Ryan Smith
Assoc. Prof at Iowa State. Vector biology and innate immunity. Lover of mosquitoes and tacos. Caffeine and history buff. Unlikely midwesterner. Thoughts are my own.
- 👀There will be a Keystone Symposium with a focus on Vector-Pathogen Interactions to be held in Geneva, Switzerland in February 2027. It should be a great meeting and hope to see you there! www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...
- As a heads up, it is now required that your NIH biosketch be created using Sciencv. This can be tricky since ORCID must be linked to your MyNCBI account, and for many, including myself, multiple accounts may have to be merged by NIH support staff. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
- Make sure you keep this in mind and start early if you are going to be submitting to the February NIH deadlines!
- Our latest work involving the development of genetic markers for mosquito hemocytes and their characterization using spectral imaging flow cytometry. The result is an advanced characterization of mosquito immune cells and the foundation for building genetic tools. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- I'd like to thank the colossal efforts of @georgesaman.bsky.social and Hyeogsun Kwon, as well as the help from the UMITF in providing transgenic An. gambiae.
- Pleased to share our recent work in collaboration with the @perrimonlab.bsky.social in which we perform the first genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen in Anopheles to examine essential fitness genes and genes associated with clodronate liposome function www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- I'd also like to acknowledge the huge contributions from Enzo Mameli and @georgesaman.bsky.social in this monumental and collaborative study
- Reposted by Ryan SmithA genome-wide CRISPR knockout in a major malaria vector identifies genes important for fitness & immune-related processes @natcomms.nature.com @perrimonlab.bsky.social @iowastateu.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social @georgesaman.bsky.social @vectorimmunity.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Excited to contribute to this beautiful study led by @yukihaba.bsky.social and @lindymcbr.bsky.social!
- How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities? Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation. 🧵(1/n) @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
- I'm happy that I could contribute even a small part to this fantastic and monumental study! Huge shoutout to @oliviagoldman.net @nadavshai.bsky.social and @leslievosshall.bsky.social for their incredible leadership in organizing this massive project!
- Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸 There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
- Since my study section meeting was postponed, I am able to submit my own grant a few days earlier than expected. I just wish that my outlook for the entire system was better than at present.
- Reposted by Ryan SmithDavid Hall & @vectorimmunity.bsky.social highlight @merklinglab.bsky.social & colleagues’ Cell Genomics article on #mosquito cellular responses in #midgut & #fatbody after #bloodfeeding. #Aedes #aegypti #scRNAseq #Metabolomics @iastateresearch.bsky.social authors.elsevier.com/a/1lbEr5Eb1x...
- Celebrating the holiday weekend with another bang! Our work describing roles of TNF signaling on mosquito immune cell function and in limiting malaria parasite infection is now published. Big shout out to @georgesaman.bsky.social and others for their contributions! journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
- Reposted by Ryan SmithDespite all the shit going on, we have to celebrate our victories. New publication with @entomososwin.bsky.social and @vectorimmunity.bsky.social showing that hemocytes play a central role in disseminating flaviviruses to secondary tissues potentially functioning as a Trojan Horse(TBD) rdcu.be/euj4g
- Excited to share our latest collaborative work with @entomososwin.bsky.social @brackneylab.bsky.social looking at the role of mosquito immune cells in virus infection. It turns out that these cells help disseminate virus infection, increasing the potential for virus transmission rdcu.be/euiZt
- Heading out for a night of weirdness with the family
- It's nice to start off your day with "We are delighted to accept your manuscript..."
- It's the time of the year when a student can be genuinely excited about getting a D-. D's get degrees. Only the best and brightest are ready to hit the workforce!
- Reposted by Ryan SmithThis is a great explainer of just how much trouble NIH-funded scientists are about to be in. 😨
- New at Can We Still Govern: An anonymous NIH employee maps out the GOP budget gameplan to permanently gut our most important science agency. Impoundment, delay and red tape will create artificial "savings" that become the new benchmark for NIH budgets. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...
