Michal Caspi Tal, PhD

I'm an immunologist who is trying to understand why not everyone recovers from an infection, and why the infection-associated chronic illnesses skew female. I run a lab @mitdeptofbe.bsky.social, the clinical study MIT MAESTRO, and am building a mouse model of #chronicLyme. Will pin threads here.

MICROSCOPY. Making the invisible visible since 1590. (Yes, those little white balls are actually immune cells circulating through the tinniest blood vessels! Imaged non-invasively through the skin. Blood cells flow from your arterioles to your venules. Watch venous return at the capillary tip!!!)

Did you know that in the incredible Invisible Illness TOPx @HHSGov Tech Sprint, our team is the only one with a core microscopy component? Please register to vote! invisibleillness.crowdicity.com/post/896951 or learn more on our website: talresearchgroup.mit.edu/maestro-heal... @mhornig.bsky.social

Long COVID Clinical Podcast: ‘Immunoengineering with Dr. Michal Tal’ open.spotify.com/episode/3bZz...

Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine: Decoding Infection-Associated Chronic Illness: The MAESTRO Study 'Dr. Michal Caspi Tal presents findings from the MAESTRO study (Measure Absolutely Everything So Tests can be Reliable and Objective)' www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPUF...

We have exciting news! Two members of @immunofever.bsky.social's research group will join us at Innovation Inn next week to demo testing they use in their MAESTRO project: RightEye eye tracking, WAVi EEG, Nailfold capillaroscopy, @wearlumia.bsky.social blood flow to the brain Thanks to Mikki 🙏

#capillariscopy from @renegaderesearch.bsky.social #InnovationInn nail capillariscope from my PEM day (Sat). Less perfused then before day was my impression. Similar odd shapes. Weird horizontal vessels. @immunofever.bsky.social Good thing had 2 vein repair procedures or could have been worse.

Neurons regulate whole body homeostasis with a mechanism that includes regulating the amount of fat blobs they have stores up https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-026-01508-w

If you tried to register today for our incredible upcoming Hormone-Immunity Nexus workshop at MIT on Sunday with shuttle buses from #AAI2026 please try again! We had filled up but we added more spots!!! www.eventbrite.com/e/the-hormon... @petterbrodin.bsky.social @sixianyou.bsky.social

Are you in Boston for #AAI2026? Care about sex differences in immune responses? Join us at MIT this Sunday for an incredible event!

#immunology #SexDiffences #immune #hormones

Are you in Boston for #AAI2026? Care about sex differences in immune responses? Join us at MIT this Sunday for an incredible event!

If you tried to register today for our incredible upcoming Hormone-Immunity Nexus workshop at MIT on Sunday with shuttle buses from #AAI2026 please try again! We had filled up but we added more spots!!! www.eventbrite.com/e/the-hormon... @petterbrodin.bsky.social @sixianyou.bsky.social

'Empirical data and the theories that make sense of them are the twin pillars of scientific progress. When one pillar is raised much higher than the other, they cease to be good pillars.' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

MIT's MAESTRO study is looking for a few more #LongCovid male participants in the 18-28 yrs & 56-65 yrs brackets. See below screenshots for more info on Long Covid research study from posts by @immunofever.bsky.social & talresearchgroup.mit.edu/mitmaestro #medsky

I'm just delighted to announce our new preprint on genome-scale perturb-seq in CD4+ T cells. We learned both general lessons about the power of perturb-seq, and specific lessons about T cell biology. Led by amazing postdocs Emma Dann and Ronghui Zhu, with my wonderful collaborator Alex Marson.

New preprint on the impact of vitamin D in regulating T cell migration to the brain. Great collaboration with Britta Engelhardt 😊

In this study, we highlight a sex difference in Type I regulatory T cells, with potential translational application in MS to be further explored. www.neurology.org/doi/pdf/10.1... @saniya-kari.bsky.social @sexdiffimmunity.bsky.social

@lshtm.bsky.social will be running a 3-day online short course on using multiple imputation to handle missing data on 23-25th June 2026. Teaching staff include James Carpenter, Ruth Keogh, Clémence Leyrat, and myself. Further details about the course at www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/course...

