Philip Ahern

Was it ever alive? I joined because I heard it was like old Twitter but I never see much in the way of decent science conversation on here. Maybe people have just abandoned social media.

It's more than 20 years old, so obviously doesn't discuss many of the amazing discoveries since, prominent among them being the tissue repair functions of Tregs, identifying them as immune system regulators not merely suppressor T cells.

Naturally Arising CD4+ Regulatory T Cells for Immunologic Self-Tolerance and Negative Control of Immune Responses ▪ Abstract Naturally occurring CD4+ regulatory T cells, the majority of which express CD25, are engaged in dominant control of self-reactive T cells, contributing to the maintenance of immunologic sel...

I've noted for a long time a desire among many to try & write particular people out of the narrative of the history of Treg research. This review, by the one person everyone agrees is pivotal, provides an accurate assessment for those who don't know the field:

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Séamus Heaney was also uncontactable as he was sailing when he won for literature in '95

I think, Fiona Powrie, Ethan Shevach, Jeff Bluestone, Diane Mathis and Christoph Benoist all would lay claim too. Don Mason is dead, but he probably started his studies in the area at a similar time to Sakaguchi.

All praise to him is well warranted.

It is strange that there hasn't been an award for T cells/B cells, given that there is sufficient consensus that Miller and Cooper could share it.

The mention of Sakaguchi alone was cold, Jeff 😂

Anyone have any expertise/experience with interrogating SNP/InDel in a mouse genome using a reference genome. We have an alignment and are using Integrated Genomics Viewer, but are having trouble figuring some stuff out.

With deep gratitude, we thank Dr. Marc Jenkins for his decades of leadership, mentorship, and dedication to the Center for Immunology. The foundation he built will guide and inspire us for years to come.

Gianna Hammer & I are thrilled to co-Chair the 64th @midwinter-immun.bsky.social Conference of Immunologists Jan. 24-27, 2026. Join us & an amazing lineup of speakers including Carla Rothlin as Dan Campbell memorial lecturer for some exciting science in lovely Asilomar, CA!
www.midwconfimmunol.org

Ugh. So many businesses thrive only by amplifying insecurities and making us feel inadequate: Not good enough, not beautiful enough, not clean enough, not rich enough, not thin enough, not popular enough, not tech savvy enough. EFF THAT. Don’t buy what they’re selling. You’re wonderful as you are.

Studying ecoimmunology? 🌍🧬

Submit your work to Discovery Immunology’s new Ecoimmunology Special Collection, exploring how ecological factors shape immune responses in humans & animals.

📢 Editors: Dr Iris Mair & Prof Kathryn Else

🔗 https://bit.ly/4lZX3NM

#Ecoimmunology #Immunology

Does anyone have any recommendations for a company/service that can sequence a mouse genome (B6 background) and provide analysis to a reference genome?

I'm also expecting that the number of submissions from "the elite" will increase as their hit rate drops, and so the effective payline will likely be worse as the competition within a given study section increases.

And what is a reviewer morally obligated to do? Is scoring the way we're meant to a bigger dereliction of duty than driving score compression.

🐭 How does microbial exposure shape mouse model outcomes?

A new Discovery Immunology study compares naturalization methods - co-housing, feralization, or both, and reveals distinct effects on gut immunity and microbiota.

🔗 https://bit.ly/44md5LQ

#Microbiome #Immunology

Centre to study how exposome causes chronic inflammatory disease A new Medical Research Council (MRC) centre will investigate how the environment interacts with our immune system to trigger chronic inflammatory diseases.

Super excited to announce that MRC has funded a new Centre of Research Excellence in Exposome Immunology. Working together, Manchester and Oxford are going to tackle a major challenge of our times. For those who wonder what the Exposome is - see yesterday's posts! www.ukri.org/news/centre-...

Writing a paper?

Join us tomorrow at 12:00 BST for a free webinar with OUP Publisher Rachel Moriarty & our very own EIC Simon Milling.

Essential tips on journal selection, peer review, and maximising impact.

Register here: https://bit.ly/44ARC1p

100%. There are so many things need saving, that constituents aren't going to be calling their Senators about NIH, and "I saved NIH" isn't going to buy any points if everything else goes through. Nobody is saving NIH.

The negative impacts of “impact” Recent articles in several scientific journals highlight the troubling upsurge in retractions and data manipulation impacting the integrity of peer-reviewe

Great piece re how to tackle reproducibility/fraud in science. Like many things in life, policing is a blunt tool, we should tackle the underlying causes of these issues.

academic.oup.com/jimmunol/art...

Does anyone have DNA/ear biopsy from SJL (CD45.1) mice from Taconic or Charles River (originating from there, even if they've been in-house for a long time that's fine) that they can share? I don't have much reach here, would appreciate people sharing the post.

New immunological discoveries deserve wide reach.

With read & publish deals, eligible authors can publish open access in Discovery Immunology for free! 🚀

Find out if you’re eligible here: bit.ly/4no9OTy

Lawmakers in Congress should not be buying, trading, and owning individual stocks. Period.

It’s long past time to BAN Congressional stock trading.

📢 Final call! Submissions for the Re-discovering Myeloid Cells Special Collection close end of June 2025.

Share your latest insights into myeloid cell biology, function, and pathology. Don’t miss out!

🔗 https://bit.ly/43OULe9

Somatic hypermutation generates antibody specificities beyond the primary repertoire Initial specificity is thought to be required for somatic hypermutation (SHM)-driven antibody evolution. Zuo, Gautam, et al. demonstrate that non-cognate B cells can enter germinal centers, undergo SH...

I thought this was really interesting. Somatic hypermutation can generate new specificities not present in the germline. Hard to quantify how prevalent such specificities are in the immune repertoire, but it would help prevent holes in the repertoire

www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

Excited to share that our study, on how T cells selectively sense foreign antigens with single-molecule sensitivity, is out! This work was led by the brilliant Will White, and done in collaboration with Jay Groves and David Baker @uwproteindesign.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Yeah, should be stated as such. Seems pretty ok to me. Not everyone can afford to power an omics study as needed, but still recognise that they can be used to point in the right direction even if not a statistically solid determination of differences in all things measured (heuristic approach).

From bench to bedside, better models mean better arthritis therapies! 💡🧬

Explore this open access guide to standardizing murine arthritis scoring for clearer, comparable results.

Full article: https://bit.ly/4mEgigp

#InflammatoryArthritis #RheumatoidArthritis #AnimalModels #Immunology

Is it unreasonable to say "we did this omics in a statistically sub par way, so only signals where we show follow up data should be considered to be robust"? Seems ok to me. Maybe this would be more powerful if a followup studied a predicted null effect and something considered to be significant?