Phage attack!

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Does anyone have fond memories of the arcade game 'Space Invaders' from the 1980s? Or if you are too young, you can give this version, "Phage Attack", a go. It was developed by Jerome Mutterer, who says, "I used @p5xjs to make this very nice journal cover playable. Try it here: https://editor.p5js.org/jmutterer/full/1jNvJggiU." (Source: Tweet)

Follow:

• Cell Press twitter.com/CellCellPress
• Jerome Mutterer twitter.com/jmutterer 
• @p5xjs: An open source JavaScript framework that makes creating visual media accessible and inclusive. 

In the Cell cover, phage specificity in suppressing microbiome commensals of choice is visualized by the popular space invader video game. Image credit: Yael Leibovitch and Simone Dell’Ariccia.

The early-life human airway microbiome is a dynamic multi-kingdom entity

See explainer video (1:38 mins) of Pattaroni et al's research.

Video produced by www.researchsquare.com

There is increasing evidence that the airway microbiome plays a key role in the establishment of respiratory health by interacting with the developing immune system early in life.

Ms Céline Pattaroni, in Professor Ben Marsland's group at the Department of Immunology and Pathology, won a L.E.W. Carty grant of $300,000 last year to study mechanisms of asthma in early childhood.

Some of the work that formed the basis of that grant application has now been published in the journal ‘Microbiome’ (IF 14.7). It describes the bacterial and fungal members of the airway microbiome and how they align with the developing immune system in the first post-natal week. 

World first study of infant and newborn airways microbiome throws light on origins of asthma

Professor Ben Marsland

A world first study of the bacteria living in the lower respiratory tract of “healthy” newborns and young babies has shown that bacterial communities form within the first 2 months post-natally, and that these bacteria interact with the immune system in ways that could potentially influence its development.

The study, led by Professor Ben Marsland, a veski Innovation Fellow in the Department of Immunology and Pathology at Central Clinical School, Monash University, is published today in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.