🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁
@bryanheit
Canadian immunologist who looks at host-pathogen interactions, cardiovascular disease & how they intersect. Also a big 🔬, 🔭 & 3D printing nerd. I ❤️ 🧀,🐝, 🍺 & 🐐. Same username on threads. He/him. www.phagocytes.ca www.micrographiauwo.ca
I normally make basic cheeses, but every once in a while I make something fancy.
Wow, that would have worked a lot better if I put in the picture
Its always nice when Hase N Pfeffer (who lives under our front stoop) sees me off to work in the morning.
Testing @abbelight.bsky.social Smart Kit Buffer in GSDM. Despite being made for dSTORM, it's giving the most amazing GSD performance I've ever seen - across Alexa647, Alexa555 AND Alexa488! #microscopy #GroundStateDepletion
Spent the afternoon doing some ground state imaging. Always a good day when you spend a chunk of it on a #microscope!
Went to do a hive inspection and had two nice surprises. My new hive has exploded in population and needed a second brood box, and I caught a swarm that I moved into a second hive! #bees
Another one for the collection. Strangely enough, we could never get this antibody to work... www.thermofisher.com/antibody/pro...
Oh the joy of surprise kids. At least your goats had the sense to wait for reasonable weather. One of our goats dropped two little surprises on one of the coldest days of the year.
Happy International Day for Immunology! As luck would have it, I'm spending today at the @cdnimmunol.bsky.social 2026 meeting where we're discussing emerging pathogens.
First harvest of 2026 - I cut back the bullshoots of my hops. We fry up the tender ends - it tastes like asparagus. And the goats love the woody ends.
Renovations suck, but my wife is amazing. She built these cabinets from scratch, and based on her own design. Obviously there is still a lot to be done, but just a few days ago this was an empty space.
My labs most recent publication made the journal cover! The image shows a macrophage trying to eat blue dots that mimic dying cells. Red is the macrophage membrane, orange and green are two proteins involved in removing dead cells. The paper: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Some more photos showing the woody cap and polyphore layers, the bottom view of the polyphore channels, plus a properly prepared slide showing the polyphores in a thin section.
Cody found some polyphores in the forested part of of our property, so we brought them in to look at them under the microscope. Pretty cool fungi - the bottom is a layer of channels that they release spores through, with a tough woody cap on top for protection.
So the picture is 💩, but we had a couple of sandhill cranes come through today. I used to see them all the time back home, but this is my first time seeing them in Ontario!
Are you in first or second or second year of your undergraduate journey @westernu.ca ? If so, come by the Microbiology and Immunology booth in the Mustang Lounge to learn more about our program!
There may still be snow on the ground, but it's tike to get the leeks and peppers started!
Returned to work this morning after a long weekend. First email in my inbox was an acceptance letter for a paper! Not a bad way to start off the week. Its under an embargo, so I can't say more, but we're really excited about this one!
#Goat update. It was too cold last night, so they spent the night in our bathtub.