Róisín Boggan
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roisinboggan.bsky.social
Róisín Boggan
@roisinboggan.bsky.social
Host-pathogen genetics 🧬🧫
@sangerinstitute.bsky.social and University of Cambridge
she/her🏳️‍🌈
Pinned
Hi bluesky👋 I'm Róisín, a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. I'm interested in the human genetics of infection, at the moment I'm looking at S. aureus nasal carriage 🦠
Worried about identification of human samples from microbial sequencing? We were too- this is what we've done about it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Benchmarking of human read removal strategies for viral and microbial metagenomics
Human reads are a key contaminant in microbial metagenomics and enrichment-based studies, requiring removal for computational efficiency, biological a…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities
August 20, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Great piece about some of the issues within the health research field atm ⬇️
New comment piece by me & colleagues in @bmj.com on the using health data for research in UK

Processes are so complex and so slow now that less research is happening and we are wasting the enormous potential of the NHS to drive innovation

www.bmj.com/content/390/...
Health research in England is grinding to a halt
Wes Streeting, the UK health and social care secretary, announced in 2024 that “the NHS is broken” against a background of ballooning waiting lists, delays in disease detection, and reduced staff prod...
www.bmj.com
July 7, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
📣 We have a #WorkExperience opportunity for six Year 12 students to join our Human Genetics team at the
@sangerinstitute.bsky.social!

This will be an immersive opportunity to join both our wet- and dry-lab teams.

📅 21- 25 July 2025
⏰ Apply by 9am on 10 July
🔗 cstu.io/0d184e

#EduSky #SciTeachUK
July 3, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
📣 Interested in the environmental (un)sustainability of AI (and how to support positive change)? Or know someone who is? I have an open position for a postdoctoral researcher to join my group in Cambridge, UK 🌱

🚨Closing June 5th

www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51255/

Topics below 👇

#AcademicSky #GreenSky
May 9, 2025 at 12:36 PM
🎉
Happy to share our first preprint looking at the nasal microbiome in ~1000 healthy adults from the CARRIAGE study of 20,000 healthy blood donors to understand nasal colonisation by Staphylococcus aureus. Ten years in the making! doi.org/10.21203/rs....
The nasal microbiome redefines Staphylococcus aureus colonisation
Staphylococcus aureus colonises the nose in humans, with individuals defined as persistent, intermittent or non-carriers. Unlike the gut microbiome, the nasal microbiome has not been studied in large ...
doi.org
May 7, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
One more re-up for my hissy fit about wolves.

arutherford.substack.com/p/dire-wolve...
Dire wolves remain very extinct
Despite what you are being fed, de-extinction is a con, full of gloss, bullshit and ghoulish greed.
arutherford.substack.com
April 10, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
Interested in infectious diseases, climate, health, and international collaborations? 🧬

We spoke with Nick Thomson, Head of our Parasites and Microbes programme to cover all those topics and more.

Learn more about Nick and his research vision here ⤵️

sangerinstitute.blog/2025/03/21/a...
March 21, 2025 at 3:51 PM
First paper from my new job 🎉
Removing human reads from viral and microbial metagenomics data. Usually, I want all the human reads I can get, but this was a really interesting project to work on! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Benchmarking of Human Read Removal Strategies for Viral and Microbial Metagenomics
Human reads are a key contaminant in microbial metagenomics and enrichment-based studies, requiring removal for computational efficiency, biological analysis, and privacy protection. Various in silico...
www.biorxiv.org
March 24, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
US Science has been under sustained attack for the last month. I've been thinking about the vulnerabilities in UK science.

In a new post, I've imagined a dystopian but *possible* future for UK science - as a way for prompting discussions on how we can protect it.

open.substack.com/pub/christin...
A dystopian but possible future: the Fall of British Science 2028-2033
In which I think about how a UK populist government could undermine science as a way of prompting discussions about how to protect it.
open.substack.com
February 26, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
1) This feels like really good, bold public interest journalism by the BBC!

2) If you were around social media / online publishing circa 2014 and followed The Social Chain, it was soooo baffling to watch his reinvention as a business guru.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Steven Bartlett sharing harmful health misinformation on Diary of CEO podcast
Disproven health claims are accepted with little challenge by host on number one podcast, BBC investigation finds.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 13, 2024 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
Excellent.
Letter sent in to the Editor of the Guardian on brain microbiome nonsense.
December 3, 2024 at 10:18 AM
Amazing talk from Anna Furtjes outlining the key findings from her paper- I'm not a brain gal but this was incredibly interesting! #segeg2024 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Lifetime brain atrophy estimated from a single MRI: measurement characteristics and genome-wide correlates
A measure of lifetime brain atrophy (LBA) obtained from a single magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan could be an attractive candidate to boost statistical power in uncovering novel genetic signals a...
www.biorxiv.org
November 22, 2024 at 3:51 PM
Excited to be at #SEGEG2024 today @kcl.ac.uk; already some super interesting presentations!
November 22, 2024 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
My app for finding 🦋 accounts you may want to follow has had a make-over: it now displays names and bios, and allows adding an "app password" for direct follow buttons in the listing

bsky-follow-finder.theo.io
Bluesky Network Analyzer
Find accounts that you don't follow (yet) but are followed by lots of accounts that you do follow.
bsky-follow-finder.theo.io
November 12, 2024 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Róisín Boggan
PhDs and PostDocs!

Circulate to your cohorts and departments.

This could be really beneficial to future PhD students that follow in the paths we walk in today.

🧪
📢Calling all researchers! We are studying what makes a great (or not-so-great) supervisor from the perspective of PhD students and postdocs. Our goal? To improve academic mentorship and research environments. Got 5-10 minutes? Take the survey!✍️
forms.gle/WT9GoiaHxypX...
Labelling my scientific supervisor: A genuine leader or just a big jerk?
Thank you for taking part in this survey. The aim of this survey is to understand which characteristics make a scientific supervisor supportive and constructive or, conversely, detrimental to the grow...
forms.gle
November 11, 2024 at 1:30 AM
Hi bluesky👋 I'm Róisín, a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. I'm interested in the human genetics of infection, at the moment I'm looking at S. aureus nasal carriage 🦠
September 9, 2024 at 10:32 AM