honor and cherish the memory of this man who dedicated his work to those who protect the United States of America.

A Breath of Air Could Help Diagnose Gut Microbiome Disruptions Scientists can detect volatile organic compounds produced by gut bacteria in people’s breath. Image credit:© iStock.com, narcisa In the depths of the human colon, gut microbes help keep the body healthy by aiding digestion and producing vital metabolites. Disruptions to this bustling microbial community are associated with diseases including asthma and serious infections in preterm infants. However, quickly identifying the gut microbiome changes that can lead to these conditions in a hospital is not feasible with current methods. “One of the key barriers to integrating our knowledge of the microbiome into clinical care is the time it takes to analyze the data on the microbiome,” said…

A Breath of Air Could Help Diagnose Gut Microbiome Disruptions

Scientists can detect volatile organic compounds produced by gut bacteria in people’s breath. Image credit:© iStock.com, narcisa In the depths of the human colon, gut microbes help keep the body healthy by aiding digestion and…

Vibrant color portrait of Jane S. Richardson, the visionary biophysicist and artist who revolutionized structural biology with her invention of ribbon diagrams. She gazes warmly at the camera with a bright, knowing smile that radiates quiet brilliance and decades of curiosity. Her silver-blonde hair woven with gentle waves. Large, elegant dangling earrings catch the light, and she wears a richly patterned brown blouse embroidered with intricate turquoise paisley motifs and delicate beadwork that echoes the molecular elegance she has spent her life depicting. Behind her floats a luminous, dreamlike backdrop of glowing molecular structures--interlocking hexagonal and ribbon-like forms in electric blues, teals, and greens--blending science and art in a single, living canvas.

Hand-drawn and hand-colored (by Jane Richardson) scientific artwork known as a Richardson ribbon diagram (or “ribbon model”), one of the iconic visual inventions of Jane Richardson that transformed the way we see and understand protein structures. A graceful, three-dimensional tangle of protein backbone ribbons twists and spirals through space, rendered in soft pencil lines and luminous watercolor hues. Smooth golden-brown coils represent α-helices that curl like elegant ribbons, while broad teal-green arrows trace the flat, pleated strands of β-sheets slicing through the molecule with directional purpose. Thin, looping golden threads connect the secondary structures, creating a delicate, almost dance-like choreography of biology’s hidden architecture. The entire form is framed by a simple olive-green mat and dark border, giving the drawing the quiet dignity of both fine art and precise scientific illustration—a timeless bridge between molecular reality and human imagination.

Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941

+ Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures)
+ MacArthur Fellow, 1985
+ Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991
+ President, Biophysical Society, 2012

#WomenInSTEM

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.

White. Hot. Rage.

The gut #microbiota shapes the human and murine #breath #volatilome

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #OpenAccess #MicroSky

Breath-based diagnostics? @cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social @odomjohnlab.bsky.social
Gut bacteria influence the volatile organic compounds found in exhaled in host breath
www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

A Breath of Air Could Help Diagnose Gut Microbiome Disruptions Volatile organic compounds in the breath reflect gut microbiome changes, offering a quick and non-invasive way to detect biomarkers of diseases like asthma in children.

www.the-scientist.com/a-breath-of-...

What your breath says about the bacteria in your gut Metabolites in mouse and human breath correlate to gut-microbe populations and might be helpful in diagnosing disease.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The gut microbiota shapes the human and murine breath volatilome The gut microbiota is crucial to health, yet implementation of microbiota-based therapeutics is limited by the lack of rapid diagnostics. We hypothesi…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

What does your breath tell you about your gut? 🫁🦠

Thrilled to share our latest work with Andy Kay at Wash U, just out in Cell Metabolism!

The gut microbiota shapes the human and murine breath volatilome Hernandez-Leyva et al. show that gut bacteria influence the volatile organic compounds found in exhaled in host breath. Future breath-based diagnostics leveraging this relationship may offer a rapid and accessible view of the health of the gut microbiome.

