Dr. Dawn Bowdish

For the record I am spoiled for favourite mathematicians at @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social and don't worry, @jdushoff.bsky.social you are also on the list.

Science on Tap: Measles Outbreaks Learn why this infection is not just a minor childhood illness and how it causes the immune system to 'forget'. Plus all about vaccines!

Free public event in Guelph, Ontario. Come hang out with me and (one of) my favourite math/infectious disease modellers -David Earn and talk about measles. Why is it back? Why is it bad? Why is it so much more deadly than other respiratory viruses? Quiz! Beer! Geeky fun will be had.

A picture of a microphone it’s in black-and-white and there is blue lettering on this and it says the ReSisters it is the podcast cover for their podcast called no ostrich year and it’s an announcement of a new episode dropping

Delighted to be dropping the next epi of our podcast “No Ostriching Here.” Joining us is @msmacrophage.bsky.social
as we discuss our aging immune systems, the loss of Canada’s vax status, measles outbreaks & why we need a National Vaccine Registry. Stay tuned. #podcastlife @mjnabuurs.bsky.social

Alex, I’m going to need you to give this line of research up.

This is so cool! In my PhD I was peripherally involved in identifying an IRAK4 patient. People with IRAK4\MyD88 mutations take prophylactic penicillin to prevent Spn infections and I always wondered why they didn’t develop AMR. Now I know!

I ❤️ Science

❤️ Happy Valentine's Day! 🧪

“Not explaining science seems to me perverse.
When you’re in love, you want to tell the world.”

— Carl Sagan

More doctors won’t save us if we keep creating new patients A sustainable health-care system must pair workforce reform with prevention, and nowhere is the prevention gap more obvious than with smoking and vaping.

Prevention is cheaper & easier than treatment for lung health. My colleague Jessica Buckley (Lung Health Foundation) and I wrote this for @hilltimes.com because chronic lung disease takes decades to manifest and Canada is far behind our comparator countries in smoking/vaping prevention. #pulmsky 🫁

Got it in the second try, which is pretty good. I’m not sure if I am too modest in the way I wrote but i often have people questioning my expertise or ability when even the most cursory glance at my cv would show that I know what I’m doing.

My polite but internally seething rebuttal to a reviewer's criticism that I was not an appropriate lead for a grant on the subject I have published on more than any other group in Canada.

I'm lucky that I remember when people are nice to me and forget when people wrong me, so I had totally forgotten this brutal criticism of my last CIHR grant on studying the immunology of COVID-19 infections & vaccinations. The reviewer didn't seem to think I was qualified to lead it. Implicit bias?

The link isn’t working for me - can you repost? I would love to share with my students

Have you had, or are you considering getting a shingles (or other) vaccine to protect your brain health? Are you 50+ and Canadian? Would you potentially like to be on a podcast? If so, please DM me. A colleague is looking for people interested in speaking about their experience.

Learning lots about #lung autoimmunity as a contributor to severe #asthma from Dr Manali Mukherjee from #TheFirestone. Great reminder that blood is not always the right place to sample for autoimmunity -sputum can be a much more informative marker.

Are female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars?

These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research.

So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...

Descriptions of PDF position

Post-doctoral opportunity @uofguelph.bsky.social to lead a translational program investigating how myocardial infarction drives coupled cardiopulmonary remodeling and neurological dysfunction. If interested, email jeremys@uoguelph.ca with CV, cover letter, by by Feb 27th. Good luck all!

This poster is outside my little lab. There is nothing else like it. Please support this artist! @redpenblackpen.bsky.social

Share your experience: survey for people using breathing support devices at home. QR code to English survey link

Have you used CPAP, BiPAP or home ventilation? Researchers want to hear from you. Take the survey here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z6B3CGB
En Francais: -https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/IMPORTANCEHMV?lang=fr

I don’t think it’s actually score creep. I think it’s just that there are excellent grants that aren’t being funded. After two, three, or more revisions, the grants are really just excellent. If way more were funded I think the scores would settle back down.

