joeyzacks.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The cover of this week's @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 17 hours ago • 6 comments

'This work illustrates that shallow metagenomics provides the necessary sensitivity and taxonomic resolution to characterize species and strain-level diversity in extremely low biomass samples, opening possibilities for microbiome discovery in previously unexplored niches'

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

submitted 2 days ago • 112 comments

Schrier to RFK Jr: You gave Cassidy the answer he needed to hear in order to get his confirmation vote, then as soon as you were secretary you turned around & fired all 17 members. You lied. I also want to be clear that I will lay all responsibility for every vaccine-preventable death at your feet.

submitted 2 days ago • 1069 comments

The White House's proposed FY26 budget would cut NIH funding by >40%. Our new #SCIMaP report projects the budget would lead to economic losses throughout the US with $10M+ lost in almost every House district. scienceimpacts.org/fy26 @joshuasweitz.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social @cl10.bsky.social

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Dear uLIPSTIC users, We have been getting reports that, under some more inflammatory settings like TB or chronic LCMV infection, uLIPSTIC-expressing lymphocytes adoptively transferred into cre-negative uLIPSTIC hosts may be rejected at later timepoints (>1 wk).

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

I am delighted that our manuscript 'Staphylococcus haemolyticus is a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes in the preterm infant gut' is now published. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Big thank you to all co-authors, particularly @lisalamberte.bsky.social and @halllab.bsky.social

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Susan Weiss, PhD, talks about winning the ASM Lifetime Achievement award, her work on coronaviruses, and her concerns around federal government funding and how it may shake up and limit basic science research. #ASMicrobe2025

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

www.kpbs.org/podcasts/kpb...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium. ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.

submitted 7 days ago • 3210 comments

Thrilled that our latest paper showing that DCs undergo either pyroptosis or apoptosis upon bacterial blockade of host translation to restrict Legionella is now online at the @asm.org journal mBio! Congrats to 1st author @vvazquez.bsky.social & co-authors! 🎉 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

🧪Young scientists are speaking up. More than 80 op eds in local newspapers have been published so far. More to come. Via @klangin.bsky.social 🔗 www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

Powerful story from Carolyn Johnson at the Washington Post... wapo.st/44ntbo4 [Should be a gift link; let me know if there are problems]

submitted 8 days ago • 11 comments

why'd they call it Nature Microbiology when Natµre was right there

submitted 8 days ago • 7 comments

open.substack.com/pub/pauloffi... RFK Jr.'s fraudulent letter to Congress

submitted 10 days ago • 3 comments

Excited to share that our paper examining how GM-CSF potentiates cytokine responses in human monocytes during bacterial infection is now online at the @asm.org journal Infection & Immunity! Congrats to @vvazquez.bsky.social, @mikelhaggadone.bsky.social, & co-authors! journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

A US judge has ordered hundreds of terminated research projects at the US National Institutes of Health to be reinstated, calling the processes that led to their cancellation “bereft of reasoning”. https://go.nature.com/4kOmXDy

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

Reuters story on Judge Young’s ruling www.reuters.com/business/hea...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently embraces the outdated "miasma theory" of disease instead of the widely accept "germ theory" of disease, which may help explain some of the actions he's been taking.

submitted 12 days ago • 1416 comments

Congratulations to Dr. Alexa Semon on successfully defending her thesis yesterday! We are incredibly proud of all that you accomplished during your time in the Zackular Lab. We’re sad to see you go, but know that you’ll do amazing things at @regeneron.com! @upenn.edu @chopresearch.bsky.social

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Holy crap! No Kings Philly.

submitted 12 days ago • 365 comments

""It's really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor comes to take him away is somehow the good guy," said Simon..." www.wnep.com/article/news...

submitted 13 days ago • 396 comments

Extensive Propublica story about grant terminations Sharing specifics and putting faces on the research… Definitely worth a read projects.propublica.org/nih-cuts-res...

