Elizabeth Thompson

NIH staff and biomedical community sound alarm about agency politicization, funding slowdown In test of NIH director’s support of dissent, NIH staff sign Bethesda Declaration urging reversal of grant cuts and freezes

“In an unusual act of public protest, more than 340 scientists and staff at the National Institutes of Health today released a statement charging NIH officials and their superiors with politicizing science.”

www.science.org/content/arti...

#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration

Multiple generations of the Loré lab represented at the keystone vaccine conference!

Postdoctoral studies in Immunology (scholarship) Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?  The Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC) at Karolinska Institutet conducts research and teaching within immunology, inf

Postdoc opening in Pia Dosenovic's lab at Karolinska Institutet, "B cell-mediated immunity with a focus on basic immunological questions related to vaccine development"
#Immunology #ScienceJobs #ImmunoSky

ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...

⏳ 2 days until the #WorldMalariaDay Symposium!

We’re bringing together global minds to rethink mosquito biology, gene editing, and malaria elimination.

Don't miss it!

📍 @JohnsHopkinsSPH
📅 April 25

#BuildABetterMosquito

NIH cancels its first and largest study centered on women The Women’s Health Initiative has produced numerous influential findings

I don't get how anyone can possibly be okay with ending the WHI. This study has accrued decades of data from 42000 women and it is still going. It helps to address critical research gaps that have been allowed to go unfilled because of durable misogyny and provides invaluable insight into aging.

B cells modulate lung antiviral inflammatory responses via the neurotransmitter acetylcholine
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@natimmunol.bsky.social

The Thompson lab has won their first major award! First place in the second floor women’s march madness bracket competition! Next year we are going for gold in both brackets 💪🏻🥇

The unusual metabolism of germinal center B cells In the germinal center (GC), B cells undergo rounds of somatic hypermutation (SHM), proliferation, and positive selection to develop into high-affinity, long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells. It is well established that, upon activation, B cells significantly alter their metabolism, but until recently little was understood about their metabolism within the GC. In this review we discuss novel in vivo models in which GC B cell (GCBC) metabolism is disrupted; these have greatly increased our understanding of B cell metabolic phenotype. GCBCs are unusual in that, unlike almost all other rapidly proliferating immune cells, they use little glycolysis but prefer fatty acid oxidation (FAO) to fuel ATP synthesis, whilst preferentially utilizing glucose and amino acids as carbon and nitrogen sources for biosynthetic pathways.

The unusual metabolism of germinal center B cells #immunology

Louder for the people in the back

Good day to remember that a US President has no inherent power over tariffs whatsoever. It’s not like war powers or pardons. It’s entirely delegated by Congress to deal with emergencies. GOP Congress cld modify that law tonight and bring this to a screeching halt.

A measles infographic: virus, symptoms and white blood cells This is a measles infographic that presents measles symptoms and the levels of the virus and white blood cells in your blood over time.

virologydownunder.com/measles-and-...

As Cervical Cancer Deaths Plummet, Experts Credit HPV Vaccine HPV can cause a variety of cancers, including cervical. New mortality data for women under 25 point to the success of the HPV vaccine.

A recent study found that cervical cancer deaths in young women have plummeted since the introduction of the human papillomavirus vaccine.

Had a great and inspiring day in dc for #standupforscience2025 we need to keep the momentum going and help the public understand what is at stake!

When Politics Trumps Public Health: Vaccine Crisis in America Political interference in public health is fueling vaccine hesitancy, outbreaks, and policy failures—at the cost of preventable lives.

It’s 2025 and children are dying from diseases we've known how to prevent for decades—because too many have chosen ideology over evidence.

Measles outbreaks. Canceled vaccine programs. RFK Jr. at HHS. A public health crisis, engineered.

#PublicHealth #Immunosky #HealthPolicy #medsky #IDsky #EpiSky

The Thompson lab will be headed to the Stand Up for Science event in DC together with the Klein and Davis labs! Hope to see you all there

Everyone who ever got funding through NIAID should be aware of this bill and start sending messages to their US legislators. The bill intends to dissolve NIAID. This is Project 2025
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

Among all the scary and unsettling news these days science does go on, and we have had a big week in the lab! My new co-mentee had their PhD candidacy celebration, we finally got our second hood installed (!!), and today I will hit submit on a paper I’ve spent the better part of 4 years working on!

not paying indirect costs for research is like only paying the players in the Super Bowl.

can't have a Super Bowl without coaches, referees, security, janitors, announcers, stadium staff, and a stadium - and you can't have research without supporting people and facilities

Exciting collaboration with the Jackson, Pardoll, Yegnasubramanian, and Bettegowda Labs - now published in Science! Grateful for the contributions of our current and past group members: Runzhe Li, Zhicheng Ji, Wenpin Hou, and Wentao Zhan. #TeamScience

It is simply not enough for universities to say, “Our grants & research offices are looking into how research will be affected by the latest directive.”

University leaders must actively and very publicly make the case for the kind of work many of us do. The silence on this front is deafening.

Distinct myeloid-derived suppressor cell populations in human glioblastoma The role of glioma-associated myeloid cells in tumor growth and immune evasion remains poorly understood. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing of immune and tumor cells from 33 gliomas, identifying...

Distinct myeloid-derived suppressor cell populations in human glioblastoma
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Immune evasion through mitochondrial transfer in the tumour microenvironment - Nature Mitochondria with mutations in their DNA from cancer cells can be transferred to T cells in the tumour microenvironment, which leads to T cell dysfunction and impaired antitumour immunity.

Anyway, betwixt everything, here is a really cool discovery that could potentially really help in the treatment of cancer in the future:

Tumors prevent effective immune responses from T cells by transferring their mitochondria (which have mutations) and having those replace...

Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring Researchers facing

“The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating.” scim.ag/40ureTO

Hard launching the Thompson Lab here on bluesky! We study human immunology in the context of vaccination @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social all while rocking our awesome holiday/science themed sweaters!