Canadian officials say US health institutions no longer dependable for accurate information Misinformation from the Trump administration is cited as fuelling Canadians’ concerns over childhood vaccinations

Does the misinformation coming from the US influence Canadian opinions on vaccines? Probably, but we don't have any data to know for sure. I speak to @theguardian.com here.

A gel electrophoresis picture. It shows DNA of different sizes.

Happy New Year!
May all your PCRs give you only specific bands of the appropriate sizes. May your gel extraction and miniprep yields be high.
May your cloning always give you at least one correct colony, and your genotyping identify the mutants you are after. ✨

YouTube video by McMaster Alumni [Health & Wellness] Is dementia a vaccine-preventable condition? with Dr. Dawn Bowdish

My most enthusiastically received public talk this year was "Is dementia a vaccine-preventable condition?" and the wonderful team at the McMaster Alumni Association, @miramcmaster.bsky.social , and the McMaster Optimal Aging portal have made it available for you if you missed it. Enjoy!

This is figure 3, which shows the effect of the zoster vaccine on new diagnoses of dementia.

The shingles vaccine reduced the probability of new #dementia diagnoses by around one-fifth over seven years, according to a large-scale study of a population in Wales, UK, reported in Nature in April. go.nature.com/4460AE4 🧪

The Best of 2025: Maclean’s Top 10 Stories on How to Fix Canada - Macleans.ca In 2025, we asked the nation’s smartest thinkers for radical solutions to our biggest problems

I'm so delighted that my article on Canada's need for a national vaccine registry made @macleans.bsky.social 'The Best of 2025: Maclean’s Top 10 Stories on How to Fix Canada'. As the tagline says '
COVID made it clear. Measles made it an emergency.' macleans.ca/best-of/the-...

Do you have experience with respiratory and sleep support therapies such as positive airway
pressure (PAP) machines or ventilators for breathing or sleep apnea? If so, researchers want to talk to you! Scan the QR code below or click on this survey link. #pulmsky
www.surveymonkey.com/r/IMPORTANCE...

Measles, chicken pox, COVID, influenza and other viral infections often lead to an increased need for antibiotics. More vaccination = less antibiotic use and more future lives saved from antimicrobial resistance. Important work from this rockstar team with gratitude to the CIHR & other funders.Fin

Slide describing findings of previous publication

A previous study found that frail older adults in long-term care who were vaccinated were less likely to be prescribed and antibiotic compared to those who hadn't been vaccinated, consistent with the disease-modifying effects of vaccination (6/n). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Table of types of antibiotic resistant organisms by antibiotic prescribed.

Of those who got a peri-COVID antibiotic, about 17% had an antibiotic resistant organism isolated within 6 months compared to 4% of people who had COVID but didn't get an antibiotic - 4x as many! (Association was found for Gram negative, not Gram positive) (5/n)

Frail older adults are very vulnerable to COVID and subsequent bacterial infections. About 15% of those who got a COVID diagnosis got an antibiotic prescription within 7 days. (Yes, some of these antibiotics may have been unnecessary but it is hard to diagnose vulnerable individuals) 4/n

Many, if not all, viral infections result in a transient period of susceptibility to bacterial infections. The immunology of this is fascinating (i.e., don't get me started), but it means that an antibiotic prescription often follows an infection. (3/n)

Infographic demonstrating potential AMR in 2050

Antimicrobial resistance is rising and by 2050 may kill more people than cancer if we don't do more to stop it. New antibiotics are hard and slow to make so anything we can do to reduce infections will give us more time. Preventing infections via vaccination is one strategy (2/n)

Peri–Covid-19 Antibiotic Use and Antimicrobial Resistance in Older Adults Antibiotic use during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic was common in the outpatient setting, but was not supported by guidelines. We sought to evaluate the role of this antibiotic u...

Publication Alert: One benefit of vaccination that is particularly difficult to quantify is how it reduces antibiotic use and slows the development of antimicrobial resistance. 'Peri–Covid-19 Antibiotic Use and Antimicrobial Resistance in Older Adults' led by Derek MacFadden and Nick Daneman (1/n)