Becky Johnson
@entomososwin.bsky.social
K99 Postdoctoral Fellow at CAES in Medical Entomology 🦟 When not in lab I enjoy cooking, cocktails, birding, backpacking, mushrooming, and all things outdoors. | she/her https://www.rebeccamjohnson.me/
👀There will be a Keystone Symposium with a focus on Vector-Pathogen Interactions to be held in Geneva, Switzerland in February 2027. It should be a great meeting and hope to see you there! www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...
Vector-Pathogen Interactions: From Vector Biology to Innovative Control Strategies | Keystone Symposia
Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Vector-Pathogen Interactions: From Vector Biology to Innovative Control Strategies, February 2027, in Geneva, with field leaders!
keystonesymposia.org
Implications of successive blood feeding on #dengue virus inhibition by Wolbachia in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes @entomososwin.bsky.social @mallerybreban.bsky.social @brackneylab.bsky.social @chantalvogels.bsky.social @yaleemd.bsky.social
Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes - Nature Communications
Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate that, while successive blood feeding increases earlier dengue virus dissemination, the inhibitory effects of Wolbachia remain strong, highlighting Wolbachia’s potential to disrupt dengue transmission under natural feeding conditions.
bit.ly
Jane Goodall was my first childhood hero, as I loved animals as a kid and was inspired by her story. I still remember the National Geographic specials about her. RIP.
Some of you may remember my rant about getting surprise charged $653 for a medically necessary ultrasound to screen for the cancer that killed my mother. Well, I wrote about it, and now my bad experience has been made into a cartoon for The Out of Network Network! open.substack.com/pub/outofnet...
Paying $653 to See if I Had the Disease That Killed My Mother
Written by Mara Wilson / Illustrated by Emily Flake
open.substack.com
Today I found out that my NIH NIAID K99 looking at mosquito basement membrane repair processes was funded!!! Thank you to my mentor @brackneylab.bsky.social, my co-mentor Andrea Page-McCaw, my colleagues & letter writers, the outstanding people at NIH, and everyone else who has been so supportive!!
NEWS: The @entsocamerica.bsky.social Governing Board has elected nine new Fellows of the Society for 2025: Joanna Chiu, Laura Harrington, John Heraty, Margaret Mayfield, Bob Peterson, Paula Shrewsbury, Andrew Suarez, Michael Ulyshen, and Jessica Ware. MORE: entsoc.org/news/press-r...
Our first Wolbachia paper now published in Nature Communications! 🦟 Check out Becky's thread! 👇
Becky Johnson@entomososwin.bsky.social · last yr.So glad to finally have this out with co-author @mallerybreban.bsky.social and very thankful for the many amazing people who contributed to this study and provided materials and input! 🦟🦠1/12 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
So glad to finally have this out with co-author @mallerybreban.bsky.social and very thankful for the many amazing people who contributed to this study and provided materials and input! 🦟🦠1/12 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes - Nature Communications
Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate that, while successive blood fe...
nature.com
Likewise thrilled to have been able to contribute to an amazing team effort on this! 🦟
Perran Ross@perran.bsky.social · last yr.Thrilled to be a part of this study on Wolbachia and multiple blood feeding. Now published! rdcu.be/eyqaG
Thrilled to be a part of this study on Wolbachia and multiple blood feeding. Now published! rdcu.be/eyqaG
Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
Nature Communications - Dengue virus transmission by Ae. aegypti mosquitoes poses a significant public health threat, necessitating innovative control strategies. Here, the authors demonstrate...
rdcu.be
🦟" #Mosquito #immune cells enhance #dengue and #Zika virus infection in #Aedes aegypti" by David R. Hall, @entomososwin.bsky.social, @brackneylab.bsky.social, @vectorimmunity.bsky.social et al. in @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mosquito immune cells enhance dengue and Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti - Nature Communications
Infection of mosquito immune cells by dengue and Zika virus enhances the spread of virus infection to mosquito tissues, such as the salivary glands, to promote virus transmission and highlights conser...
nature.com
This was such a fun study with great collaborators! Glad to have it finally out. 🎉 We found that hemocytes actually help viruses disseminate to new organs within the mosquito.
