Anders Kiledal

Microbial ecology of Great Lakes toxic cyano. blooms @MichiganEarth and graft vs. host disease @umichmedicine
PhD @UDelaware, 🦠 in/on concrete

[Rayan Chikhi @RayanChikhi]

🌎👩‍🔬 For 15+ years biology has accumulated petabytes (million gigabytes) of🧬DNA sequencing data🧬 from the far reaches of our planet.🦠🍄🌵

Logan now democratizes efficient access to the world’s most comprehensive genetics dataset. Free and open.

https://t.co/dDBtAjfdYL

[Jake Scott, MD @jakescottMD]

2/ What the evidence actually says

Thimerosal has been used in vaccines and biologics since the 1930s. It’s highly effective at killing bacteria and preventing contamination, especially in opened multi-dose vials.

Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, not methylmercury. Ethylmercury is broken down and excreted quickly; unlike methylmercury, it doesn’t build up or persist in the body.

In 1999, U.S. health agencies recommended removing thimerosal from childhood vaccines as a precaution, not because of evidence of harm. By 2003, all thimerosal-containing pediatric vaccines (except some flu shots) had expired. https://t.co/BBMp8OlNxD

[Florian Trigodet @FlorianTrigodet]

I am very happy (and anxious) to share with you our most recent work in which we evaluated four of the most popular long-read assemblers, https://t.co/ar1JhAaBTL and tell you just a little bit about it in the following 🧵

[CIGLR @CIGLR_UM]

🚨 Cuts would cripple NOAA’s wide-ranging science partnerships, because of the ongoing funding delays, “we’re looking at having to lay off a substantial number of our workers in the next few months,” said #CIGLR Dir. Greg Dick: https://t.co/eN7cYYFZam #GreatLakes @LakeMichigan13

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

@CIGLR_UM @NOAA_GLERL

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

Great to see this paper from Paul Den Uyl's MS work out in @EnvSciTech

"Genomic Identification and Characterization of Saxitoxin Producing Cyanobacteria in Western Lake Erie Harmful Algal Blooms" https://t.co/eEQGPgJ8NC @GreatLakesGreg

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

of an ocean science agency created during Thomas Jefferson's Presidency" [paraphrased] 2/2

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

https://t.co/Tk8sbetHQy "Though 'small government' types imply that any US gov. science agency represents expansion of gov. power beyond the Founding Fathers intention, it’s worth noting that NOAA is the descendant [1/2]

[Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash]

CoverM is published!

CoverM: Read alignment statistics for metagenomics https://t.co/pCKuMDDkHk

[AppEnvMicro journal @AppEnvMicro]

#AEMJournal in the news! A team of international researchers used metagenomics to identify the cyanobacteria causing harmful algal blooms in the Winam Gulf, which serves as a model for a warming Lake Erie. @ASMnewsroom @Newsweek

https://t.co/kxJR71jUhh

[U.S. EPA Great Lakes Region @eparegion5]

This week, EPA and @Cornell scientists aboard the #LakeGuardian are sampling #LakeErie to better understand how water quality and microbial communities affect harmful algal bloom formation in the western basin. #CSMI #GLRI

[Patrick Hsu @pdhsu]

What if we could universally recombine, insert, delete, or invert any two pieces of DNA?

In back-to-back @Nature papers, we report the discovery of bridge RNAs and 3 atomic structures of the first natural RNA-guided recombinase - a new mechanism for programmable genome design

[Steven Salzberg 💙💛 @StevenSalzberg1]

Wow, @nature has retracted the 2020 Poore et al. cancer microbiome paper that we showed (https://t.co/hBvfGCvyGR) was deeply flawed. The retraction date is tomorrow so I can't yet read the official notice, but I'll update when I can @RetractionWatch @ProfBootyPhD

[National Microbiome Data Collaborative @MicrobiomeData]

Several NMDC Ambassadors and Champions also attended #ASMicrobe and gave outstanding presentations! @ASMicrobiology

[Michigan News @UMichiganNews]

U-M lands $6.5M center to study links between Great Lakes algal blooms, human health

Great Lakes researchers at the @UMich have been awarded a $6.5 million, five-year federal grant to host a center for the study of links between climate change, harmful algal blooms and human health.

Increased precipitation, more powerful storms and warming Great Lakes waters all encourage the proliferation of harmful algal blooms composed of cyanobacteria.

Also known as blue-green algae, cyanobacteria can produce toxins harmful to humans, pets and wildlife. Though the pea-green summer blooms in western Lake Erie are the best-known in the region, cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms, or cHABs, now occur in all five Great Lakes.

"Toxic cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms are a growing threat to freshwater ecosystems, drinking water supplies and coastal communities worldwide, and the Great Lakes are ground zero for the climate-induced intensification of these blooms," said U-M environmental microbiologist Gregory Dick, who will serve as director of the Great Lakes Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health.

The center was founded at @bgsu in 2018 with funding from the @NIH and the @NSF. Due to the retirement of founding director George Bullerjahn at BGSU, the center's administrative home has moved to Ann Arbor with renewed funding from the two federal agencies.

The center will be co-directed by scientists at the @UToledoMed who focus on the human health aspects of cHABs.

While the center's core research projects and investigators won't change, its mission will evolve to pursue new directions stimulated by findings from some of the more than 70 research papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals by center-funded scientists since 2018, Dick said.

One key finding by center-funded researchers from the University of Michigan is that cyanobacterial toxins can become airborne in tiny particles called aerosols when waves break against Great Lakes shorelines and piers.

