Andrew S. MacDonald

Activation status of airway immune cells is a defining feature of severe asthma, regardless of fungal sensitisation Global estimates of asthma prevalence are rising, with an estimated 262 million affected individuals in 2019.1 Purported reasons for this rapid rise include urbanisation of lower- and middle-income co...

Its my great pleasure to say the latest paper from our group is now out: www.mucosalimmunology.org/article/S193...

Check it out! We found that immune cell activation in the sputum identifies severe asthma patients. Massive thanks to the patients for agreeing to give sputum and blood samples.

A black background decorated with gold illustrations of branches, stars, swords, ravens, and tiny ghost shapes. In the centre, bold text reads: “BIRDS BUT THEY GET SPOOKIER EACH TIME.” Two ravens perch on bare branches at the bottom, with candles glowing beside them.

Birds but they get spookier each time. 🎃👻

Enter if you dare...🚪

The value of public R&D

Here in the uk, the government has found that £1 of spending on R&D results in £8 of benefit: www.gov.uk/government/p...

Insights from Andrea Cooper: Mtb drives expression of type I IFN–mediated #neutrophil accumulation, which limits interaction btwn CD4 T cells & macrophages. Failure to limit type I IFN very early in the process allows rapid progression of disease rupress.org/jem/article/...

#Tuberculosis

Thank you to our editor, Kirsty Minton, and the staff at NRI for the opportunity to share our thoughts on this emerging topic.

Delighted to share this story from my PhD! 🎉 🪱

T cell responses in repeated controlled human schistosome infection compared to natural exposure Nature Communications - In schistosomiasis-endemic regions, the cyclical nature of infection and treatment complicates understanding of host immune responses. Repeated controlled human Schistosoma...

In schistosome 🪱-endemic areas, people are repeatedly reinfected — but we still don’t fully understand how T cell responses develop in these cycles.

In my first ever last-author paper (😱) we investigate this, comparing endemic and repeat controlled human schistosome infection: rdcu.be/exH58

Missing data in single-cell transcriptomes reveals transcriptional shifts Profiling thousands of single cell transcriptomes is routine, yet cell prioritization based on response to biological perturbations is challenging and confounded by clustering, normalization and dimen...

🚨 Want to find interesting cells in single-cell RNAseq data independently of clusters? Try our method to identify transcriptional shifts using OAR scores!
Pre-print: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
R tool and tutorials: sanin-lab.github.io/OARscRNA/
@biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social
1/n

Aberdeen is hiring - Neuroimmunology Lectureship! Really exciting opportunity to join our supportive, collaborative and multidisciplinary Institute to carry out cutting edge translation research. Not to mention the scenery in the North East of Scotland is amazing www.abdn.ac.uk/jobs/vacanci...

Fantastic thread on budgeting from @labliston.bsky.social . Great advice for new (and not so new!) PIs. I would add awareness of how psychology impacts spending based on moving from low budget to high budget setting and vice versa....

For our #flowcytometry peeps, would you like to have a single fix/perm protocol that is optimised for everything? One that preserves fluorophores while allowing simultaneous TF and cytokine staining? How about 100-fold cheaper?

You got it:
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A massive thanks to all the #EMDS2025 speakers, delegates, sponsors & @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social staff for making @emds2025.bsky.social such a success.

We had a great time, we hope you did too and your travel home was smooth.

Here's to #EMDS2026 in Amsterdam @immunometlab.bsky.social

The end of #EMDS2025 - so much amazing science, and great to meet up in person with so many friends and colleagues (and make some new ones!). Very proud of @vshek.bsky.social and @nwasowska.bsky.social winning poster prizes for the team - well done both!

A fantastic talk from David Russell to end #EMDS2025 - about #macrophage subset responses to #Mycobaterium tuberculosis, and their re-programming to improve drug efficacy in vitro and in vivo

A cracking meal complete with piper & Ceilidh to round off the second day of #EMDS2025 in #Edinburgh

McEwan Hall, Edinburgh University

Heading home after a fabulous few days in Edinburgh @emds2025.bsky.social Excellent venue, amazing programme, thanks @bainlab.bsky.social @profandrewmac.bsky.social and Samanta Mariani #EMDS2025 #Macrophage #DCs ♥️

Beautiful data from Franca Ronchese, all the way from @malaghan.bsky.social in New Zealand, about generation and function of subsets of skin #DendriticCells in #allergic responses #EMDS2025

Another great talk from @immunobladder.bsky.social about #macrophage subsets in the #bladder, including in memory response to bacterial infection and key differences in males vs females #EMDS2025

Final day of #EMDS2025 opens with a fantastic talk from Will Wood - beautiful imaging of #macrophage migration following wounding, using the tractability of #Drosophila in ingenious ways to identify key chemoattractants in this process

When the PhD student gives a better talk than his promotors! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Spectacular talk from @StijnVerwaerde #EMDS2025 🤩🤩. Very cool collaboration with @bart_lambrecht team. Identification of regulatory circuits switching homeostatic regulons to type 2 inflammatory regulons in AMs

Fantastic talk and new data from @lukeanthonyoneill.bsky.social about #mitochondrial control of #inflammation by #itaconate and derivatives in multiple settings #EMDS2025

Really interesting talk from @chrysothemisbrown.bsky.social about ontogeny, transcriptional regulation and function of subsets of #ThetisCells, including their role in #Treg induction and oral #tolerance #EMDS2025

Beautiful and energetic talk from @drpetercook.bsky.social about #DendriticCell uptake of and activation by #fungal spores in #allergic airway #inflammation, and metabolic requirements for this #EMDS2025

Thank you. Very happy to discuss pur work at this amazing meeting! Great times: #EMDS2025

Final talk pre-lunch from @mariolaks.bsky.social defining some of the key #DendriticCell subsets involved in shaping joint #inflammation vs remission, in both human and mouse #EMDS2025

Interesting short talk from Anita Qualls about RORgt+ #APCs in oral tolerance and #Treg induction #EMDS2025

Another lovely talk, this time from David Munro, about the context dependent roles for #HIF1a in #microglia, including in stroke #EMDS2025

First talk so far about #immunometabolism at #EMDS2025 - really interesting murine and human data about mitochondrial (dys)function in #macrophages as a regulator of #inflammation, from @immunometlab.bsky.social

Lovely talk from Samanta Mariani about embryonic #macrophages in hematopoiesis, in health and in malignancy #EMDS2025

Really interesting talk by Barbara Schraml, showing how dietary cues at weaning can activate splenic #cDC1 to induce CTL-like effector CD8+ T cells #EMDS2025