Thushan de Silva

VERY excited by our latest work on StrepA below, but also rhe multiple collaborations and work to come off the back of this at MRCG

I said no more #LISSSD25 posts but forgot a major highlight!

Most sessions started w/ a patient lived experience video, and you can see them all @ lisssd2025.org/patient-stories

Looking after patients during thier illnesses is v. stressful so it's great to hear their experiences when recovered.

A fantastic line up. In person and virtual options. An interdisciplinary conference on vaccines. Network with leaders in vaccine research & deployment. There is no other meeting like this! Every year I come away with new ideas, new learning and new contacts @thushan-desilva.bsky.social

A terrific postscript!

Exciting @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded #StrepA work, with Ed Clarke, Hannah Frost, @precisionvaxlab.bsky.social, @njmoreland.bsky.social, @thushan-desilva.bsky.social, Penda Johm, Ya Jankey-Jagne, @drmichaelmarks.bsky.social, David Khoury, Andrew Steer.

Photo of child having a swab taken of their throat.

Super excited announce funded @wellcometrust.bsky.social extend #StrepA Human challenge inc. transfer to Gambia & identify correlates of protection. Great team @joshosowicki.bsky.social @precisionvaxlab.bsky.social @njmoreland.bsky.social @thushan-desilva.bsky.social y.social & others not on Bluesky

Are you London ID trainee post-PhD & interested in an ACL. May be able to create posts in 2025. Opportunities in Syphilis & STIs (UK & Global), Group A Strep (Global), Leishmaniasis & NTDs. If interested get in touch. @gpollara.bsky.social @drneilstone.bsky.social @thushan-desilva.bsky.social

Some papers are very difficult to read but that doesn’t necessarily mean they're deeper than other papers. Authors must work very hard to make their story easy to read and understand by others. Or as Stephen King says: "the shorter the book, the less bullshit".

Super interesting work from @dchodge.bsky.social on determinants of influenza vaccine immunogenicity. Congrats David! Food for thought.

Streptococcus pyogenes pharyngitis elicits diverse antibody responses to key vaccine antigens influenced by the imprint of past infections Nature Communications - Streptococcus pyogenes is a deadly bacteria without a vaccine. Here, researchers measured antibodies in serum and saliva from a strep throat human challenge trial. Baseline...

This #StrepA paper was a LONG labour of love from a great team 😊 Equal first & senior author credits buried at the very end, so I want to highlight the critical contributions of Dr Hannah Frost & @njmoreland.bsky.social & Dr Danika Hill @precisionvaxlab.bsky.social rdcu.be/d2gBV

Woohoo! 🎉 Congrats to all of you. Looking forward to diving into this finished product (and of course the next challenge steps together!)

🎉 I'm a #newPI , and I'm so excited to share our new paper out in Nature Comms today! 🧵
rdcu.be/d2gBV
Quick intro for the new followers:
I'm from Monash Uni in Melbourne, and we study T and B cell responses to viruses, bacteria & parasites with the goal of improving vaccines. #ImmunoSky #MicroSky

Doing good science is 90% finding a science buddy to constantly talk to about the project.

Altered IL-6 signalling and risk of tuberculosis: a multi-ancestry mendelian randomisation study Our findings propose a causal relationship between reduced IL-6 signalling and lower risk of tuberculosis, akin to the effect seen in other IL-6 mediated diseases. This study suggests that IL-6 antago...

🚨 Delighted to share our paper defining a new role for IL-6 in TB. 🚨

We used genetic variation to show *reduced* IL-6 signalling is causally associated with *lower* risk of TB.

Lead author @gushamilton.bsky.social

#TBSky #IDSky #ImmunoSky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
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Very cool! Fascinating data. Congrats to entire all star author list. Keep being surprised and intrigued by IL-6.

Fantastic lecture @drxhschan.bsky.social ! Lots of great feedback. As I said, this was an exceptionally competitive round of BC applications so massive congrats again and all the best for a very bright future!

Photos of research group meetings and data collection

Previous papers published by MRC LID PhD students - you can also search Kucharski/Lowe/Hodgson on Google Scholar

Come do a PhD with us at @lshtm.bsky.social! We're advertising two projects:

Understanding and predicting vector-borne epidemics (with Rachel Lowe): mrc-lid.lshtm.ac.uk/2025-26-proj...

Kinetics of immunity to influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (with @dchodge.bsky.social): mrc-lid.lshtm.ac.uk/2025-26-proj...

@thushan-desilva.bsky.social @susannadunachie.bsky.social and all of our other amazing collaborators! #hsct #cart #covid #octave #pitch

Researcher parents are paying a high price for conference travel — here’s how to fix it Three scientist mothers call for a change in how conference childcare costs are reimbursed, drawing on their personal experiences.

A while back we wrote an article calling for accelerated change in policy for those w/ caring responsibilities in #STEMM

Sharing insights into the challenges, highlighting personal experiences & proposing a strategy to improve culture

#AcademicSky

Read it here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Microbiology Society Microbiology Society journals contain high-quality research papers and topical review articles. We are a not-for-profit publisher and we support and invest in the microbiology community, to the benefi...

Use it or lose it: Unless we publish papers in our society owned and published journals they will cease to be, along with all the conferences and meetings the proceeds support. Microbiology Society publishes many excellent journals, all edited by experts. #microsky www.microbiologyresearch.org

Application window for this 5 year assistant professor post @lshtm.bsky.social extended to 25th November

BIA now on blue sky 👏 - and please consider applying for our ECR and small project grants!

Innate immune control of influenza virus interspecies adaptation via IFITM3 - Nature Communications This study highlights that IFITM3 deficiency lowers the minimum infectious dose of influenza virus, enhances adaptation of influenza viruses to a new host species, and broadly increases infection of h...

🚨🚨 Our latest paper shows that IFITM3 deficiency lowers the minimum virus dose threshold for influenza and also enhances adaptation of the virus to a new species.🦠🫁 Major implications for preventing new pandemics. 😷 Proud of first author Parker Denz!👨‍🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Want to make beautiful scientific figures? Easy!

The NIH released a library of 2000+ free scientific illustrations called *BioArt*.

Check it out! bioart.niaid.nih.gov

#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky 🧠🟦 🧪

First day here and finding my way around. Already refreshing to have a feed full of what I want!

Our paper describing a new sequencing-based neutralization assay for influenza virus is now published in Journal of Virology:
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

This new approach makes it possible to measure 100s (or even ~1000) neutralization titers in a single 96-well plate.