Josh Obar

Invited Speakers - Yeast Genetics Meeting 2026 Visit our website to learn more.

🤩 MCB Faculty Soni @lacefieldlab.bsky.social was honored with the Ira Herskowitz Award from @genetics-gsa.bsky.social! This prestigious award recognizes “outstanding contributions in the field of yeast research in the last 20 years.” Kudos!

genetics-gsa.org/yeast-2026/i...

Poxvirus attack of antiviral defense pathways unleashes an effector-triggered NF-κB response Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) is a form of pathogen sensing that involves detection of pathogen-encoded virulence factors or “effectors.” To discover ETI pathways in mammals, we developed a screen...

By screening viral proteins’ effects on human cells, researchers in Science discover that immune cells can detect infections not only by recognizing pathogens directly, but also by sensing the damage caused by viral attack. https://scim.ag/3Op26LI

The Micro & Immuno Dept at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth ranked in the top 10 of M&I departments in NIH funding last year. Go us!

Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...

Two Harvard economists forecast the impact of the administration’s proposed NIH budget cuts- stunning losses in new therapies, life expectancy, and economic output with a “social cost 16 times greater than the savings the administration is attempting to achieve."

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

Cell type–specific efferocytosis determines functional plasticity of alveolar macrophages MPO activates an immunometabolic rheostat to restrict the functional plasticity of macrophages in favor of proresolving properties.

‘Cell type–specific efferocytosis determines functional plasticity of alveolar macrophages’

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Interesting preprint looking at the role of MAVS in maintaining mitochondrial health!

🤖 The middle kid’s FIRST Lego Robotics team had the opportunity to compete at the FIRST Robotics World Championship last week in Houston. He had a blast. Great work making their kids. 🤖

🚨 Updated preprint for our first manuscript with
@aolive.bsky.social looking at why alveolar macrophages drive strong type I IFN responses after TLR2 activation; we uncovered a surprising role for and mitochondria ROS and MAVS signaling - find out more here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Nerve- and airway-associated interstitial macrophages mitigate SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis via type I interferon signaling The local immunoregulatory mechanisms that safeguard the host from excessive lung infection inflammation remain unclear. Yeung, Yokota et al. uncover the essential role of nerve- and airway-associated...

Excited to share our latest study
@cp-immunity.bsky.social. Heartfelt thanks to the editorial and review teams , to my co-first @yeungadventures.bsky.social, our co-authors, and to @khannakm.bsky.social
for his outstanding mentorship throughout! Pls read/share!👇
www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

Excited to share that our story on S. aureus antagonism by Malassezia is live today in Current Biology! The paper has changed a lot since the preprint with the very exciting addition of having identified the antimicrobial effector generated by M. sympodialis.

authors.elsevier.com/c/1kwzj3QW8S...

Last week Alex Rapp successfully defended his PhD thesis on the role of mycoviruses in Aspergillus regulating antifungal immunity.

Cool paper!!

Macrophage peroxisomes guide alveolar regeneration and limit SARS-CoV-2 tissue sequelae Peroxisomes are vital but often overlooked metabolic organelles. We found that excessive interferon signaling remodeled macrophage peroxisomes. This loss of peroxisomes impaired inflammation resolutio...

We are thrilled to share our new manuscript @science.org , in which we uncovers a critical role for macrophage peroxisomes in lung repair after viral infection. Could targeting peroxisomes be the key to mitigating long COVID?! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

graphic depicts that lung alveolar macrophages loss of peroxisome drives the process

Just published @science.org
A basis—lung inflammation—for #LongCovid (PASC) in the experimental model, and a potential therapy
[driven by alveolar macrophages and loss of their peroxisomes (Figure)]
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Inside the Collapse at NIH Administration officials pressured NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.

By @katherinejwu.com

"The NIH... supported 99 percent of the drugs approved in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019. The agency has had a hand in “nearly all of our major medical breakthroughs over the past several decades,”

The NIH is in a struggle for its (and our) lives. This is existential to America:

Very interesting read …

Happy to have contributed to this exciting paper from Dr Yina Huang’s laboratory. Congratulations to her lab and everyone involved!

New Research Shows Neonatal HSV Infections May Lead to Long-Term Cognitive Impairment Very early exposure to even a very small dose of herpes simplex virus (HSV) in infant mice can lead to cognitive decline later in life, according to findings from a new Dartmouth-led study, publish…

geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/ne...

NIH funding creates medicines, jobs and economic growth

Excited to share our latest preprint! We find that DCs undergo heterogeneous cell death- either pyroptosis or apoptosis upon bacterial blockade of host translation- to restrict Legionella infection. Congrats to my PhD student @vvazquez.bsky.social & co-authors! Check out his bluetorial 🧵 below! 👇

Necrosis drives susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in PolgD257A mutator mice | Infection and Immunity Defects in mitochondria are associated with a variety of human diseases and metabolic disorders (1). Inherited mitochondrial diseases, caused by mutations harbored in the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) or in nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes, lead to devastating neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disorders (2). They are also frequently associated with chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. Type I interferonopathies, for example, are often caused by mutations that result in aberrant release of mitochondrial nucleic acids and chronic engagement of cytosolic nucleic acid sensing (3–5). Consistent with important links between mitochondrial health and immune function, patients with mitochondrial mutations are prone to frequent viral and bacterial infections that are often severe (6, 7). They can also suffer from systemic inflammatory response syndrome caused by hyperinflammation in the absence of infection (8). Furthermore, human single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in mitochondrial genes have been shown to confer susceptibility to several bacterial pathogens, including Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (9), Listeria monocytogenes (10), and Mycobacterium leprae (11). Despite clear connections between mitochondria and immunity, the mechanistic contributions of specific mitochondrial-associated mutations in driving susceptibility to infection remain unclear.

Latest from the Watson lab-- mice carrying a mutation in mitochondrial DNA polymerase are susceptible to TB, experiencing high bacterial burdens and extensive necrosis in the lung. Yet another link between mitochondrial health and antimycobacterial immunity.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

🎉I am excited to say that I was promoted to Professor with Tenure at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Thank you to all my current and former trainees that have made the lab a success. Special thanks to Robb Cramer for getting me interested in fungal immunology and his continued support!

Altered IL-6 signalling and risk of tuberculosis: a multi-ancestry mendelian randomisation study Our findings propose a causal relationship between reduced IL-6 signalling and lower risk of tuberculosis, akin to the effect seen in other IL-6 mediated diseases. This study suggests that IL-6 antago...

🚨 Delighted to share our paper defining a new role for IL-6 in TB. 🚨

We used genetic variation to show *reduced* IL-6 signalling is causally associated with *lower* risk of TB.

Lead author @gushamilton.bsky.social

#TBSky #IDSky #ImmunoSky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
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