Today: Two 45 min media interviews, two student meetings, two ms & 1 grant reviewed and a pile of reads to download from our first Kit 14 run on the GridION. 67 emails so far (!). A colleague deflapped. Office rapidly rearranged to hide 12 year old piles of paper, crampons, filter tips etc to be minimally presentable for a zoom background for something broadcast tomorrow. But sadly just one paper and one abstract read about mycobacteria #InArmadillos.

Enough for an early wednesday.

My lunchtime quest to track down why #InArmadillos became a thing for leprosy research has borne modest fruit.

A 1971 paper with possibly the greatest abstract clickbait ever:

""The reasons for attempting transfer of leprosy to the armadillo and the possible future significance of the armadillo in leprosy research have been discussed."."

Curious minds can't leave that be without an interlibrary loan request.

https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19722901692

Let #InArmadillos be the new #InMice

I spend one slide of my #microbiology lectures a year on #Mycobacterium leprae, usually in the context of its dysfunctional #genome & that it can only be cultivated in #armadillos. Plot twist: infection with these #leprosy #bacteria help promote host liver regeneration https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100820 #InArmadillos