Erik Van Dis
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erikvandis.bsky.social
Erik Van Dis
@erikvandis.bsky.social
2K followers 680 following 21 posts
Immunologist and Damon Runyon fellow in the Stetson lab at UW, interested in innate immunity and cell death.

Previously at Berkeley, Carleton College and Rocky Mountain Labs
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
lukesteuber.com
presented without comment
Offit told me that Kennedy is a "liar" and a "terrible human being." I asked him to explain. "It doesn't matter what I say," Offit said. "He thinks the medical journals are in the pocket of the industry, he thinks that the government is in the pocket of the industry, he thinks I'm in the pocket of industry, and he's wrong." Offit continued: "If he has data showing he's right, then fucking publish it. He can't, because he doesn't have those data." I asked Offit if he saw a way to reverse the public's rising distrust in science. "I don't think there is any way to regain that trust other than have the viruses do the education, and the bacteria do the education, and then people will realize they paid way too high a cost," he said.
December 1, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
marcveld.bsky.social
Five years of COVID taught us one thing: immunology didn’t fail, our public discourse did. My new Substack cuts through the noise with evidence, not ideology. If you want facts over fear, and science over spin, join here:

marcveldhoen.substac...
1/2
What will population immunity to SARS-CoV-2 look like in a post-vaccine world?
An updated outlook (2025)
marcveldhoen.substack.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
jcornlab.bsky.social
What controls expansion & contraction of DNA repeats (e.g. Huntington's)? We were thrilled to collaborate w/ the lab of Marta Olejniczak to find out. Check out the cool screen from @sebasiegner.bsky.social and @matthiasmuhar.bsky.social that reads out repeat sequence. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 26, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
lozanzi.bsky.social
#NoTimeToDie! Welcome mitoxyperiosis! ⁦‪Kanneganti, Wang‬⁩ &co show ⁦‪@cp-cell.bsky.social that energy starvation via carbon deprivation in the presence of innate immune stimuli triggers a new form of cell death dependent on mitochondria-driven plasma membrane oxidative damage!
Innate immune and metabolic signals induce mitochondria-dependent membrane lysis via mitoxyperiosis
Wang et al. identify a new lytic cell death pathway, mitoxyperilysis, triggered by the synergy of innate immune activation and metabolic stress. This process is regulated by mTORC2 and involves persis...
www.cell.com
November 28, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
inditrehan.bsky.social
My trainees are sick of me saying that we have the second worst health care system ever created. (The first being USA pre-Obamacare.) Here is a stellar summary of our many problems, where indeed money has become the mission.
Health care in the USA: money has become the mission
Despite extraordinary scientific and medical resources, the US health-care system underperforms. In this Review we consider the damage wrought by decades of market-based policies that have stimulated ...
www.thelancet.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
cellpress.bsky.social
"Stress-induced sympathetic hyperactivation drives hair follicle necrosis to trigger autoimmunity" spkl.io/63326Ad0f6

Ya-Chieh Hsu & colleagues
@cp-cell.bsky.social
Acute stress causes immediate hair follicle necrosis and hair loss via sympathetic nerves, which in turn activates and expand s autoreactive CD8 ⁺ T cells targeting hair follicles. Thus, a single stress event not only causes immediate tissue damage but also predisposes the tissue to future autoimmune attack.
November 26, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
jmannion1.bsky.social
‘Lymphotoxin alpha eradicates acute myeloid leukemia and simultaneously promotes healthy hematopoiesis in mice’

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Lymphotoxin alpha eradicates acute myeloid leukemia and simultaneously promotes healthy hematopoiesis in mice
Lymphotoxin alpha represses acute myeloid leukemia by depleting TRAF2 and triggering cell death and myeloid differentiation.
www.science.org
November 26, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
ehartenian.bsky.social
Annndddd it’s out! Here’s what came out of combining my virology background with the @brozlab.bsky.social’s cell death focus : a novel role for the cell death protein ninj1 during hsv1 infection. In brief, Ninj1 on mouse macrophages results in lower infection rates and higher cytokine secretion.
November 20, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
brozlab.bsky.social
November is a big month for the lab with *two* new papers by @ehartenian.bsky.social and @alexandraboegli.bsky.social ++ co authors now online.