Ryan Smith@vectorimmunity.bsky.social · last yr.Excited to share our latest collaborative work with @entomososwin.bsky.social @brackneylab.bsky.social looking at the role of mosquito immune cells in virus infection. It turns out that these cells help disseminate virus infection, increasing the potential for virus transmission rdcu.be/euiZt
Despite all the shit going on, we have to celebrate our victories. New publication with @entomososwin.bsky.social and @vectorimmunity.bsky.social showing that hemocytes play a central role in disseminating flaviviruses to secondary tissues potentially functioning as a Trojan Horse(TBD) rdcu.be/euj4g
Mosquito immune cells enhance dengue and Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti
Nature Communications - Infection of mosquito immune cells by dengue and Zika virus enhances the spread of virus infection to mosquito tissues, such as the salivary glands, to promote virus...
rdcu.be
New RasgonLab paper (ahead of print) published in Autophagy! By Dr. Sujit Pujhari & other former RasgonLab members "Sindbis virus is suppressed in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti by Atg6/BECN1 (autophagy-related 6)-mediated activation of autophagy" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Sindbis virus is suppressed in the yellow fever mosquito aedes aegypti by Atg6/BECN1 (autophagy-related 6)-mediated activation of autophagy
Macroautophagy/autophagy is a critical modulator of pathogen invasion response in vertebrates and invertebrates. However, how it affects mosquito-borne viral pathogens that significantly burden pub...
tandfonline.com
🧪 Detailed data viz NYT article, out today, on the extent of funding cuts at the National Science Foundation. This "broken pie chart" is neat & new to me: Powerfully shows the slowdown in new NSF awards across areas. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
No photo but saw my first one this morning!
American Birding Association@aba.org · last yr.Migration is still ongoing! Many migrants are still en route to their breeding grounds and some later migrants are just beginning to pass through migration hotspots, like the Mourning Warbler. Their migration extends into early June! Have you seen a Mourning Warbler lately? Tag this account!
TODAY IS THE DAY! 🧪☀️⬇️ Join us at the Lincoln Memorial or your local site to Stand Up for Science!
New paper published with the Benoit lab at the University of Cincinnati! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Multiple blood feeding bouts in mosquitoes allow for prolonged survival and are predicted to increase viral transmission during dry periods
Dry conditions increase blood feeding in mosquitoes, but it is unknown if dehydration-induced bloodmeals are increased beyond what is necessary for re…
sciencedirect.com
A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of an indefinite hold on submissions to the Federal Register, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter. By @avaskham.bsky.social bit.ly/3X8ngz8
Federal Register hold makes ‘end run’ around court pause on NIH funding freeze
NIH-related updates to the Federal Register, which are required for the scheduling of study sections and advisory councils, are on hold indefinitely, according to an email reviewed by <i>The Transmitt...
thetransmitter.org
I escaped poverty because I am a scientist. And I am a scientist because of the National Science Foundation. A 🧵:
I’ve been seething and grieving since yesterday’s Friday Night Massacre of NIH overheads, a seeming bit of bureaucratic trivial that will in fact destroy the US university system if unchecked. But I want to get away from budgets and rate breakdowns and F&A percentages for a moment. Humor me?
This mosquito is Uranotaenia sapphirina. Most of the time it looks pretty ordinary (right). But get the light just so (left) and it has a little surprise. (The other surprise is that it feeds on leeches and earthworms. No, really!)
📢New preprint! We studied the impact of successive feeding on inhibition of dengue virus by Wolbachia Key finding: mosquito feeding behavior matters, but Wolbachia remains effective🦟🦠 Study led by @entomososwin.bsky.social and Mallery Breban www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Implications of successive blood feeding on Wolbachia-mediated dengue virus inhibition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
Dengue virus (DENV) is a mosquito-borne virus that poses a continued and increasing threat to public health. A promising strategy to mitigate the burden of DENV is introgression of the virus-inhibitin...
biorxiv.org
Can any birders help me with an ID? I saw this murre at Crescent Beach SP in Maine on Dec. 28th. I'm btwn a thick-billed murre and a common murre (Merlin thinks thick-billed is more likely and the wing seems to match that better but there's white on the head that looks more like a common murre?
Closeup of the business bits.
Josh Gibson, Ph.D.@drstrangeant.bsky.social · 2y agoA #microCT scan of a female American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis). Very pleased by how well this sample fixed and stained (fixed in ethanol, stained in 0.5% iodine) - turns out tick cuticle appears to be very porous! The high surface area to volume ratio also helped I'm sure.