Online now: The gut microbiota shapes the human and murine breath volatilome

📅 Jan 30 | 12 PM ET
#Measles is rising with 2,400 US cases since Jan 2025, threatening elimination status

@jennifernuzzo.bsky.social leads a panel w/ Lori Handy, @childrensphila.bsky.social & Liam Hicks, #AZDHS on what’s driving the outbreak & how to respond.

Register
brown.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

“The good guys won,” said Paul Offit, an infectious diseases physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a former member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The cancellation news was “extremely heartening”, he said, adding that except for the birth of his children, he had “never been happier”. “This administration did not see people in Africa as valuable,” Offit said. “You can’t treat children like this, you can’t treat people like this. We were able to stand up for them. We were able to convince people about the fact that this was unethical.” The HHS did not respond to the Guardian’s inquiries about why the trial was cancelled.

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CHOP’s Vaccine Education Center Elevates Science-backed Recommendations in 200 Words Editor’s note: In this post, we round up just a few of the many timely resources our partners at the Vaccine Education Center have produced to help guide informed decision making. As we head into…

Our partners at CHOP’s Vaccine Education Center are cutting through the noise this season with 4 timely resources to help families make informed decisions.

See the roundup ⤵️
policylab.chop.edu/blog/chops-v...

ft. Andrew Nelson, @SamGarfinkle, Colby Agostino, Daniel Kulp, Jesper Pallesen (@BB_UPenn), Zi Jie Lin, Joyce Park, Amber Kim, Kelly Bayrun, Madison McCanna, Kylie Konrath (@wistar.org) & @odomjohnlab (@chopresearch.bsky.social) @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Too much news noise. But don’t forget: we’re about to launch the next Tuskegee Experiment.

This time, on babies.

Dr. Offit breaks down this wildly unethical study in his detailed substack. Highly recommend reading.

I break down some of his main points in thread below

Changes to the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule are prompting questions from the public. The #IDWeek2026 on-demand session, “Increasing Vaccine Confidence,” helps you navigate questions with clarity and compassion.

Access now: https://cdmcd.co/4RpkB5

Tens of thousands of annual cases of chickenpox, rotavirus, and other vaccine preventable diseases a year - in a country of six million people.

Not only will Denmark’s vaccine schedule not work for the US, it already isn’t working for Denmark.

A timely offering - Needed now more than ever....

$15k stipend to support 9 weeks of full time summer research!

For rising juniors/seniors who are able to travel to and obtain housing at the location of the lab they are placed in!

I did an HHMI summer experience in 2013 and it changed everything for me! Apply…or tell someone to apply!

🧪🧠

White text on red background with PIDS logo at bottom

The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society has issued the following statement on our deep concerns regarding the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices December meeting and its impact on public health in the United States.
pids.org/2025/12/05/p...

A picture is worth a 1000 words. The birth dose of hepatitis B vaccines in the USA eliminated perinatally acquired hepatitis B infection from over 20,000 cases a year before the vaccine was introduced to <20 cases a year. The gaslighting by the current members ACIP is obscene, unethical and cruel.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is meeting today to discuss newborn hepatitis B vaccines. Here's what you need to know.

A "JAMA" article, published online December 3, 2025, titled "Universal Hepatitis B Vaccination at Birth—Risks of Revising the Recommendation" by Michael S. Abers et al., discusses ACIP's review and a possible vote to eliminate the birth dose recommendation.

💬Viewpoint: Eliminating universal hepatitis B birth dose vaccination risks an estimated 8% increase in annual perinatal #HepatitisB infections in the US, increasing preventable chronic disease burden. ja.ma/3Me0zHh

Because of the hepatitis B birth dose and completion of the infant series of the vaccine, the U.S. has made significant progress in reducing chronic hepatitis B. Eliminating the birth dose would reverse this progress and put children's health at risk. Read more:

www.aap.org/en/news-room...

No more paylines at the NIH
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

How awful. This is outright health disinformation, lying to the American people. Not only is there massive evidence showing no link between vaccines & autism, there’s not even a plausible mechanism based on what we’ve learned about the genetics of autism, some environmental exposures in pregnancy