Such a pleasure to meet @DrSTANtheMAN @Zihai and Maria Velegraki today at our satellite session @leukocytebiol #SLB2026 and so excited to meet the rest of the team @OhioStatePIIO! Thanks also so much to @CJohnstonLab1 @RanjanMDPhD Yingshi Chen from @EvanWeberPhD lab for amazing talks at our satellite session!

Dr. Martin Prlic from @FredHutch is the latest guest on the @ImmunoPodcast! 🎙️Check out the episode now to hear how his lab uses advanced single-cell technologies to understand #TCell responses across healthy, inflamed, and tumor tissues: bit.ly/46jY7G8 #SciencePodcast

Heading to #SLB2026 in Columbus tomorrow! Excited to present ours and @BullmanLab's work on tumor infiltrating microbes in the TME, and learn from the other fascinating research being shared across the leukocyte biology community. It's all about location! leukocytebiology.org/2026-pr…

Special delivery: bacterial couriers are smuggling drugs into cancers nature.com/articles/d41586-0…

We are less than a week away from our conference!! What are you most excited about for #SLB2026? Answer in the replies below 👇

New essay: There is a little-known regulation that has been strangling biotech innovation for decades. Engineered microbes that eat plastic, sense landmines, or destroy toxins? None are likely to be approved soon, even if proven safe and effective. This regulation, called the Toxic Substances Control Act, is a black hole: between 1987 and 2018, researchers filed more than 240 applications to release engineered microbes outside of the laboratory, such as to clean up oil spills or degrade plastic. Only a few have ever been approved for use. (Interestingly, the Act itself, as passed by Congress, doesn’t even mention biology! It was designed to regulate chemicals, and bureaucrats only later clumped biology into it.) Without reform, many of the world’s most useful microbes will never find use outside of the laboratory, even if they are proven safe and effective. Here's one example: In 2016, for example, Japanese researchers discovered a microbe that is able to digest PET, the plastic in water bottles and most polyester clothing. These wild microbes had taken an existing protein that degrades cutin (the waxy material on plant leaves) and evolved it to eat plastic instead. But natural forms of the PET-eating enzymes are slow; when the microbes were cultured on top of a thin PET film and incubated at 30 degrees centigrade, it took them six weeks to break it down. Engineers in Texas, then, took these PET-eating enzymes and used computational tools to make an improved variant, called FAST-PETase. This enzyme is 98 percent identical to the natural version but digests PET plastics in less than 24 hours. They could put FAST-PETase back into living cells and release them onto landfills. But unfortunately, such an organism would likely be rejected by regulators. Read more: worksinprogress.co/issue/all…

"The grand challenges facing our world today could indeed have micro-sized solutions" rdcu.be/fCvjC

We recognize @PPisters’ exceptional leadership as UT MD Anderson president following his announced plan to retire from the institution. @UTSystem and @JohnZerwasMD have named Jeffrey E. Lee, M.D., interim president: mdanderson.org/newsroom/ut-m… #EndCancer

Out now in mBio: a collaborative endeavor featuring contributions from our PhD student @SofiaTRocha, and led by the Mukherjee lab at U of Chicago journals.asm.org/doi/full/10…

Recombitrons enable bacterial genome editing across phyla dlvr.it/TTxW7b #MicroSky

Big week for our lab, another publication is out! In this article, we make the case that #dentistry has a strategic position in the fight against antibiotic resistance, yet is under-leveraged because of shortcomings and inertia in policy and education. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128…

Still pinching myself! So excited to receive a 2026 @CancerResearch (CRI) CLIP Investigator Award! I am deeply thankful to CRI, led by @ay_zhou, for its vision and commitment to investing in bold science and big ideas. It's so humbling to see all my idols on CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council recognize the value in our work. No pressure at all! 😅 Science is meant to be open, shared, and collaborative. This project started after a casual conversation I had with my brilliant lab neighbor (and now partner!) @xufeng_chen. So grateful to him, to @UTMDAnderson for providing the supportive environment in which ambitious ideas can grow, and to the amazing members of the #RafeiLab, whose creativity, persistence, and hard work make everything we do possible. A huge congratulations to all the other 2026 CLIP awardees @BhardwajLab @CSHinrichsMD Margaret Callahan @SLentzsch @joshrveatch Deric Wheeler! So humbling to join this extraordinary community of investigators united by the shared goal of curing cancer through innovative immunotherapies. Thanks again to CRI for believing in our science and giving us the opportunity to pursue it. Now, let’s get to work! 🧪🔬 cancerresearch.org/cri-funde…

Excellent article about bacterial genetic determinants of phage-host specificity by Marissa Gittrich at al. Sullivan lab factory! Cross-family and phage-specific gene requirements for Klebsiella infection revealed by scalable RB-TnSeq genetic screens journals.plos.org/plosgeneti…

Tumor-specific antibodies elicited by engineered bacteria promote bladder cancer immunotherapy in preclinical mouse models | Science Translational Medicine. science.org/doi/10.1126/scit….

Interleukin-18 armours antitumour immune effectors dlvr.it/TTZ3qP

Gabija restricts phage circularization & DNA replication Gabija prevents phage genome circularization & replication w/out impacting bacterial host. Exposed DNA ends & phage end-binding proteins license DNA targeting while RecBCD protects host from Gabija cell.com/cell-host-microbe/a…

Enjoyed spending time with friends and supporters of @UTMDAnderson in Vail Valley and discussing the future of cancer care. From immunotherapy and the microbiome to patient-centered care and pediatric oncology, the opportunities ahead are inspiring. #EndCancer