Tom Scriba

Controversial Danish vaccine research group faces new allegations Researchers say they couldn’t find complete data for 10 trials that together enrolled tens of thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau

A new paper levels fresh allegations of questionable scientific practices by the Bandim Health Project, an embattled group led by researchers in Denmark that has long studied vaccines in West Africa and has recently become influential in U.S. health policy. https://scim.ag/3ZY7NCR

Dozens of researchers will move to France from US following high-profile bid to lure talent Large proportion worked at Columbia University, which had its grants cut and frozen by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Almost all of the scientists were previously at US institutions

go.nature.com/4qMlrUR

Assessment of adverse effects attributed to statin therapy in product labels: a meta-analysis of double-blind randomised controlled trials Adverse event data from blinded randomised trials do not support causal relationships between statin therapy and most of the conditions (including cognitive impairment, depression, sleep disturbance, ...

The real story about statin safety from >122,000 RCT participants with individual level data. They can cause new-onset diabetes and muscle pain/weakness, but other than that they are remarkably safe for 62 outcomes. Rare liver function test abnormalities thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Very interesting paper: M. tuberculosis proteins under diversifying selection and the T cell responses that target them. Could these be good TB vaccine antigens?
JCI Insight: Rare variable M. tuberculosis antigens induce predominant Th17 responses in human infection insight.jci.org/articles/vie...

Are health influencers making us sick? Social media can help to raise awareness of health conditions — but the wealth of dubious information online might do more harm than good.

Book review 📚 Are health influencers making us sick?

go.nature.com/4tsEOoq

US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.

US science after a year of Trump

A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.


go.nature.com/4jSm0ui

Cover of a journal called Tubercle, published in 1919, advertizing a tuberculosis sanatorium in Davos

Yes, Davos, the playground for rich and famous today was once home for desperate tuberculosis patients seeking a cure in sanatoria

One Year Post-USAID, Global Health Funding Stuck in Limbo  | Think Global Health End-of-year estimates convey how much global health funding changed in 2025

One Year Post-USAID, Global Health Funding Stuck in Limbo

www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/one-...

This is a very appealing meeting in Paris later this year...

"The complexity of mycobacterial infections: from research to real-world impact"
#EMBOComplexInfections

#TBSky for the tuberculosis research, but also #NTM #Leprosy #IDSky #ImmunoSky

meetings.embo.org/event/26-myc...

Important paper by Björn
Corleis. For decades a central tenet of #tuberculosis immunology has that IFNγ-driven iNOS expression in macrophages is the primary mechanism of bacterial control. Turns out this is really only in mice and maybe cattle. It’s not true in most species including humans an NHP.

The Barber lab is looking to hire post-docs to work on #tuberculosis #immunology using murine and NHP models. BSL3 experience not required. Check out our lab in the NIH intramural program in Bethesda MD!

Clinical testing of drug treatment shortening in patients with TB using PET/CT imaging of lung lesions Four months instead of the standard 6 months of drug therapy of less extensive tuberculosis disease had a higher risk of relapse.

A shortened, four-month course of tuberculosis drug therapy has a higher risk of relapse linked to active lung cavities compared to a standard 6-month protocol, shows a new #ScienceTranslationalMedicine clinical trial of patients in South Africa and China. https://scim.ag/4jv4oo5

The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left “We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.

“The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left”

www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n...

The golden age of vaccine development - Works in Progress Magazine The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.

This is an excellent summary of the scientific developments that led to and enabled vaccine development. In my view a must read for anyone who crosses paths with vaccination - ie, everyone.

worksinprogress.co/issue/the-go...

Summary of this report in case access is a problem
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Long COVID involves activation of proinflammatory and immune exhaustion pathways - Nature Immunology Long COVID (LC) involves a spectrum of chronic symptoms after resolution of acute severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. Barouch and colleagues show that LC is characterized by per...

Hoping the pivotal finding of increased inflammation with #LongCovid will be responsive to tirzepatide (Zepbound) in our ongoing 1,000+ participant randomized, placebo-controlled trial (full enrollment completed in <1 month!)
www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natimmunol.nature.com

TB-IPD platform The TB treatment individual patient data platform (TB-IPD) is a collaborative initiative to support the generation of reliable evidence on the treatment of TB to inform future TB treatment guidelines.

🚀 The TB Individual Patient Data (IPD) Platform is now on Bluesky!

Hosted at UCL and overseen by the UCL Centre for Global Tuberculosis Research, we bring together individual patient data to strengthen TB research, policy, and public health.

🔗 www.ucl.ac.uk/population-h...

If interested in meta-analysis of TB patient data from trials, do get in touch with colleagues at UCL below! 👇
#IDSky #MedSky #TBSky

Two Things that Prolong Life and a Great Recent Paper A Happy New Year gift to me and everyone who shares one or both of these enthusiasms.

How fortunate that two of the things I love the most in life are associated with prolonged survival. Plus, a very important "recent" paper. Happy New Year! #IDsky #Medsky open.substack.com/pub/paulsaxm...

Want a 2.5 minute primer on the ingenuity of randomised controlled trials?

Of course you do.

Happy New Year from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town.
#Mango_Groove

Computational Immunologist - Boston, Massachusetts (US) job with Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, &amp; Harvard | 12849577 The Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard in Cambridge MA, together with the Departmen

The @ragoninstitute.bsky.social is launching a new faculty search for a computational immunologist! Applications are open now and reviewed on a rolling basis. Please share broadly with your networks! #immunosky

www.nature.com/naturecareer...

I think we all need some good news for global health and infectious diseases!

Remarkably, this phosphate-limitation response does not kill the bacterium, suggesting it is reversible and functionally equivalent. Electron microscopy by Max Gutierrez @maxgg.bsky.social and colleagues shows a structured and ~10% thicker cell envelope associated with this remodeling.

These findings highlight that decades of research have focused on an artificial lipid profile, shaped by the high phosphate content of Middlebrook media and likely modestly relevant for infection. The data also reveals a high degree of plasticity in the composition of Mtb cell envelope.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis overcomes phosphate starvation by extensively remodelling its lipidome with phosphorus-free lipids - Nature Communications Here, the authors show that Mycobacterium tuberculosis manipulates lipid metabolism to overcome host restriction, by remodelling its lipidome and utilising host lipids as an alternative phosphate sour...

We’re excited to share our latest study that reshapes our understanding of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) lipid composition, with major implications for drug discovery, immunity, and vaccine development.

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

A thread.

RFK Jr. wants to scrutinize the vaccine schedule – but its safety record is already decades long Federal officials are questioning the safety of the vaccine series children receive. Here’s the story of how the childhood vaccine schedule came about.

theconversation.com/rfk-jr-wants...

The Bryson Lab | Vaccine Development & Research at MIT Developing effective accessible vaccines to end tuberculosis worldwide. Combining immunoengineering, molecular microbiology & systems biology at MIT.

Two pieces of fun news:

1. We've launched a new website for our lab: www.brysonlab.org

2. With some new funding, we are recruiting for new postdocs and graduate students. The projects build upon our previous studies of antigen presentation and phagosome biology and go into new exciting dimensions!

The pipeline of scientists is cracked at every level now: recent grads can't get jobs/research experience because we're all conservative about hiring in this climate, fewer grad school spots, killing many fellowship pipelines, and now the early career investigators are disproportionately impacted.

Such a lovely way of explaining why global solidarity matters!