But how much of a human health hazard do those aerosols pose?

To find out, two new center-funded research projects, one led by Andrew Ault of @MichiganChem and the other by David Kennedy and Steven Haller at the @UToledo, will assess the occurrence, transport and effects of aerosolized cyanobacterial toxins on human health.

Ault will team up with Allison Steiner of the @umclasp, Casey Godwin of @UMSEAS and Judy Westrick of @waynestate to study toxin release from cyanobacterial cells—as well as the aerosolization and transport processes—to test the hypothesis that climate change will increase human exposure to cHAB toxins through ingestion and inhalation.

Kennedy and Haller's project will focus on human health effects, with special emphasis on populations that are vulnerable due to preexisting conditions such as asthma. That study will involve the first-ever prospective assessment of the pulmonary health impacts of cHAB aerosols in susceptible populations in Lake Erie's Western Basin.

"Our region has long grappled with algal blooms, and communities are eager for answers regarding their impact on human health," said Kennedy, associate professor of medicine at the University of Toledo and co-director of Great Lakes Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health.

"Our study aims to provide vital insights, identifying at-risk populations and offering evidence-based information for healthcare providers and policymakers to enhance the health of our region."

Two other existing center-funded research projects will continue during the five-year renewal period.

One, led by Steven Wilhelm of the @UTKnoxville, looks at how climate change influences the proliferation and toxin production of various cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom species. The other, led by David Sherman of the @UMLifeSciences in collaboration with Ashu Tripathi of the U-M Natural Products Discovery Core, seeks to reveal the diversity, distribution and bioactivity of known and undiscovered cyanobacterial toxins and related compounds.

The center's four research projects are complementary and are unified by the goal of determining how climate change affects cHABs and how cHABs impact human health. Taken together, the projects will enable an assessment of the human health risks of cHAB toxins under current and future climate scenarios.

A Community Engagement Core led by Chris Winslow of @OhioState will connect the center's science to relevant communities, promoting communication of research outcomes to stakeholders.

"The threat to water resources in the Great Lakes—which hold about 95% of the surface fresh water in the U.S. and support a multibillion-dollar blue economy—is real," said Dick, who is also director of the U-M-based @CIGLR_UM and a professor in the @MichiganEarth and at the School for Environment and Sustainability.

"But despite these serious threats, key scientific questions surrounding the climate drivers and health impacts of cHABs remain unresolved. Our knowledge is not yet sufficient to predict how a changing climate will impact cHAB distributions, community composition or toxicity."

The center's studies will combine observation, experiment and modeling at the nexus of lake science, climatology, microbiology and biomedical science. U-M will partner with researchers at @bgsu, Ohio State University, the University of Toledo, Wayne State University, @michiganstateu, University of Tennessee, @UNC, @JMU, the @SUNY, and a Canadian allied partner, the @UWindsor.

More than 28 faculty researchers and dozens of students at the universities are expected to be involved.

In addition, center-funded researchers will develop new technologies for advanced monitoring and forecasting of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms in collaboration with colleagues at @NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research laboratory and the U-M-based Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research.

The new technologies will include the use of an autonomous surface vehicle for cHAB sampling in Lake Erie's Western Basin, home to annual summer cyanobacterial blooms fueled by nutrient-rich runoff from croplands in the Maumee River watershed to the west.

Cyanobacteria blooms can result in higher water-treatment costs for local governments; they can prevent people from enjoying fishing, swimming, boating and visiting the shoreline; and they harm the region's vital summer economy.

In August 2014, nearly half a million people in the Toledo area were without tap water for more than two days after high levels of the cyanobacterial toxin microcystin were detected in Lake Erie.

In the wake of the Toledo water crisis, the Great Lakes Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health was launched to better understand the serious threats that chronic cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms pose to the region.

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

Check out the results of our collaboration with @RealGLOS to make harmful algal bloom 'omics results from GLAMR (https://t.co/Q3jE16qlTc) available on Seagull (https://t.co/Ty8n6eBsXW)! Kudos to the GLOS team for the really nice interactive visualizations 📊

[NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory @NOAA_GLERL]

New #GreatLakes data alert!

‘Omics data is a valuable tool for understanding harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes. Now, data from the Great Lakes Atlas for Multi-omics Research (GLAMR) Database is accessible on the GLOS Seagull platform! https://t.co/DCUdphYw57
@MichiganEarth

[Will Ratcliff @wc_ratcliff]

Time to ditch @BioRender? I had no idea they were claiming copyright to the figures we make with it, even after we pay for use of the service.

[ICTC13 @13ICTC]

The ICTC13 Scientific Committee is now set up! The printable version of the conference poster is also on our webiste. Visit https://t.co/elDPOEINrr to learn everything and stay up to date! #cyanobacteria #ictc13 #conference #science

[Anders Kiledal @eandersk]

Want to determine Microcystis diversity in your samples? We evaluated all Microcystis core genes to identify the best markers and developed optimal primers for sequencing. Markers also predictive of gene content, including for bioactive compound synthesis. https://t.co/cPYnQZkbBZ

[CIGLR @CIGLR_UM]

#ICYMI: 📢 #CIGLR is excited to announce our 2024 #GreatLakes Summer Fellow applications! There are 10 full-time, 12-week positions paying $10,000 each.

Applications are due 09 Feb 2024 at 11:59 pm (Eastern Time)!

Eligibility & how to apply: https://t.co/4alccQoZQO