NYTimes article on "Why Do Parents Keep Hearing About the Microbiome?" by Christina Caron

Nice article by Christina Caron in the NY Times: Why Do Parents Keep Hearing About the Microbiome? - NYT Parenting



It discusses a few related topics and has a bit on my earlier posting about Dove's microbiome marketing.



See my original post here: If a body wash falls in the forest, is it gentle on the microbiome?

A damsel(fly) in distress

Took some of my pics of a yellow dumped warbler eating a damselfly and made them into a Gif using Giphy.

 
via GIPHY

Best pics from trip to NYC

I went on a short trip to New York for a Bat Mitzvah of my best friend's daughter. I brought my camera, a Nikon D500 (and the 200-500 mm lens) and I took some pics, mostly of birds, while I was there. Here are some of the better ones.

Four days of microbial phylogeny at #UCDavis #Asgard #Phylogenomics #MAGs

So - I did a guest appearance in a UC Davis Microbiology class run by a colleague / friend of mine - Renee Tsolis and I thought I would just post the details here.

Class: MIB200A - Biology of Prokaryotes

Four days of microbial phylogeny oriented around discussions of papers.  So to do this I picked four topics, really organized around papers.  See below for details.  I have posted the slides though I note they are pretty boring since most of them are just figures / text from the papers.

Class 1: rRNA and the Tree of Life

Papers

• Woese and Fox 1977 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC432104/ 
• Hugenholtz et al. http://jb.asm.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=9733676

Slides

MIB200A at UCDavis Module: Microbial Phylogeny; Class 1 from Jonathan Eisen

Yet another mostly male microbiome meeting - #YAMMMM - a microbiome #manel in San Diego

Well, just when I thought the microbiome space was getting better about diversity of speakers.  I got called twice today from someone trying to get me to sign up for this meeting and I got an email about it too.

The meeting: "Gen-Next Probiotics and Microbiome - Advanced Therapeutics and Sequencing Congress” to be held on 6th and 7th February 2020 in San Diego, USA."

Speakers from the email:
• Maya Ivanjesku, Chief Scientific Officer, Dakota Biotech
• Bharath Prithiviraj, Senior Scientist, City university of New York
• Ross Youngs, CEO & Founder, Biosortia Pharmaceuticals
• Seth Crosby, Director, Research Collaborations, Washington University School of Medicine
• Elliot Friedman, Senior Research Investigator, University of Pennsylvania
• Peter Leighton, CEO, ProSperity Bioscience
• Tal Korem, Assistant Professor, Columbia University in New York City
• Chuck Collins, Professor, East Tennessee State University
• Joseph C Ellis, Sr. Staff Scientist, OAK Ridge National Laboratory
• Aubrey Levitt, CEO/Co-Founder, Postbiotics +
• M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril, Director, Microbiome Core Facility, University of North Carolina
• Arun Bhunia, Professor of Food Microbiology, Purdue University
• A. Bruce Johnson, PhD, Corporate Vice President, Business Development, Phibro Animal Health Corporation
• Michael Leonidas Chikindas, Microbiologist, Rutgers University

I looked up these people and their descriptions on various websites and with this information and other I assigned them to M vs F.  I realize this approach is imperfect.  I label my inferences below: M in yellow and F in green.

• Maya Ivanjesku, Chief Scientific Officer, Dakota Biotech
• Bharath Prithiviraj, Senior Scientist, City university of New York
• Ross Youngs, CEO & Founder, Biosortia Pharmaceuticals
• Seth Crosby, Director, Research Collaborations, Washington University School of Medicine
• Elliot Friedman, Senior Research Investigator, University of Pennsylvania
• Peter Leighton, CEO, ProSperity Bioscience
• Tal Korem, Assistant Professor, Columbia University in New York City
• Chuck Collins, Professor, East Tennessee State University
• Joseph C Ellis, Sr. Staff Scientist, OAK Ridge National Laboratory
• Aubrey Levitt, CEO/Co-Founder, Postbiotics +
• M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril, Director, Microbiome Core Facility, University of North Carolina
• Arun Bhunia, Professor of Food Microbiology, Purdue University
• A. Bruce Johnson, PhD, Corporate Vice President, Business Development, Phibro Animal Health Corporation
• Michael Leonidas Chikindas, Microbiologist, Rutgers University

So that comes to 11M vs 3F.

Or ~ 80% M.

No thanks.  I will skip this YAMMMM.  And you should too. 

Viome - trying to prove that my calling them "The Theranos of Microbiome Companies" was an understatement ...

A month or so I wrote the post below that I thought was an example of really bad misleading advertising.  And it is indeed.  But keep reading past the discussion of this ad, because today I got a much worse example.

Post I drafted a month ago but did not actually make public:

Uggh.  This is just such BS.  I saw a Viome ad on Facebook.

 

Here is the text:

DNA tests can tell you a lot about where you came from.
Your past. Your family history, and your ancestry.
But that doesn’t help you right now.
That doesn’t help you today.
DNA tests also told her what foods were best for, but the recommendations never changed, even as symptoms got worse.
Just like you, Kelly wanted to know how to make the most of her health.
DNA tests told Kelly what diseases she was more at risk for genetically,
but they don’t give her any actionable advice on how to lower that risk.
Frustrated with generic guidelines like “exercise more and eat healthy,” Kelly finally found Viome, and it made all the difference.
That’s because Viome didn’t test her DNA. Viome tested the RNA of the microbes that make up Kelly’s gut microbiome to tell her what her microbes were up to and how they were affecting her.
The same microbes that are responsible for making most of the neurotransmitters, nutrients, and other compounds her body needs to be healthy.
Just like Kelly’s microbes eat what Kelly eats, your microbes eat what you eat, and if they don’t get the right foods at the right time, they begin making compounds that contribute to chronic inflammation.
That means:
Poor sleep,
Bloating,
Weight gain (the bad kind),
And a significantly increased risk for all kinds of chronic diseases.
Once Kelly got her Viome results, she knew which foods she needed in her unique personalized diet to boost the good guys (and which foods to avoid!) to take action to improve her health.
You can do the same thing as Kelly using the Viome Gut Intelligence Test.
End the guesswork and take charge of your health.
Order your Viome Gut Intelligence Test today.

Some of my thoughts on academics close associations with child rapist Jeffrey Epstein

Just collecting some of my posts on this topic here:

When, if ever, will @DrMANowak and @harvard do something about their unethical association with rapist Jeffrey Epstein - they took his money, propped up his reputation, and now? crickets - read more from @xeni about this: https://t.co/deoSQ7HbT2

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 22, 2019

Over the last few days, I have spent some time digging into the sordid connections between rapist / pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and various groups at @harvard e.g., https://t.co/UAwjqbhh6t

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 25, 2019

To everyone who has been digging into the disturbing connnections between academics and scientists and Jeffrey Epstein - I thank you - science dies in darkness - universities die in darkness - keep shining the lights into every corner #JeffreyEpstein #Harvard #MIT

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 27, 2019

Continuing my digging into the disturbing connections between Jeffrey Epstein & @harvard & how @harvard @DrMANowak & others simply ignored all the horrific actions of Epstein in exchange for money - see most recent thread here https://t.co/R9je09HNJ9

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 27, 2019

The "We Support Joi" page, as @xeni points out, is just spitting in the face those harmed by Jeffrey Epstein https://t.co/lyofd55jQy

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 27, 2019

To everyone who has been digging into the disturbing connnections between academics and scientists and Jeffrey Epstein - I thank you - science dies in darkness - universities die in darkness - keep shining the lights into every corner #JeffreyEpstein #Harvard #MIT

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 27, 2019