- Reposted by Ryan SmithHarvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu
- Does anyone have recommendations for a preferably free or low-cost software platform for cloning, plasmid design, and curation for the lab. I "grew up" scientifically with VectorNTI. Is SnapGene the best current option? Any other alternatives that you might recommend?
- Reposted by Ryan SmithThe cost-saving claims don’t hold up. Every dollar in NIH research grants generates $2.46 in economic activity, research shows—a total of $93 billion in 2023 alone. “It’s incredible to me that we would give up this thing that has such obvious societal benefits,” says biologist Mark Peifer.
- Reposted by Ryan SmithThe biggest hit to extramural program staff appears to be grants management specialists (GMSs). It appears that 15-20% of GMSs were terminated. This is quite concerning since these folks have already missed essentially a month of getting-grants-out time and have lots to do. They already work hard.
- 🚨 We are recruiting for two post-doc positions!🚨 1) Development of genetic tools to study mosquito immune cells isu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/IowaStateJob... 2) Role of mosquito immune cells in immune recognition and priming isu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/IowaStateJob...
- Excited to share that I officially received my first R01 today! It's been a long road, one marked by persistence and several grants that narrowly missed the payline. Now to do all of the exciting work that we proposed! I will be hiring, so be on the lookout for job postings!
- For the sake of transparency, this particular grant took four submissions and about 3 years to get it across the finish line: -Submission #1: 50th % -Submission #2: 26th % -Submission #3: 29th % -Submission #4: 12th %
- Nice to see the influx of people moving onto this platform. Fingers crossed that we can develop something comparable to SciTwitter before Elon
- New preprint from our collaboration with @perrimonlab.bsky.social in which we perform a genome-wide CRISPR screen in Anopheles to identify essential mosquito genes and examine clodronate liposome function. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- 🚨Mosquito/fly tweeps🚨 Does anyone know of an alternative to E-RNAi? I/we have used that platform to design dsRNAs for more than 15 years and it appears as though the URL is no longer available. Any help would be much appreciated! TIA!
- Reposted by Ryan SmithExcited to be apart of this exciting work examining the role of hemocytes during arbovirus infection. Check it out now on bioRxiv. @vectorimmunity.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Excited to share our latest work! Together with @brackneylab.bsky.social and @entomososwin.bsky.social we demonstrate that mosquito immune cells act as "trojan horses" to help spread DENV and ZIKV infection from the midgut to other mosquito tissues! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Slowly emerging back into society after submitting two R01s
- Reposted by Ryan SmithCAES is hiring an assistant scientist II (equivalent to assistant professor, but 100% research) in the area of modeling and data analysis for vector-borne diseases. Come join my department! @entsocamerica.bsky.social portal.ct.gov/-/media/CAES...
- Reposted by Ryan SmithI unexpectedly have a position available in my laboratory. If you know anyone interested in relocating to the Twin Cities, tell them to get in touch. Could involve genomic surveillance, mosquito-virus interactions, and/or molecular virology.
- Early Xmas gift from one of my colleagues. Love it!
- Just another reminder that the margins between funded/accepted/awarded are always razor thin, act accordingly
- For anyone attending #TropMed23, myself and others from the lab will be presenting some of our exciting unpublished work regarding mosquito immune cells and parasite/virus infection. Come and join us!
- After enough experience, grant writing really becomes formulaic. Once you develop a "style", you can drop in any project in a relatively short period of time. Yet there is still no guarantee that reviewers will like a project...
- Introduce yourself with some jobs you have done apart from what you do now: -movie theater cashier/usher/manager -Starbucks barista -small mammal biologist
- As scientists, I think that we too often look for "what's wrong?" in a grant or paper instead of "what's right?" Research doesn't have to be perfect to make a significant advance in the field. Stop the gatekeeper mentality.
