Mystique, a broad host range Acinetobacter phage, reveals the impact of culturing conditions on phage isolation and infectivity.

With the global rise of antimicrobial resistance, phage therapy is increasingly re-gaining traction as a strategy to treat bacterial infections. For phage therapy to be successful however, we first need to isolate appropriate candidate phages for both clinical and experimental research. Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen known for its ability to rapidly evolve resistance to antibiotics, making it a prime target for phage therapy.

Influence of the spaceflight environment on macrophage lineages.

Spaceflight and terrestrial spaceflight analogs can alter immune phenotypes. Macrophages are important immune cells that bridge the innate and adaptive immune systems and participate in immunoregulatory processes of homeostasis. Furthermore, macrophages are critically involved in initiating immunity, defending against injury and infection, and are also involved in immune resolution and wound healing.

A second space age spanning omics, platforms and medicine across orbits.

The recent acceleration of commercial, private and multi-national spaceflight has created an unprecedented level of activity in low Earth orbit, concomitant with the largest-ever number of crewed missions entering space and preparations for exploration-class (lasting longer than one year) missions. Such rapid advancement into space from many new companies, countries and space-related entities has enabled a 'second space age'. This era is also poised to leverage, for the first time, modern tools and methods of molecular biology and precision medicine, thus enabling precision aerospace medicine for the crews.

Microbial adaptation to spaceflight is correlated with bacteriophage-encoded functions.

Evidence from the International Space Station suggests microbial populations are rapidly adapting to the spacecraft environment; however, the mechanism of this adaptation is not understood. Bacteriophages are prolific mediators of bacterial adaptation on Earth. Here we survey 245 genomes sequenced from bacterial strains isolated on the International Space Station for dormant (lysogenic) bacteriophages.

The social lives of viruses and other mobile genetic elements: a commentary on Leeks et al. 2023.

Illustration of life-histories of phages and plasmids through horizontal and vertical transmission (see Figure 1 for more information).

Language Differences by Race on Letters of Recommendation for the Pediatric Surgery Match.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate if there is any significant linguistic difference in LoR based on applicant's race/ethnicity.

Design: Retrospective review of applications to pediatric surgery fellowship at a single institution (2016-2020). Race was self-reported by applicants.

Examining Implicit Bias Differences in Pediatric Surgical Fellowship Letters of Recommendation Using Natural Language Processing.

Objective: We analyzed the prevalence and type of bias in letters of recommendation (LOR) for pediatric surgical fellowship applications from 2016-2021 using natural language processing (NLP) at a quaternary care academic hospital.

Design: Demographics were extracted from submitted applications. The Valence Aware Dictionary for sEntiment Reasoning (VADER) model was used to calculate polarity scores.

Letters of recommendation for pediatric surgery fellowship: Analysis of linguistic differences based on gender of the applicant.

Background: Gender bias in letters of recommendation (LOR) has been reported for candidate selection in academic medicine, typically with females frequently described with communal terms (e.g. helpful, kind, interpersonal) and males described more with agentic terms (e.