Jennifer Tsang

A tardigrade moving around a volvox algae colony | 2025 Small World in Motion Competition Penny Fenton - A tardigrade moving around a volvox algae colony

🔬🦠🧫🧪 #MicroSky
This is the most fantatic video I've ever seen: a Tardigrade strolling on a Volvox by Penny Fenton #NikonSmallWorld #DarkField
www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/20...

Writing in 2016 (when I started #SciComm): I have writer's block but all words and punctuation are fair game so the world's my oyster.

Writing in 2025: OMG people will think AI wrote this. Reminds self not to use em dashes and to not to use the words unlock, elevate, leverage, landscape, embark...

100 Million Bacteria And Other Apple Microbiome Tales The best season is upon us. The time of vibrant foliage, pumpkins, apples… and all the microbes that come with that. When it comes to the intersection of food and microbiology, we typically t…

🍎 We just finished snacking on giant bag of apples from the apple orchard and every time I eat an apple, I'm reminded of this blog post I wrote a few years ago.

microbialmenagerie.com/apple-microb...

#TheMicrobialMenagerie #Microbiome #Microbiology

laptop and water bottle on a picnic table in a park

Focus session powered by fall weather and google docs offline mode. Trying to switching it up instead of the usual WFH.

Happy birthday!

It's also fitting that I'm working on a microbiology piece today!

A Microbiologist’s Guide to Yogurt + Instant Pot Yogurt Recipe Last year, I made 26 batches of homemade yogurt and ate probably over 350 yogurt and granola breakfasts (or some variation of that). Since I left the world of laboratory bench work, the kitchen has…

Happy #InternationalMicroorganismDay!

I'm also celebrating by eating lots of microbial foods - started my day off with some homemade yogurt (my yogurt protocol is here: microbialmenagerie.com/a-microbiolo... ), had chocolate in my granola bar, some cheese in my snack, and who knows what else.

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer Differences between cancer types, infectious disease, and potential prognostic markers are uncovered by studying microbes within cancer DNA.

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TLDR -- most cancers do not have microbiomes...but a few do have consistent microbe associations (i.e., colorectal and oral cancers). Make sense!

Google Alert emails for my name showing two headlines about Jennifer Tsang in the Great Canadian Baking Show, season 9

As a freelancer, it gets hard to track when my writing get published. So I set up Google Alerts for my name. Yesterday & today, I got alerts for a version of me in the Great Canadian Baking Show. Can I please be this other me for a while? Though not sure how I feel about being a data science student

Today during breakfast, my 2.5 year old randomly said, "Bad germs make me sick. Good germs make me healthy." 😍 #FutureMicrobiologist #MicroSky

whippet on the couch

Happy #InternationalDogDay! Here's my best colleague and pup Song who helps me with my writing, snack breaks, and play times. She'll stand awkwardly behind me until I notice her, but sometimes she'll bring a ball.

Work from home would not be nearly as enjoyable without her company each day.

A defined microbial community reproduces attributes of fine flavour chocolate fermentation - Nature Microbiology An in-depth microbiological and metagenomic analysis of Colombian farm and fermentation facilities resulted in the design of a defined microbial community that can reproduce the flavour of fine chocol...

One of my favourite papers of 2025 so far and its on chocolate! 🍫

A defined microbial community reproduces attributes of fine flavour chocolate fermentation

🧪 Read the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🔎 The associated news & views here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“When I talk about fish on Bluesky, people ask me questions about fish. When I talk about fish on Twitter, people threaten to murder my family because we’re Jewish.”

📣 Calling all early career #neuroscientists!
@thetransmitter.bsky.social & Neuromatch are teaming up to better understand how to support #EarlyCareer Researchers. Whether you're a student, postdoc, or launching your career, we want to hear from you.
➡️ www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

Plasmid prevalence is independent of antibiotic resistance in environmental Enterobacteriaceae The rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens poses a critical threat to the treatment of infectious diseases. While the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) via plasmid conjugation has bee...

If you ever find yourself needing evidence for ‘Plasmids are just as common in microbes without resistance genes,’ we’ve got you covered! Check our new paper, out today:

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

HFM is the weirdest illness ever. Today is day 8 since I started getting spots and I'm still getting new ones. Everything I read says it's 7-10 to recover, that it's mild especially in adults, but everything I am experiencing is NOT that. 😱 At least I can somewhat eat, talk, and walk again.

