Nicola Cloete Foster

The precarity of ‘patchwork’ research.

BBC World Service faces funding cliff edge in seven weeks, says Tim Davie As trust in Russia and China’s state broadcasters grows, director general warns of the dangers of cutting back the service

The BBC World Service faces potential FCDO funding cut! As someone who was glued to my radio listening to this service as a kid living in 🇿🇦. I am adding my voice to those highlighting its crucial importance for news reporting, political analyses and bookclub 📚 🌍 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

And we're live, Lecture A1 is online. Introduction to Bayesian workflow, generative models, estimands, estimators, estimates, error checking, beginnings of probability theory and Bayesian updating. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbY...

😥

FSID is hiring a geospatial data scientist. Come join our fun team! fsid.co/careers/gds/

a group of cartoon characters with the words voila donc autant aprouver ta decision ca coute pas plus cher ALT: a group of cartoon characters with the words voila donc autant aprouver ta decision ca coute pas plus cher

Excellent name. I think your newsletter should include an honourable mention of Chief VitalStatistix from Asterix & Obelix…

The impact of the PEPFAR funding freeze on HIV deaths and infections: a mathematical modelling study of seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa

The sudden cessation of #PEPFAR funding likely results in tens of thousands of #HIV deaths and new infections

www.thelancet.com/journals/ecl...
#MedSky

Cover picture of the book "Health Inequality" by Mel Bartley and Michelle Kelly-Irving picture depicts a spiral shaped fossil with segments of different sizes

The 3rd edition of Health Inequality has kept aspects of the older two editions that @zetkin.bsky.social originally wrote & so many found to be an accessible way into understanding the complexities of health inequalities, but there are new bits too

Here's a wee thread to explain what we've done 😉

Line chart showing median number of TB deaths in 79 low- and middle-income countries from 2010 through 2040. A black line shows a decline from 1.25 million deaths in 2010 to just under 1 million deaths in 2024. A blue line shows the number of deaths staying constant through 2040 if 2024 funding and programmes are maintained. A red line shows the number of deaths increasing to 1.2 million in 2040 if US funding to national TB programmes is terminated.

New pre-print modelling impact of US funding cuts on HIV, #TB, MCH and family planning. We estimate impact of termination of US funding to NTPs via #USAID & The Global Fund may lead to 2.2 (1.5-2.9) million excess TB deaths between 2025 and 2040, reversing over a decade of progress.

bit.ly/4lowp18

Careers in TB trials with Andrew Nunn and Sarah Meredith In the first episode of our new Trial Talk series, Hanif Esmail and Conor Tweed take over the microphones to interview Andrew Nunn and Sarah Meredith, who have both recently retired from the Unit, hav

It's #WorldTBDay, so if you want to learn more about working in #tuberculosis research, we have just the podcast for you!

Last year on our Trial Talk podcast, we interviewed #TB #ClinicalTrials legends Andrew Nunn and Sarah Meredith about their accomplished careers. Tune in 👇

What is tuberculosis (TB)?

Today is #WorldTBDay.

#Tuberculosis - or TB - is caused by bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis that mainly affects the lungs.

Common symptoms include
❗️ Cough
❗️ Chest pains
❗️ Weight loss
❗️ Fever
❗️ Night sweats

Learn more about TB 👉 bit.ly/3yYNwzx #EndTB

The Many, Many Ways Tuberculosis Shaped Human Life In a new book, author John Green traces how the disease has impacted culture, geography, and even fashion over the centuries.

Tuberculosis once affected almost everyone, but now it “travels the paths of injustice that we blazed for it,” says author @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social. He joins us to discuss his new book.

Photo from the Economist with quote “Public health is the mom of science - She does everything and no one noticea until she stops doing it”

This 😭
via @economist.com

Her advice is ‘f*ck it’ and do it anyway… rather naïve. Not being ‘nice’ is a privilege few can afford.

The question is not how to change ourselves to not be ‘nice’, the question is can the world handle women not being ‘nice’ and the answer is a resounding ‘NO’.

Applying the estimand framework to inflammatory bowel disease clinical trials We aim to provide a primer to the estimand framework and to raise awareness of this concept as it is increasingly applied to IBD clinical trials.

The estimands framework encourages #ClinicalTrials researchers to precisely define their research question, reducing ambiguity when interpreting the results.

This paper explores the application of the estimands framework to trials in #IBD #InflammatoryBowelDisease. 👇

Immunogenicity, safety, and efficacy of the vaccine H56:IC31 in reducing the rate of tuberculosis disease recurrence in HIV-negative adults successfully treated for drug-susceptible pulmonary tubercul... Vaccination with H56:IC31 at treatment completion for pulmonary tuberculosis did not reduce the risk of recurrent disease. H56:IC31 was well tolerated and immunogenic but might have increased the risk...

New research

Immunogenicity, safety, and efficacy of the vaccine H56:IC31 in reducing the rate of tuberculosis recurrence in HIV-negative adults successfully treated for pulmonary tuberculosis: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 2b trial

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Horizon - 1981-1982: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out Professor Richard Feynman of Caltech talks about his life and career.

Sometimes working in science is tough (public health is in a bad space at this point in time), but the joy of finding things out and generating new knowledge - makes up for it www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

oo... even better. I initially struggled to get the package to work based on the version on CRAN - but saw another query you responded to in January and used devtools::install_github("jbengler/tidyplots") to get the latest version. Now it works. Thank you

Thank you. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!

Fantastic idea would be interested in your thoughts on what works and what doesn’t work once a couple months in..

Do you work in #ClinicalTrials? Using the estimands framework can ensure your study answers the most relevant research question.

In this podcast episode, @brennankahan.bsky.social discusses his work on estimands.

🎧Listen to short clip below & tune in to the episode👉 https://buff.ly/3PtETFq

Adding my vote for 12 months here 😁

Excellent timing. Going to try it out now.

BEMC Talks BEMC Talks are generally held on the first Wednesday of each month at 4pm Berlin time (GMT+01:00) with some adjustments for holidays. An hour-long lecture will be followed by an interactive group d…

⭐Tomorrow, Vanessa Didelez will present "Statistical Methods for Causal Inference with Time-to-Event Data in Epidemiology" at @bemcolloquium.bsky.social!

🗓️ Wed. Jan. 8
🕔 16:00 Berlin time (CET)
📍 Zoom webinar

Abstract + webinar sign up link: bemcolloquium.com/meetings-cal...

#EpiSky #CausalSky

Stayed up to watch the predicted snowfall ❄️. And was not disappointed - views of silent snowy trees and gardens outside. ☃️ London is magical when it snows. Hope the snow will still be there in the morning 🤞🏼

Love this poster! #medsky

Immunopathology in human tuberculosis The balance between protective and pathological immune responses shapes progression of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.

State of the art #review on lung pathology of #tuberculosis

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

All I want for Christmas…is a precisely defined research question - Trials

All I want for Christmas is to know whether eating carrots lead to poor reindeer performance... (and time to post-prandial reindeer laziness) 🤶 Commentary by @suziecro.bsky.social & Rachel Phillips
trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Useful thread on challenges in implementing reproducible data analysis work flows 👇