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
NINJ1 blocks HSV-1 entry into macrophages to impact viral replication and immunity | EMBO reports
imageimageNINJ1 blocks HSV-1 entry into mouse macrophages independent of its role in cell death, resulting in greater secretion of pro inflammatory cytokines downstream of infection. Mouse macrophages lacking NINJ1 are more permissive to HSV-1 ...
www.embopress.org
November 20, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social
Dengue Virus NS1 Binds Ephrin B1 to Trigger Endothelial Dysfunction https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.19.689067v1
November 19, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
labwaggoner.bsky.social
@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social Regulation of lipid metabolism is a primordial function of STING @igmm-montpel.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @nadinelaguette.bsky.social
November 19, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
environmicrobio.bsky.social
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations
Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
sherylnyt.bsky.social
NEW: Jenna Norton, an NIH employee who is openly critical of Trump & RFK Jr, has been put on "non-disciplinary" administrative leave. She says the administration is trying to "scare and silence me." An HHS official, asked to comment, called her a radical leftist.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
N.I.H. Worker Who Criticized Trump Health Policies Says She Is on Administrative Leave
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
frezzalab.bsky.social
Termination of the integrated stress response | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Termination of the integrated stress response
Stress responses enable cells to detect, adapt to, and survive challenges. The benefit of these signaling pathways depends on their reversibility. The integrated stress response (ISR) is elicited by p...
www.science.org
November 13, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
davidusharauli.bsky.social
Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is secreted primarily by dying monocytes rather than by live bystander monocytes, challenging established models.

#cryopyrin
#pyrin
#immunology
#science

buff.ly/2cBb3sk
Single-cell analysis reveals cell death as driver of NLRP3-mediated secretion of IL-1β in human monocytes - Nature Immunology
Lamkanfi, Shirasaki, Izawa and colleagues show that IL-1β release in human monocytes stimulated with lipopolysaccharide or carrying NLRP3 activatory mutations is mostly restricted to cells undergoing…
buff.ly
November 11, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
rauchlab.bsky.social
Early registration deadline for midwconfimmunol.org
@midwinter-immun.bsky.social is this Friday!
Midwinter Conference of Immunologists
The Midwinter Conference of Immunologists was founded in 1961 by a small group of Immunologists, among them Drs. Dan Campbell and Ray Owen. The goal of the Midwinter Conference is to provide a forum w...
midwconfimmunol.org
November 11, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
biorxiv-immuno.bsky.social
Truncating RELA variants drive autoinflammation and autoimmunity by impairing the negative feedback control of NF-kB https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.09.687461v1
November 10, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
rauchlab.bsky.social
Can we improve peer review? We think we can! Check out an experiment I helped with as part of @solvingforsci.bsky.social 's mission to make science better.
And if you don't want to read the whole bioRxiv manuscript, here's an overview of the main findings:
solvingfor.org/news-posts-d...
November 5, 2025 at 11:25 PM
erikvandis.bsky.social
Very cool work from my former mentor elucidating differential control of HIV by IFN alpha subtypes 🦠🧫🧬
biorxiv-immuno.bsky.social bioRxiv Immunology @biorxiv-immuno.bsky.social · 28d
Differential Control of HIV-1 Replication by IFN-α14 Compared to IFN-α2 Relates to Differences in the Modulation of Host Antiretroviral Restriction Factors https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.685890v1
November 4, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
hlatim.bsky.social
Sphingolipid sensor degrades cGAMP to suppress antiviral host defense- #virus #lipids #hostdefense #innateImmunity
www.cell.com/immunity/ful...
Membrane integrity changes upon viral infection activate sphingomyelinase SMPDL3B to restrict cGAS-STING signaling via cGAMP degradation
Wang et al. find that cell membrane stress upon viral infection induces expression and stabilization of host sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase acid-like 3B (SMPDL3B), which, in turn, degrades cGAMP to s...
www.cell.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
ramlabuw.bsky.social
#Cytokines2025 will kick off with two special symposia! Check in early, get your badges, to attend these sessions.
November 2, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
walkerbragman.bsky.social
Sad day for the folks who staked their reputations on lab leak conspiracy theories.

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...
The Telegraph Headline: New Covid virus found in wild Brazilian bats Subhed: The discovery of a ‘furin cleavage site’ suggests the mutation which helps the virus adapt to humans is naturally occurring
October 31, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
jshendure.bsky.social
Super excited about first Shendure/Baker Lab collaboration & preprint on a multiplex sequencing-based strategy for screening de novo proteome editors in mammalian cells. Kudos to the brilliant Chase Suiter (not here) & @greenahn.bsky.social on the work! Preprint here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Reposted by Erik Van Dis
erictopol.bsky.social
When 2 life science discoveries converge: solving a ~3 decade mystery of extraordinary longevity and healthspan + an essential cell danger sensor
And related ongoing clinical trials!
erictopol.substack.com/p/a-long-awa...
A Long-Awaited Longevity Mystery Solved
Spotlighting an essential human biologic pathway targeted by drugs in clinical trials
erictopol.substack.com
October 12, 2025 at 12:32 PM