Pedro Vale
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pfvale.bsky.social
Pedro Vale
@pfvale.bsky.social
Ecology & Evolution of Infection Dynamics lab, Edinburgh, UK https://pedrovale.bio.ed.ac.uk/
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This piece on infection history as a driver of individual heterogeneity in infection outcomes was fun to think about and to write with @chadisaadroy.bsky.social and Mike Boots. Also suggest that systems like #Drosophila can offer useful tools to tackle the epidemiological consequences.
Reposted by Pedro Vale
2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in
@uniexecec.bsky.social
- Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
- RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
Pls share!
September 25, 2025 at 3:55 PM
*Congratulations* to former Darwin Trust-funded PhD student Arun Prakash for being awarded the Alfred Russel Wallace award from @royentsoc.bsky.social for his PhD on #immune regulation of disease #tolerance and immune #priming in #Drosophila!

@edinburghbiology.bsky.social @uoe-eid.bsky.social
Former PhD student wins the Alfred Wallace Award for significant contribution to the science of entomology | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases
September 2025: Dr Arun Prakash, a Darwin Trust PhD student, has been retrospectively awarded the prestigious award from the Royal Entomological Society for his 2021 thesis ''Immune Regulation Of Dise...
edinburgh-infectious-diseases.ed.ac.uk
September 8, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Forecasting the effects of #epidemics is complicated by a population’s pathogen exposure history. @pfvale.bsky.social @chadisaadroy.bsky.social & Mike Boots argue for the use of experimental #DiseaseEcology to better understand the consequences of variations in #infection history 🧪
plos.io/4mdDVvW
The ghost of infections past: Accounting for heterogeneity in individual infection history improves accuracy in epidemic forecasting
Variable pathogen exposure history contributes to individual immune differences, complicating epidemic forecasting. This Essay argues that experimental disease ecology can offer powerful tools and app...
plos.io
August 12, 2025 at 9:04 AM
This piece on infection history as a driver of individual heterogeneity in infection outcomes was fun to think about and to write with @chadisaadroy.bsky.social and Mike Boots. Also suggest that systems like #Drosophila can offer useful tools to tackle the epidemiological consequences.
August 12, 2025 at 9:57 AM
"The myth of meritocracy in science collapses under the financial sacrifices expected at every career stage. From unpaid internships and self-funded conferences to underpaid positions, these hidden costs disproportionately exclude those without generational wealth, compounded by race and gender."
Too poor to science: How wealth determines who succeeds in STEM
From student to researcher, a career in science can come with a high price tag. This Perspective explores how persistent financial barriers limit who can succeed in science, revealing how wealth shape...
dx.plos.org
July 10, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Hope this primer proves helpful to anybody interested in infection avoidance. It was certainly a pleasure to write with @akgibson.bsky.social and @pfvale.bsky.social l!
May 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
This primer on infection avoidance was incredibly fun to write with @cr-amo.bsky.social and Mandy Gibson. We cover its taxonomic breadth, mechanisms and evolution, and its importance across fields as diverse as public health, conservation, and agriculture. 🧪
www.cell.com/current-biol...

#SymbioSky
May 20, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Providencia rettgeri is a commonly employed #Drosophila pathogen. It also has an extensive AMR profile causing opportunistic infections in hospital settings. I recently realised I know less about it than I should, so here is my homework.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#Microsky #MEvosky
Providencia rettgeri
www.sciencedirect.com
May 15, 2025 at 8:09 AM
A new preprint from the lab, where we apply complex systems and machine learning approaches to identify transitions between life and infection-induced death in #Drosophila.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Detecting infection-related mortality using dynamical statistical indicators of high-resolution activity time series
Predicting transitions between health, disease, and death across biological systems remains an important challenge with significant implications for both ecological management and medical intervention...
www.biorxiv.org
April 30, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Really excited to finally start this project with @andreadwilson.bsky.social, using #Drosophila as a model for experimental epidemiology and evolution to explore the genetic determinants and evolutionary constraints on extreme pathogen transmission phenotypes.
April 25, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Hi #Drosophila folk: I'm advertising a 2-year #Postdoc, funded by a BBSRC grant on the genetic and immune determinants and evolutionary constraints underlying extreme pathogen transmission phenotypes. Deadline 29 April, details in the link below, or feel free to email:
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMQ231/p...
Postdoctoral Research Associate at The University of Edinburgh
Apply now for the Postdoctoral Research Associate role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.
www.jobs.ac.uk
April 9, 2025 at 10:04 AM
An interesting, tenured, Principal Researcher position at CIBIO in Northern Portugal, focused on the study of virus-host #co-evolution, with emphasis on the #evolution of #immune system genes and the impact of emerging diseases on wildlife.

