@s-taylor.bsky.social
Scientific Lead - Pathogen Immunology at UKHSA Porton. Microbial Immunology, Correlates of Protection, Functional serology, Vaccines for AMR, Mucosal Immunity, Strain Variation, Biofilms, Complement *opinions my own and not representative of UKHSA
imo gonococcal vaccination is always going to fail if we insist on trialling it in high-risk populations, and especially those already exposed/infected.
The best chance for it to work is if we vaccinate BEFORE people become exposed. So alongside the HPV vaccine at ~14yo
I really wish people would stop referring to it at Porton Down. That a geographical area, not an institute.
You mean DSTL I assume
We're always having to clarify to people that we're nothing to do with them
@civilserviceworld.bsky.social Have you ever run a story about how civil service travel cuts are now leading to CS staff being put in danger? If not, you probably should.
You'll find no shortage of examples I think. Dread to think what bad event it will take for action to finally be taken
I'm also bothered by people deciding to go rogue with his definitions of correlates and surrogates. Things made sense for a while and now you never quite know what people are talking about
*Post-op obvs
Can someone in #AMR help me out here....... What is the point of a pre-op appointment happening months before a surgery?
Do hospitals think that it's impossible to acquire a Staph colonosation in those 5 months?
Just not getting the post-open infection reduction plan here
Stanley Plotkin had a major hand in the development of a number of vaccines in use today; he designed the rubella vaccine. He remembers the world before widespread use of vaccines & knows what's coming as vaccine policy is rewritten & vaccine confidence is eroded. www.statnews.com/2026/03/02/s...
Who could possibly have seen this coming?
Oh wait, EVERYONE 🙄
Pet government outsourcers are a stain on this country
Well whatever the hell Meta have done to the Windows version of Whatsapp has made it a really awful programme.
Well done 👏
Is there anything online that isn't getting worse and worse with the endless fiddling?
The way the civil service is utterly desperate for us to use it is proper cringe.
Lots of meetings and emails desperately wanting feedback on how it will help and improve our jobs.....yet the Cyber dept won't allow us to use many of them, and certainly not the ones that may be useful in science
Gonna use this every time i'm asked what AI can do for my team 😅
Did not know T cells could secrete Granzyme & Perforin. Always assumed they were NK specific.
I for one am shocked* to find out Capita have fucked up the civil service pension handover.
Some of the lucky few in our team who could actually register are finding incorrect data
*not shocked
Yes we all know that Daily Mail journo's aren't the sharpest tools in the box, but this headline about pertussis infections (which in the article they do call a bacteria) is really irking me
Absolutely this.
Wife and I were fully expecting to get hammered in the budget and have no problem with it.
Just be bold and open and raise income tax FFS (but protect the lower earners!)
Looking to Science Bluesky for a bit of help....... we're failing to find anti-mouse reagents that are specific for SIgA and normal serum monomeric IgA. (also need them for anti-human too)
Does anyone know of any?
🧪
Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics
We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇
I do despair at the decisions Wes Streeting is making and the one-sided advice he (and the govt generally) seems so keen to take.
Not just on this topic, but on others too tbf
After a meeting of the excellent MOVE consortium today, and the Wellcome/Novo Nordisk Mucosal Immunity conference last week, think i'm on a 1-man mission to convince everyone that complement should be in all immune assays.
Hope people aren't sick of hearing it.. because i'm not stopping 😅
Where is all this background push for pathogen stocks for CHIM studies to be GMP?
It'll kill the field because it's unaffordable. GMP doesn't guarantee a robust bacterial stock, many requirements are surprisingly lax. Is it just CROs sensing an opportunity to corner a market?
Health and science reporters should lead the coverage of all these health-related conspiracy theories & newsroom leaders should keep their both-sides political reporters out of their way.
Carol Baker is the GOAT.
Those of us working on helping get these much needed maternal vaccines through the pipeline are proud to walk in her footsteps
www.science.org/content/arti...
To all those worried about the Mounjaro shortage and price hikes.
Screw Eli Lilly, Weygovy is absolutely fine.
I lost 62lb/28kg on Weygovy so am happy to swap back. I only moved over due to a short term shortage of Weygovy from my provider late last year
Can't help but feel the UK Govt is really missing a trick with the current state of the US DH/FDA etc.
Invest like hell to encourage the pharma companies to move their vaccine research over to the UK, we have everything they need for clinical trial infrastructure & vaccine testing
Phenomenal amount of data in this paper.
Really important findings for those of us in public health working on CoP
👏
I can seriously see a Labour government, headed by a human rights lawyer, being the one that actually takes us out of the ECHR. Mostly just driven by fear of the RW press.
Introducing a new Section 28 and going further than any RW govt we've had. Didn't see this coming at all
✨We’ve just launched our new guide to #vaccinations during #pregnancy!
Understand how immunity changes, which vaccines the NHS recommends, and how they protect both parent and baby during pregnancy and beyond.
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Research has an economic return multiplier >1. So taxes don't even really pay for research. Research more than pays for itself, the taxes are just used to kick-start the positive economic cycle. The more money invested in research, the better the economy.
Personally I think we're miles away from being able to replace complex systems with in vitro alternatives. Not that in vivo is all that reliable either, but at least we have an idea of the weaknesses
Is there a more depressing travel experience than the Brussels Eurostar facility since Brexit?
Gone is the cafe, now just by a massive, pointless duty free shop, no ability to buy a cup of tea, and people just crammed into a depressing holding area to wait for the train.