Stefan Oehlers
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oehlerslab.org
Stefan Oehlers
@oehlerslab.org
410 followers 540 following 160 posts
Principal Investigator, Bacterial Pathogenesis Lab (A*STAR ID Labs, Singapore)
@astar-idlabs.bsky.social
Zebrafish models of infection and immunity
www.oehlerslab.org
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oehlerslab.org
The @astar-idlabs.bsky.social photon torpedo is ready for live firing again after an 8 month break. Look out IMCB neighbours @carolineleiwee.bsky.social
The UV disinfection module of a recirculating aquarium with an eerie green glow coming out the top
August 26, 2025 at 4:10 AM
oehlerslab.org
Setting up in 2022 @astar-idlabs.bsky.social our first experiments were showing Stat3 loss of function and inhibitors prevented infection-induced vessel leak. Daraprim is like a $1 a pill vs Avastin $120 per injection, sad that we think of cost-benefit but good that we have a decent substitute
Image of inflammation-induced angiogenesis/vascular permeability schematic from Hortle & Oehlers, Pathog Dis 2019
August 13, 2025 at 8:19 AM
oehlerslab.org
Remember Daraprim price gouging from a decade ago? Just published in Biomed Pharmacother: we show darapim (pyrimethamine) protects from #TB vascular leak and inhibits bug growth. The first first author paper for Darryl Han!

doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
News reports of 2015, when Turing Pharma made an anti-parasitic drug unaffordable in America
August 13, 2025 at 8:19 AM
oehlerslab.org
hi res Steve-o is unimpressed at your lack of weights in these shots
Neutral face Stefan
August 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM
oehlerslab.org
Hey #sgbug folk, we have @wvschaik.bsky.social visiting across the road in a couple of weeks just before our next work in progress meeting
Seminar advertisement for Willem van Schaik's talk at GIS
July 30, 2025 at 7:20 AM
oehlerslab.org
Note to @fillouxlab.bsky.social lose the molecular structure slides, more snake analogies to describe T6SS!
Screenshot of Dor's link to his PNAS paper, preview image is a hissing snake's head
July 8, 2025 at 1:23 PM
oehlerslab.org
Awesome news to wake up to. Congrats @vdeneke.bsky.social for such a well deserved award!
#zebrafish
IZFS Announcement that Victoria Deneke is the 2025 Chi-Bin Chien Award winner
June 3, 2025 at 10:09 PM
oehlerslab.org
So I asked postdoc Manitsoh: does M. abscessus like to eat left overs? RNAseq (thx @lab-singhal.bsky.social) found M. abscessus turns on lipid metabolism in infection. Manitosh set up an in vitro version of Denise's sequential infection to show that yeah, M. abscessus is ok with eating left overs
Figure 5 technical data: M. abscessus upregulates (A) known stress/virulence and (B) lipid metabolism genes during infection of zebrafish embryos. (C) M. abscessus can utilise many lipids including (D) left over caseum from M. marinum. (DE) M. abscessus showing up doesn't really affect M. marinum growth.
May 9, 2025 at 1:59 AM
oehlerslab.org
What's special about tuberculous granulomas that make them such great real estate for M. abscessus? It's the ESX-1 driven caseous necrosis and a little bit of the recruited macrophage bus service.
Figure 4 technical data. (C) there is less early colonisation of M. marinum granulomas that lack ESX1, (D) even though there are about the same number of macrophages being attracted. (E) This early difference turns into a massive divergence in colonisation rate later in infection suggesting there's something else going on. (AB) correlative experiments showing more necrosis supports more M. abscessus colonisation.
May 9, 2025 at 1:59 AM
oehlerslab.org
What other bugs can benefit from tuberculous granulomas? Turns out you don't even need to be a very pathogenic mycobacterium (M. smegmatis) or a bacterium (Candida auris) to colonise and grow. Surprisingly (maybe unsurprisingly knowing the field) a secondary M. marinum infection doesn't.
Figure 3: technical data about other types of secondary infections' relationship with primary M. marinum granulomas. (A) M. marinum doesn't colonise or benefit, (BC) "non-pathogenic" M. smegmatis colonises and benefits, (D) even dead M. abscessus wanders into granulomas, (E) eukaryote Candida auris colonises and benefits.
May 9, 2025 at 1:59 AM
oehlerslab.org
Is having all your enemies in one place good or bad for the host? Once M. abscessus gains entry to the M. marinum granuloma it is hidden from the big mean immune system and nasty antibiotics that would otherwise kill it if it was left in the open. Not good, the AMR organism just found a shortcut.
Figure 2: technical data showing better growth of M. abscessus when M. marinum granulomas are around (CD) to protect it from (E) macrophages or (F) clartithromycin
May 9, 2025 at 1:59 AM
oehlerslab.org
Why are prior and concurrent #TB such huge risk factors for M. abscessus infection? #zebrafish preprint lead by our research officer Denise Wee discovers tuberculous granulomas (yellow blob) act as a safe haven for opportunistic mycobacterial pathogens (magenta blobs).
May 9, 2025 at 1:59 AM
oehlerslab.org
I have a picture of that sign by the jetty!
The same sign, just up the beach and under a tree
March 24, 2025 at 9:11 AM
oehlerslab.org
Register for next week's #zebrafish #tuberculosis research extravaganza with @astar-idlabs.bsky.social and ZDMS. It's technically still 24 March in some time zones.
