🚨 New preprint: We've characterised one of the most drug-resistant Salmonella lineages we've ever encountered; Salmonella Isangi ST335, causing healthcare-associated bloodstream infections across southern Africa. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Hospital and environmental transmission of XDR Salmonella Isangi revealed by genomic Surveillance in Malawi and South Africa

ABSTRACT Background Salmonella Isangi is an under-characterised serovar repeatedly associated with antimicrobial resistant hospital infections. Outbreaks of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Salmonella...

medrxiv.org

📣 New pre-print alert! 🦠 We sequenced S. Typhi from a vaccine trial in Malawi 🇲🇼 📊 No genomic differences between vaccine and control arms 💡 But with short follow-up, that’s exactly why ongoing genomic surveillance after vaccination is essential to detect escape. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Genomic Analysis of Salmonella Typhi from a Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine Trial

Background Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), the causative agent of typhoid fever, continues to pose a major public health challenge in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The W...

medrxiv.org

Delighted to (belatedly) announce that this work is now published in Microbiome! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Interplay between the gut microbiome and typhoid fever: insights from endemic countries and a controlled human infection model - Microbiome

Background Typhoid fever is a systemic infection caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) invasion from the gut lumen. Transmission between people occurs through ingestion of contaminate...

link.springer.com

Phil Ashton@flashton.bsky.social · 2y ago

📢 Thrilled to share our latest research! Certain gut bacteria may protect against typhoid fever by producing short-chain fatty acids www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Would now be delighted to read a 3000 word exploration of how terrible Liverpool are.

Phil Ashton@flashton.bsky.social · 2y ago

Is there anything better in the world than a 3000 word exploration of how terrible Man U are? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Art galleries should provide good signal/free WiFi so that we can ask AI about the art work, rather than seemingly deliberately blocking it to stop people dicking about on their phones.

ChatGPT o3 is just mind blowing!

I'm sure that being a medieval peasant and growing all your own food must have been satisfying in its own way, but they'll never know the satisfaction of having a fully charged battery pack will they?

Great post from Works in Progress mag on recent scientific findings: "For over 50 years, the USDA has airdropped millions of sterilized male screwworm flies weekly along the Panama–Colombia border." www.worksinprogress.news/p/reporter-g...

What's new in biology

Return of the screwworm, new DNA vaccines, gene editing at scale, and more

worksinprogress.news

Speakers include @flashton.bsky.social @dralhubb.bsky.social @danybeste.bsky.social @jodywinter.bsky.social @dannagifford.bsky.social and more! Plus, lots of time to interact with other researchers and industry people in the field (including dinner!). Maybe see you there?

@friendlymicrobe.bsky.social and I invite you to the @bsacandjac.bsky.social antibiotic resistance and mechanisms conference Nov 27-28 in Birmingham! We have great talks on global AMR healthcare, mechanisms, vaccines/immunotherapy, antimicrobial interactions and outreach. bsac.org.uk/antibiotic-r...

Antibiotic Resistance and Mechanisms (ARM) Workshop for Researchers 2025 - The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

bsac.org.uk

Chuffed to announce that I've started a new job with @daanensen.bsky.social at the @thecgps.bsky.social, supporting the uptake of genomics for AMR in global health!

Is it acceptable to respond to a reviewers comment by saying "yes, that's a lovely idea, but we already have 27 supplementary tables, so i'm not going to do it"?

Hi Bluesky! We’re looking forward to engaging with the community and our users on here. Follow this account for updates on the Pathogenwatch platform (pathogen.watch), as well as our sister tools @microreact.bsky.social and @amrwatch.bsky.social developed by @thecgps.bsky.social

Today in @worksinprogress.bsky.social, I reflect on Donald Shoup's legacy. Perhaps the most interesting question: how did the most unlikely professor kick off an international parking reform movement? substack.com/home/post/p-...

The prophet of parking

A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup

substack.com

I'm very interested in the idea to think about microbiome/metagenome datasets in terms of ecological guilds presented in this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41... Is there any ontology, or other organised database, of microbial ecological guilds, with example species?

I've been maintaining a job board at www.genomicepi.com/jobs for a couple of years. I started this with several goals in mind

What kind of psycopath has Sunday as the first day of the week on their calendar?

Registration for #IMMEM14 is now open! Don't forget it is limited to 350 participants so secure your spot. @escmid.bsky.social @esgem.bsky.social escmid.org/congress-eve...

Registration & Information

Learn more about the congress and events hosted by ESCMID in the fields of Clinical Microbiology (CM) and Infectious Disease (ID).

escmid.org

It would be nice if Google Scholar gave citation metrics excluding self-citations.

I'm seeing this box on biorxiv pre-prints. Anyone know how to post a community review?

Strong petting zoo vibes from National Institute of Communicable Diseases in Joburg!

If your journal sets my postal address field as required information as part of reviewer sign up, you'd better be prepped for some expletive laden address info!

Gah, can anyone help me find the paper that showed the association between various professions and different mental health conditions that was circulating a while back? Google and chatgpt failing.

The substack subscription process is such a pain in the ass.

This Steve Albini quote on goals vs process inspired me to create the goal-process ouroboros.

We developed a simple, inexpensive, colorimetric assay based on detection of S. Typhi-specific phages, which are more abundant and easily detectable. Our latest preprint describes this assay & application in 4 countries. Happy to share reagents & make this accessible. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Some days you wake up and the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Other days, you wake up and there’s no power, no water, and a decomposing rat in the garage.

Need a website that shows me outfits menswear guy has assessed and lets me guess his opinion and then compares my judgement with his.

Is there anything better in the world than a 3000 word exploration of how terrible Man U are? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Systems evangelist Amorim meets Slot’s simpler pragmatism at Anfield | Barney Ronay

Manchester United’s new manager is increasingly looking like an odd hire, especially when compared to the successful succession at their arch rivals

theguardian.com

Just watched Phantom Thread, what an interesting movie! Odd balls! I’d watch Daniel Day Lewis watching paint dry.