Becky Johnson

Vector-Pathogen Interactions: From Vector Biology to Innovative Control Strategies | Keystone Symposia Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Vector-Pathogen Interactions: From Vector Biology to Innovative Control Strategies, February 2027, in Geneva, with field leaders!

👀There will be a Keystone Symposium with a focus on Vector-Pathogen Interactions to be held in Geneva, Switzerland in February 2027. It should be a great meeting and hope to see you there! www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...

Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes - Nature Communications Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate that, while successive blood feeding increases earlier dengue virus dissemination, the inhibitory effects of Wolbachia remain strong, highlighting Wolbachia’s potential to disrupt dengue transmission under natural feeding conditions.

Implications of successive blood feeding on #dengue virus inhibition by Wolbachia in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

@entomososwin.bsky.social @mallerybreban.bsky.social @brackneylab.bsky.social @chantalvogels.bsky.social @yaleemd.bsky.social

Jane Goodall reaches out and touches a small monkey.

Jane Goodall was my first childhood hero, as I loved animals as a kid and was inspired by her story. I still remember the National Geographic specials about her. RIP.

Paying $653 to See if I Had the Disease That Killed My Mother Written by Mara Wilson / Illustrated by Emily Flake

Some of you may remember my rant about getting surprise charged $653 for a medically necessary ultrasound to screen for the cancer that killed my mother.

Well, I wrote about it, and now my bad experience has been made into a cartoon for The Out of Network Network!

open.substack.com/pub/outofnet...

So great to finally have this out!!

Today I found out that my NIH NIAID K99 looking at mosquito basement membrane repair processes was funded!!! Thank you to my mentor @brackneylab.bsky.social, my co-mentor Andrea Page-McCaw, my colleagues & letter writers, the outstanding people at NIH, and everyone else who has been so supportive!!

A collage of nine headshots featuring five women and four men of varying ages, all smiling or with neutral expressions, with a variety of backgrounds including outdoor scenes and plain backdrops.

NEWS: The @entsocamerica.bsky.social Governing Board has elected nine new Fellows of the Society for 2025: Joanna Chiu, Laura Harrington, John Heraty, Margaret Mayfield, Bob Peterson, Paula Shrewsbury, Andrew Suarez, Michael Ulyshen, and Jessica Ware. MORE: entsoc.org/news/press-r...

Hi! I'm originally from Maine but currently a senior postdoc at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. I study mosquito biology and how this impacts virus transmission. Recently a lot of my work has been looking at how virus moves through the mosquito body and overcomes various barriers.

Our first Wolbachia paper now published in Nature Communications! 🦟 Check out Becky's thread! 👇

I hope that future studies will examine the impact of more frequent feeding on Wolbachia-based pathogen-blocking in other Wolbachia-mosquito combinations and that this helps inform future control and modeling efforts. Thanks for following and check out the paper for more details! 12/12

This may have implications for Wolbachia-transinfected mosquito release programs and could indicate that Wolbachia has a greater impact than current model predictions that only account for single blood feedings. 11/12

While this work was largely done using certain strains of wAlbB and Aedes aegypti and may not hold true for all Wolbachia-mosquito combinations, this study indicates that Wolbachia-based pathogen-blocking using wAlbB is robust under more frequent feeding conditions. 10/12

This trend held true for double-fed WT and wAlbB mosquitoes but further modeling showed that single-fed and double-fed wAlbB mosquitoes had a lower chance of surviving past the EIP relative to WT counterparts. 9/12

The increase in speed of dissemination with a second blood meal also led to a decrease in extrinsic incubation period (EIP) and a greater probability of surviving to transmit virus. 8/12

Further, DENV-2 titers were higher in double-fed WT and wAlbB mosquitoes but this was not linked to Wolbachia density and appeared to be connected to dissemination status. 7/12

This trend of earlier DENV-2 midgut escape held true for WT mosquitoes and those with wAlbB Wolbachia. Numbers of wMelM mosquitoes were too low to make any firm conclusions here. 6/12

We also found that DENV-2 escapes the mosquito midgut faster when mosquitoes are given a second blood meal. This more closely matches mosquito feeding patterns in the wild where mosquitoes attempt to refeed shortly after egg laying. 5/12

As expected, we found that both wAlbB and wMelM Wolbachia strains reduced DENV-2 infection in Aedes aegypti with wMelM providing more protection against initial midgut infection. 4/12

This study provides new insights into Wolbachia-based pathogen-blocking under more frequent mosquito blood feeding. Let's do a quick summary thread but check out the paper for more details! 3/12

These include Braiya Nolan, Afeez Sodeinde, @isabelott.bsky.social, @perran.bsky.social, Xinyue Gu, @nathangrubaugh.bsky.social, Alex Perkins, @brackneylab.bsky.social, and @chantalvogels.bsky.social 2/12

Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes - Nature Communications Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate that, while successive blood fe...

So glad to finally have this out with co-author @mallerybreban.bsky.social and very thankful for the many amazing people who contributed to this study and provided materials and input! 🦟🦠1/12 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Likewise thrilled to have been able to contribute to an amazing team effort on this! 🦟

Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes Nature Communications - Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate...

Thrilled to be a part of this study on Wolbachia and multiple blood feeding. Now published!

rdcu.be/eyqaG

Mosquito immune cells enhance dengue and Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti - Nature Communications Infection of mosquito immune cells by dengue and Zika virus enhances the spread of virus infection to mosquito tissues, such as the salivary glands, to promote virus transmission and highlights conser...

🦟" #Mosquito #immune cells enhance #dengue and #Zika virus infection in #Aedes aegypti" by David R. Hall, @entomososwin.bsky.social, @brackneylab.bsky.social, @vectorimmunity.bsky.social et al. in @natcomms.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This was such a fun study with great collaborators! Glad to have it finally out. 🎉 We found that hemocytes actually help viruses disseminate to new organs within the mosquito.

Mosquito immune cells enhance dengue and Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti Nature Communications - Infection of mosquito immune cells by dengue and Zika virus enhances the spread of virus infection to mosquito tissues, such as the salivary glands, to promote virus...

Despite all the shit going on, we have to celebrate our victories. New publication with @entomososwin.bsky.social and @vectorimmunity.bsky.social showing that hemocytes play a central role in disseminating flaviviruses to secondary tissues potentially functioning as a Trojan Horse(TBD)
rdcu.be/euj4g

Sindbis virus is suppressed in the yellow fever mosquito aedes aegypti by Atg6/BECN1 (autophagy-related 6)-mediated activation of autophagy Macroautophagy/autophagy is a critical modulator of pathogen invasion response in vertebrates and invertebrates. However, how it affects mosquito-borne viral pathogens that significantly burden pub...

New RasgonLab paper (ahead of print) published in Autophagy!

By Dr. Sujit Pujhari & other former RasgonLab members

"Sindbis virus is suppressed in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti by Atg6/BECN1 (autophagy-related 6)-mediated activation of autophagy"

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

🧪 Detailed data viz NYT article, out today, on the extent of funding cuts at the National Science Foundation.

This "broken pie chart" is neat & new to me: Powerfully shows the slowdown in new NSF awards across areas.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Blackpoll!!

No photo but saw my first one this morning!