www.cibio.up.pt/en/jobs/tenu...
TENURE, 1st Edition: 2 positions- BIOPOLIS2025-15 - Job Opportunities - Cibio
The mission of the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources is to develop world-class research in the areas of biodiversity and evolutionary bi
www.cibio.up.pt
March 27, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
A long, long time ago, we started this review project during the first Coron lockdown, but if finally made it out into the world - Origin and function of beneficial bacterial symbioses in insects! @naturerevmicro.bsky.social
March 27, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Dental calculus, the preserved oral microbiome, is an absolute treasure trove of information that can be interrogated across thousands of years. But how to make it work? In a new preprint, @markella-morait.bsky.social asks this questions using >30 mammalian species:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
March 25, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Time to give an update on the fantastic work by @taniafpaulo.bsky.social during her PhD, now published in @royalsocietypublishing.org on the evolution of resistance and disease tolerance mechanisms to oral infection in #Drosophila
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
#infection #immunity 🤓🎊
Evolution of resistance and disease tolerance mechanisms to oral bacterial infection in Drosophila melanogaster | Open Biology
Pathogens exert strong selection on hosts that evolve and deploy different defensive strategies, namely minimizing pathogen exposure (avoidance), directly promoting pathogen elimination (resistance) a...
royalsocietypublishing.org
March 15, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Here we go again!!! Thanks to @rubengonzalez.bsky.social a brilliant postdoc in the lab, I made my first baby steps into the aging field... Be kind and supportive 😀 I find the results totally exciting! and so much to do now! #ProudPI #LoveVirology
In my first Drosophila study at @salehlabparis.bsky.social, we found that:

1. Enteric viral infections accelerate aging.
2. Even if the infection is cleared, aging process remains triggered.
3. Accelerated aging correlates with reduced lifespan.

📑Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
March 14, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
So excited to share this latest work by @kelseyhuus.bsky.social !!!
She shows that flagellin in the human gut affects whether or not people develop fever in response to vaccine, and the amount of flagellin reflects diet
February 25, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
Prakash, A., Fenner, F., Shit, B., Salminen, T. S., Monteith, K. M., Khan, I., Vale, P. F. (2024). IMD-mediated innate immune priming increases #Drosophila survival and reduces pathogen transmission. PLoS pathogens, 20(6):e1012308 journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
IMD-mediated innate immune priming increases Drosophila survival and reduces pathogen transmission
Author summary When we are vaccinated, our immune response is able to respond quickly if we are ever exposed to the same pathogen in the future. Unlike humans, the immune systems of invertebrates, suc...
journals.plos.org
March 1, 2025 at 1:36 AM
"Here, we track the development of balancing selection theory over the last century and provide an accessible review of this rich collection of models."

#evobio
February 17, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
This excellent interactive tutorial on misleading data visualizations explores the idea of a "counter chart" — the graph you draw in response to refute a misleading claims

flowingdata.com/projects/dis...
Defense Against Dishonest Charts
This is a guide to protect ourselves and to preserve what is good about turning data into visual things.
flowingdata.com
February 15, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Live imaging of individual symbiotic bacterial cells colonizing the gut of living Drosophila melanogaster show that Lactiplantibacillus plantarum specifically recognizes the fruit fly foregut as a distinct physical niche.

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

#Symbiosky #Drosophila
www.science.org
February 14, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Pedro Vale
A century of theories of balancing selection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637871v1
February 14, 2025 at 3:37 PM