UMich cancels doctoral epidemiology program admissions for 2026 The University of Michigan School of Public Health will not admit a 2025-2026 admissions cycle cohort to its PhD in Epidemiologic Sciences program.

The University of Michigan’s Department of Epidemiology, one of the best IMO, will not be admitting any PhD students for 2026 due to funding concerns brought about by the Trump Administration.

Curbing Antibiotic Resistance Through Off-Target Antibiotic Removal To address the growing antimicrobial resistance problem, scientists have been searching nature in attempts to find new classes of antibiotics, optimizing existing ones, or designing new antimicrobi…

Antibiotics that make their way into other places beyond infection sites can drive #AntimicrobialResistance. In my new article for #TheMicrobialMenagerie, I dive into how eliminating these "off target" antibiotics can help reduce #AntimicrobialResistance.
microbialmenagerie.com/curbing-anti...

Horseshoe Crabs Break Free from Biomedical Testing For 40 years, researchers relied on horseshoe crab blood to catch endotoxins in drugs. Now, synthetic alternatives and updated regulations can end the practice.

To test the safety of our drug supply, drug companies use horseshoe crab blood. While synthetic alternatives are available, they haven't been widely used in the industry. Recent changes may steer the field away from harvesting crabs. My latest: www.the-scientist.com/horseshoe-cr...

Their NIH Grants Are Back. But Nothing Is Back to Normal. Researchers say that picking up where they left off is complicated — scientifically, financially, and logistically.

NEW: Their NIH grants are back, but nothing is back to normal.

In June, a judge ordered the restoration of 900+ terminated grants. So how's that going? Scientists say they're happy, but also it's been a bumpy road—and they're afraid their funds will get cut again. www.chronicle.com/article/thei...

The hospital sink drain microbiome as a melting pot for AMR transmission to nosocomial pathogens - npj Antimicrobials and Resistance npj Antimicrobials and Resistance - The hospital sink drain microbiome as a melting pot for AMR transmission to nosocomial pathogens

Delighted to have this review out with @jpjhall.bsky.social!

We discuss the risk of transmission of antimicrobial resistance in the hospital sink drain microbiome, highlight studies providing evidence of transfer, and consider strategies to mitigate these risks 🪠🦠

doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Anticipation of Infection, Even in Virtual Reality, Triggers Immune Responses A virtual reality study showed that the brain can detect potential infectious threats and prime the immune system, offering fresh insights into behavioral immunity.

This is a fascinating study that found that when we encounter possible infection, we trigger early immune responses. My immune system must be super prepared all the time as it encounters daily toddler snots and warnings from daycare about spreading illnesses. www.the-scientist.com/anticipation...

Wild side note on medical research: 1 million people is a lot of people to have in a study. Denmark can do it because, more than a country, it's a continuous natural experiment of every healthcare issue.

The public healthcare system keeps unusually easy to cross reference databases of its users.

'Ologies With Alie Ward' Is on The 100 Best Podcasts of All Time Here's why "Ologies With Alie Ward" made TIME's list

I love to see my friends killin' it.

Alie Ward's @ologies.bsky.social was listed by Time Magazine in the 100 best podcasts of all time!

This rocks. Ologies rocks. Funny compassionate science communication rocks.

time.com/collections/...

Screenshot of PubMed homepage with banner that says "Service Alert: Planned Maintenance beginning July 25th Most services will be unavailable for 24+ hours starting 9 PM EDT. Learn more about the maintenance."

Hmm... am I overthinking this 24 hour plus downtime?

Wild cell structures in a new Asgard, Nerearchaeum marumarumayae. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Everyone: I hope this email finds you well

Me: I'm just hoping this email ends up in your inbox 🤞

BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.

🤦

Prevalent chromosome fusion in Vibrio cholerae O1 - Nature Communications The pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae typically has two circular chromosomes. Here, Cuénod et al. analyse 467 clinical isolates and identify several independent chromosome fusion events that are li...

One of my favourite serendipitous results from the lab came about because we were long-read sequencing bacterial:

Vibrio cholerae, which is "supposed to" have TWO circular chromosomes (3 + 1 million base pairs) often has just ONE fused chromosome (4 Mbp).

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(1/n)