YES WE CAN END TB A wheel of hands made up of a rainbow of skin tones Image from https://www.finddx.org/what-we-do/advocacy/world-tb-day-2024/
March 19, 2025 at 3:12 AM
oehlerslab.org
@astar-idlabs.bsky.social and the #Zebrafish Disease Models Society webinar for World #Tuberculosis Day on 25 March 2025, 9 AM SGT. Hear @antoniopagan.bsky.social from Stanford, Yan Hua from SPH, and Denise from @oehlerslab.org
Registration: zoom.us/meeting/regi...
A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs and the Zebrafish Disease Models Society, is pleased to announce an upcoming webinar for World TB Day on Tuesday 25th March 2025, 9 AM to 10.30 AM (SGT). Zebrafish tuberculosis modelling around the Pacific Rim. We have a nice progression of talks from first contact, granulomatous inflammation, and post-TB
March 7, 2025 at 3:15 AM
oehlerslab.org
Fear the science GOAT
Stefan's door tag next to a sticker of a pink goat/unicorn dressed for science
February 28, 2025 at 6:32 AM
oehlerslab.org
@astar-idlabs.bsky.social on tour. @lab-singhal.bsky.social and @oehlerslab.org in Hyderabad at the @embopress.org #tuberculosis workshop. Occupying a plenary session on granuloma biology today!
Singhal and Oehlers lab personnel outside the CSIR auditorium in Hyderabad. The sign for the zebrafish facility is hiding in the back behind Amit.
February 11, 2025 at 6:08 AM
oehlerslab.org
Asia-Pacific timed zebrafish infectious disease seminar *tomorrow* by Dr Cressida Madigan (UCSD) "How mycobacteria cross the blood-brain barrier"
Wednesday, 5th Feb 2025, 9:30 AM (SGT).
Registration: zoom.us/meeting/regi...
#zebrafish #idsky #mycosky #immunesky @astar-idlabs.bsky.social
Poster for Cressida's talk. Abstract: The Madigan Lab seeks to understand how bacteria interact with the nervous system during infection. Several medically relevant diseases are characterized by infection of the nervous system, including TB meningitis and leprosy, which are caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. leprae, respectively. After invasion of neurological tissue, mycobacteria are thought to incite neuroinflammation, causing damage to neurons. The mechanisms at play are largely unknown. To understand the key pathological events in infections like TB meningitis and leprosy, we use an unusual model host: zebrafish larvae. The similarities between these transparent vertebrates and humans outweigh their differences: over 70% of human genes have known zebrafish orthologs. Zebrafish are amenable to infection by M. marinum, a model mycobacterial pathogen from fish. Using these resources, we track bacteria as they interact with neuroglia and cells of the immune system in the zebrafish brain in real-time. This approach revealed the mechanism by which mycobacteria cross the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from infection. Whereas elsewhere in the body, mycobacteria use phagocytes for dissemination, we found that only extracellular mycobacteria reach the brain microvasculature. There, they adhere to the microvascular endothelium and grow into microcolonies. These microcolonies induce endothelial cell tight junction reorganization, creating transient gaps through which bacteria enter the brain. This reorganization is induced by the mycobacterial surface glycolipid trehalose dimycolate. Strikingly, M. tuberculosis, its pathogenic relative M. marinum and the saprophyte M. smegmatis all use this same pathway for brain invasion. Thus, the zebrafish model revealed that M. tuberculosis initiates meningitis, the deadliest form of tuberculosis, using an ancestral determinant that evolved for environmental survival.
February 4, 2025 at 3:50 AM
oehlerslab.org
Decadent westerners, that sound was more than 2 billion people knocking off for the next 5 to 14 days for Chinese New Year. Welcome the rise of Hydra! 👉🏽 🐍
The Singhal Lab CNY decorations, window stickers and a pile of unguarded snacks
January 28, 2025 at 4:23 AM
oehlerslab.org
A midwinter walk around town. It's 27 degrees, C not F. Apart from the dragon and dinosaur zones, describing Toa Payoh as beige during the day would be insulting to the colour brown, but at night it sparkles with CNY decorations! #singapore
CNY tree decorations with the ubiquitous Singaporean No Crossing sign in the foreground The lights on the Lor outside the supermarket with very light night traffic in the background
January 20, 2025 at 2:14 PM
oehlerslab.org
And now the future! @astar-idlabs.bsky.social Amit Singhal and adjunct Kevin Pethe talking about the TB therapies on the horizon
Amit on stage
January 18, 2025 at 3:31 AM
oehlerslab.org
The National Public Health Laboratories are the molecular basis for personalised treatment and epidemiological cluster confirmation
Progression to total Mtb sequencing with the few local transmission cluster landmarks for reference
January 18, 2025 at 1:48 AM
oehlerslab.org
Making amends for some run of the mill colonial racism in the pre war era
Selected examples of colonial opinions blaming other ethnicities for spreading TB A map of the Chinese death house area on the edge of modern Chinatown. Colonial epidemiology rediscovered local hospices...
January 18, 2025 at 1:31 AM
oehlerslab.org
Kicking off the 2025 Singapore Tuberculosis Symposium with historical perspectives. Did you know before Brompton made bikes they were better known for crushing TB on the other side of the world?
Prof Chew, the OG of TB elimination in Singapore
January 18, 2025 at 1:21 AM
oehlerslab.org
Say hello to/start following @astar-idlabs.bsky.social the home of @vignuzzilab.bsky.social and @oehlerslab.org + more in the process of migrating across. Should we put together a starter pack like it's November 2024?
A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs at the soon to be iconic Bird Paradise waterfall
January 16, 2025 at 2:48 AM