Ultimately I don't think it's a branding problem BUT I do think that people really don't understand how vaccines work or what they do, so there is some merit in a straightforward description...

What if we rebranded/reconceived/reformatted vaccines as immune stimulants? They stimulate community immunity. Are you yay or nay

cgr.mit.edu/2025/12/19/m...

NVC test shows significant microvascular damage in #LongCovid patients vs matched healthy controls. Dilated capillaries, microhaemorrhages, abnormal shapes and reduced capillary density are still detectable in LC 12 months after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection rmdopen.bmj.com/content/11/2...

From a Nancy Klimas team in Florida, USA Inefficient energy consumption is related to post exertional malaise during cardiopulmonary exercise testing in long COVID www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8... #LongCovid #PEM #PASC #PwLC #postcovid #postcovid19 #PostCovidSyndrome

#MicroSky: Clinical Treatments: In Crohn’s disease, gut bacteria may shape response to biologic therapy. Patients with more Fusobacterium were less likely to improve on ustekinumab, hinting that the microbiome could help predict who benefits most. Read Wang et al. doi.org/10.1111/1751...

The Long COVID Treatment Trial – Tirzepatide (LoCITT-T) is officially open for enrollment for people with Long COVID in: Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah longcovid.scripps.edu/locitt-t/?ut... 1/16

Looks like OpenFold3 has been formally released in a public "preview". Not quite on parity with AlphaFold3 on a few benchmarks shown, in particular for antibody interactions. All info on the github link. I am sure we will hear more about this from the developers github.com/aqlaboratory...

Pre-print alert! And this one really is a must read for anyone that does spectral #flowcytometry. It is a complete, fully-automated spectral unmixing pipeline that reduces error up to 9000-fold. Want to get a tough sample, like lung, looking like this? Read more! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/ This is my first time posting a comment on a bioRxiv manuscript, but since I've been asked my opinion on this one a bunch, and I was actually one of the reviewers and waived my anonymity in review, I decided to post my review as a comment: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It should be noted that Google has noticed the backlash enough that they quietly published a code that would removed AI results for their searches. An enterprising person built a default site to search without AI, and the results are goddamn refreshing as hell. udm14.org

Sex differences matter! www.sciencealert.com/half-of-hear...

Epstein–Barr virus exploits desmocollin 2 as the principal epithelial cell entry receptor | @natmicrobiol.nature.com sco.lt/6i4kd6

My cousin died from a vaccine preventable illness, and that's part of why it's so important to me to work on the immunology of infectious disease. I know what's on the line.

What if this was your kid, you ask? I'll tell you. As an infectious disease immunologist, I protect my kids through vaccination. A measles outbreak reached my county when I had an infant. Knowing the risk for severe outcomes, I read the literature, vaccinated him EARLY and then rejoined the schedule

Immune Booster 2: Sex differences in immune responses with Michal Tal

"If you're not vaccinated...there may not be any time."-Michal Tal From Immune Booster 2: Sex differences in immune responses with Michal Tal (@immunofever.bsky.social ) Hosts: @cindyleifer.bsky.social @bioprofbarker.bsky.social

Doubling down as a Toxicologist. The benefits far outweigh the harms.

The only question now is what huge problem do YOU (reader) want to address with this incredible data set? The world's sequences are your oyster. Go make pearls!

🌎👩‍🔬 For 15+ years biology has accumulated petabytes (million gigabytes) of🧬DNA sequencing data🧬 from the far reaches of our planet.🦠🍄🌵 Logan now democratizes efficient access to the world’s most comprehensive genetics dataset. Free and open. doi.org/10.1101/2024...

Earth’s genetic diversity is a heritage of humanity. It has been an honour to explore this data with a team of dedicated scientists who shared our vision of making this data free and accessible to all 🌍🧬❤️ Thank you! Updated preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2024...

All Logan data is freely-available (cc0) right now. We show how Logan-Search (www.logan-search.org) can be used to uncover viral reactivation (HHV-6) in cell therapy products (TIL and CAR-T).

Adrenal insufficiency is a syndrome of cortisol deficiency. This Review summarizes the pathophysiology of adrenal insufficiency and approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of adrenal crisis. ja.ma/3HKk9Jr

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...