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION CALLS FOR A SENATE INVESTIGATION INTO RFK, JR. "The resolution’s sponsor, Dr. Jason Goldman, urged his colleagues to support the request for an investigation to ensure the AMA is not “on the wrong side of history.” chicago.suntimes.com/health/2025/...

submitted 14 days ago • 106 comments

If you have ever wondered what might happen to short chain fatty acids made by the microbiome. Here is a large class of metabolites and how they link to biology. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Sen. Alex Padilla, who was just forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, is the ranking member of Judiciary’s subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, which has “oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement responsibilities.”

submitted 14 days ago • 687 comments

Today they have crossed a deep red line. We, the people, must hold the president and his appointees accountable for this outrageous abuse against American liberty.

submitted 14 days ago • 2261 comments

"Two of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new appointees to the CDC’s vaccine advisory board have previously served as paid expert witnesses for plaintiffs suing Merck over its HPV and MMR shots." endpoints.news/two-new-acip...

submitted 14 days ago • 3 comments

NEW: The Trump administration cut research funding that sought cures for future pandemics, examined the causes of dementia and tried to prevent HIV transmission. ProPublica heard from more than 150 researchers to understand the work that’s been lost.

submitted 14 days ago • 24 comments

RFK Jr’s ACIP pick, Martin Kulldorff, said one of the most disturbing images from the pandemic was a toddler crying about having to wear a mask. I see toddlers cry about everything all the time, and I found it far more disturbing to see refrigerator trucks full of body bags outside of the hospitals…

submitted 15 days ago • 294 comments

“Covid-19 deniers, skeptics and outright anti-vaccine individuals.” Meet the government's new vaccine advisors. Story by @sherylnyt.bsky.social Gift link: nyti.ms/4462vqO

submitted 15 days ago • 12 comments

Breaking News: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named eight new members of the CDC advisory panel on vaccines, including two critics of Biden-era Covid vaccine policy.

submitted 15 days ago • 103 comments

My message to Trump’s NIH Director? No one in America wants us to do LESS cancer research. No one is asking Trump to make it harder to cure Alzheimer's disease. Yet Trump is cutting all of this NOW and demanding an $18 BILLION cut to NIH next year. Not on my watch.

submitted 16 days ago • 17 comments

Today, my NIH colleagues and I did something scary but really important. We spoke up about egregious harms we are seeing happen to research participants and public health through thoughtless and politicized policies at NIH. 🧵1/3 apnews.com/article/nih-...

submitted 17 days ago • 36 comments

~134 NIH grants worth of money so that soldiers can sleep on floors and stand around buildings

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

"We are speaking on behalf of hundreds of NIH staff who are standing up together to say: WE DISSENT. I am so scared about doing this but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only gonna get harder to speak up." Thank you to Dr. Jenna Norton and NIH scientists for your courage!

submitted 17 days ago • 14 comments

“This is an unmitigated public health disaster,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Story by @apoorvanyt.bsky.social Gift link: nyti.ms/4mV37YK

submitted 17 days ago • 19 comments

RFK Jr.‘s extreme anti-vax views — and his related conflicts of interest — were a huge problem during his confirmation process. So he promised not to change the vaccine advisory panel. Today, he fired every single expert on that panel. It's a public health disaster.

submitted 17 days ago • 1435 comments

@felixrl.bsky.social's new review in JBC highlights recent research on how #Staph aureus performs several interrelated processes like peptidoglycan assembly, cell division septum placement, and how the septum is a hub for modifying the PG to decorate the cell surface: www.jbc.org/article/S002...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Sharing the most significant work from my group, led by the @evolvingstem.bsky.social team. Come for the discoveries of how Pseudomonas adapts in biofilms, stay for the story of how they were discovered by thousands of young scientists in grades 9-12. 🧪🧫🧬🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

submitted 18 days ago • 4 comments

(Longish thread. Apologies) I have met many inspiring colleagues over the past few months, many of whom are in academic institutions targeted by the current administration, and many others who are about to be (the analogy to the ‘eye of Sauron’ has been invoked many times; gallows humor). 1/

submitted 18 days ago • 10 comments

mRNAs encoding adjuvant proteins boost immunity. A fantastic study from Hunter et al shows the value of IL12. Study validates original work on this concept, ref below. Kudos to the authors on this exciting discovery! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

How adding mRNA to code for interleukin-12 markedly increased T cell immune response which could be used for vaccines vs infectious diseases and cancer @sciimmunology.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 19 days ago • 6 comments

This might be a good time to recall Arnold Relman's wise words: "There really is no such thing as alternative medicine-- only medicine that has been proved to work and medicine that hasn't." gizmodo.com/rfk-jr-is-op...

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

The fallacy posed by the MAHAers is that if you eat healthy you are not going to be afflicted by diseases such as cancer. This is not just statistically stupid but it’s also cruel. Imagine telling the parent of a young child with cancer that you should have eaten more veggies. 1/

submitted 21 days ago • 7 comments