If you are reading these lines I hope that you are doing well. The last few months have been quite strange and stressful for everyone. On my side, while I was opening my lab and getting started on projects, I had to put all activities on pause and manage the lab remotely. The upside is that I got to see my daughter learn to walk and to speak + lots of snuggles.
I have tried to vary activities during this COVID-19 situation and adapt to a different standard of productivity. I haven’t taken into baking though.
Here is a summary of what’s been going on for me:
- Publication of postdoctoral project in Nature Communications: Intestinal fungi are causally implicated in microbiome assembly and immune development in mice. Congratulations to Erik and Claire for leading this very important piece demonstrating that fungi are gut resident and that the human gut microbiota is fundamentally multi-kingdoms and multi-trophic.
- Co-organization of a special 14-articles issue in La Presse and (soon to be) republished in ACFAS: LA RELÈVE DU QUÉBEC PENSE L’APRÈS-COVID-19. Félix Mathieu, Catherine Girard and I organized this special issue and also made a collective contribution on Unir les générations (ACFAS link) in the hope that young researchers could contribute to the reflexion of a new society growing from the current challenge.
- Interview for Quebec Science 20%, a podcast on women in science.
- Interview for Radio-Canada Moteur de Recherche on the potential role of urban leaf bacterial communities in degrading atmospheric pollutants.
- Presented a live web-seminar for Microbiome Data Congress.
- Recorded a seminar for the remote ISAPP Annual Meeting.
- Submitted a preprint to biorxiv for the 1st time: Consumption of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy impacts infant gut microbiota and body mass index
Hopefully things can settle soon and if they are re-opening malls next week maybe I can hope to see our family and friends soon…
Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe 