Marc Lipsitch
@mlipsitch.bsky.social
Professor of Epidemiology Harvard Chan SPH, Director, @ccdd-hsph.bsky.social. Views my own.
cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/content/cisa... In my new role at @stanfordcisac.bsky.social, I'm recruiting for a postdoc to define how benefits of risky research should be evaluated. w Tony Mills of @notredame.bsky.social . #philsci #biosecurity #scipolicy
CISAC Fellowship Program
cisac.fsi.stanford.edu
New preprint reporting a large piece of work by Katherine Jia to define estimands and estimators for direct impact of vaccines with arbitrary rollout schedules arxiv.org/abs/2509.05508 with Alyssa Bilinski, @chrisboyer.bsky.social and me
Defining and Estimating Outcomes Directly Averted by a Vaccination Program when Rollout Occurs Over Time
During the COVID-19 pandemic, estimating the total deaths averted by vaccination has been of great public health interest. Instead of estimating total deaths averted by vaccination among both vaccinat...
arxiv.org
New paper: we argue that a promising approach for studying mpox vaccine effectiveness in Central Africa to incorporate mpox vaccination + testing data into existing cohort studies, especially those for HIV/STIs. www.thelancet.com/journals/ebi...
Clade I mpox vaccination: strategies for deployment and evaluation
Clade I mpox continues to spread in Central Africa with no sign of abating,1 however very few doses of vaccine have been deployed. Mpox vaccination strategies using either of the licenced vaccines, MV...
thelancet.com
Very pleased to share this newly published work with Aishani Aatresh, part of her exceptional Harvard undergrad thesis. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... .
What is the relationship between viral prospecting in animals and medical countermeasure development? | mBio
Sampling in animal populations to detect novel viruses before they infect humans has been a major activity justified by several considerations, notably by the idea that finding such viruses will stimu...
journals.asm.org
Check out "Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?"- CCDD Director, @mlipsitch.bsky.social's conversation with Sam Harris, host of the Making Sense podcast. www.samharris.org/podcasts/mak...
Sam Harris | #425 - Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?
Sam Harris speaks with Marc Lipsitch about pandemic preparedness.
samharris.org
Republicans, before you vote to close 1 of 4 nursing homes, can you update us on where those people will go? Maybe call a few seniors in your state and go over plans for where they go next? Or call the son whose dad has dementia and tell him how he can be a full-time caregiver?
Elizabeth Warren@warren.senate.gov · last yr.BREAKING: 1 in 4 nursing homes say they will be forced to close if Republicans pass Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. No grandma should be kicked out of her nursing home so that Mark Zuckerberg can buy another Hawaiian island.
A new study by Julia Deichmann, @mlipsitch.bsky.social and collaborators at the Sheba Medical Center, Israel uses mathematical modeling to predict antibody kinetics and duration of protection against SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination using sparse serological data. Read it here at bit.ly/43XY9mK
Predicting antibody kinetics and duration of protection against SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination from sparse serological data
Author summary Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has played a key role during the COVID-19 pandemic to lower transmission rates and reduce the number of severe cases. This is due to a vaccine-induced ris...
bit.ly
New tool for pangenome analysis! CLARC refines bacterial gene clusters using functional annotation + linkage—not just sequence. New publication by @indragon.bsky.social & collaborators, advised by @mlipsitch.bsky.social & @billhanage.bsky.social. Read more at bit.ly/4ek0Y51
Linkage-based ortholog refinement in bacterial pangenomes with CLARC
Abstract. Bacterial genomes exhibit significant variation in gene content and sequence identity. Pangenome analyses explore this diversity by classifying g
bit.ly
Deeply affecting article by an @hsph.harvard.edu PhD student denied the opportunity to graduate due to blanket exclusion of Sierra Leone citizens by the US Government. A very particular example of pointless cruelty by the US Government. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
What it’s really like … to know I’m going to miss my Harvard graduation because of Trump’s travel ban
Like many other international students I have had my educational dreams suspended without reason – and learned plenty about racism and resilience
theguardian.com
Remarkable open letter to the director from NIH staff on the health, financial,academic freedom, and other impacts of changes at the agency. www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...
Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Support NIH Staff Now!
standupforscience.net
The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%
Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · last yr.From over 300k to less than 100k. A picture of smaller, reduced science.
"The policy’s narrow-mindedness will make America small again.” I am simply at a loss to express how stupid this is. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/b...
Denying Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on America
nytimes.com
Great piece by @hsph.harvard.edu colleague Maitreyi Mazumdar about how NIH's evisceration of overseas research collaborations harm the US as well as the partner countries www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/29/o...
NIH cuts have doomed my research in Bangladesh — but US citizens will pay too - The Boston Globe
Global partnerships have led to major scientific breakthroughs and saved millions of lives. Now, those collaborations are in jeopardy.
bostonglobe.com
The Department of Health and Human Services has a process for making and updating recommendations like this, using expert scientists and clinicians. RFK is deliberately putting Americans' health at risk and sidestepping good science for political reasons.
STAT@statnews.com · last yr.#Breaking: RFK Jr. rolls back Covid vaccine recommendations for healthy children, pregnant people buff.ly/1jKJGHi
The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program was central in improving the evidence base for health policies and interventions, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central & Southern Asia - figure by @aasli.bsky.social. Our preprint on the termination of the DHS Program: osf.io/preprints/so...
I'm a current Harvard graduate student and I found out today that I had my NSF GRFP terminated without notification. I was awarded this individual research fellowship before even choosing Harvard as my graduate school
Please consider a comment today if you are in the US. See the advice (shared from an email I received) in the follow-up posts below this one. Tomorrow is the deadline. This is an important part of scientific freedom in this country.
Time Sensitive: Public comment on Schedule F (removing civil service protections for many federal employees INCLUDING THOSE WITH AUTHORITY OVER GRANTS) ends tomorrow. Notice is here: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/... . Comment here (green button) www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... .
Time Sensitive: Public comment on Schedule F (removing civil service protections for many federal employees INCLUDING THOSE WITH AUTHORITY OVER GRANTS) ends tomorrow. Notice is here: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/... . Comment here (green button) www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... .
govinfo.gov
An easily overlooked consequence of research funding cancellations: completed research these days requires hundreds to several thousand dollars to be published due to publication fees from journals. Without support for these fees many pieces of scientific work will be near invisible.
🎓 The GOP’s reconciliation bill is a direct hit on higher ed: – $351B in cuts education & workforce programs – eliminating subsidized student loans – Taxes on scholarships & endowments – & more. ACE calls it a “full-out assault” on access to college. Read below ⬇️ www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pa...
House Reconciliation Bill Targets Higher Education with Deep Cuts and Tax Hikes
A budget reconciliation bill advancing in the House of Representatives proposes hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to student aid, imposes new taxes on colleges and universities, and jeopardizes ...
acenet.edu
Stand Up for Science!@standupforscience.net · last yr.🚨 They just advanced the Republicans’ reconciliation bill through the Budget Committee. This bill guts healthcare, scientific breakthroughs, and a livable future to fund tax cuts for billionaires. We need pressure NOW. More on this to come - stay tuned. www.npr.org/2025/05/19/n...
Important public service reporting from @statnews.com on how people are getting their NIH grants reinstated www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/r...
Scientists are pushing to get their grants reinstated — and some are winning
The grant termination letters say there are no appeals. Yet dozens of appeals have succeeded as biomedical researchers lobby and sue to restore funding.
statnews.com
Given that there are 435 voting members of Congress, I would have hoped for more than 25% of House members to support American innovation in science and technology. 112? That’s it? No one else wants answers?!?!
Congressman Bill Foster@repbillfoster.bsky.social · last yr.NEWS: I just led 112 of my colleagues in demanding answers from the Trump Administration on their funding freeze of the National Science Foundation. Cutting off NSF funding threatens vital research, stalls innovation, and risks ceding global scientific leadership to China.
Looking for examples of beautiful, controversial or impactful microbial modelling papers - ideally a mixture of the above! It’s for teaching in the context of microbial eco/evo/epi. The modelling should be relatively easy to understand for a master’s student with a biology background.
Love this initiative!
Cornell Advancing Science and Policy Club (ASAP)@cornellasap.bsky.social · last yr.Federal research cuts impact local economies, and stall progress. Publish an opinion piece in your hometown paper on June 16th to SPREAD THE WORD about how scientific research contributes to the everyday health and wealth of the general public. #McClintockLetters blogs.cornell.edu/asap/events-...
Breaking: Over 150 college presidents across the country just signed a letter condemning the Trump administration’s threats to dictate their policies. “We speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach now endangering American higher education.”
New Brief Report out in @pnas.org with Katherine Budeski: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Focusing a virus risk ranking tool on prediction -- highlighting the importance of training models for viral emergence only on data available before emergence has happened.
Focusing a viral risk ranking tool on prediction | PNAS
Preparing to rapidly respond to emerging infectious diseases is critical. SpillOver: Viral Risk Ranking is an open-source tool developed to assess ...
pnas.org
1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.
