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Gregor WeberPhD

San Antonio, Texas

Infectious diseases, immunology and vaccines, explained plainly

Science is most valuable when people can understand and use it.

I am Gregor Weber, a San Antonio–based medical scientist working across infectious diseases, immunology, vaccines and medical affairs. I write about how we know what we know — and about where the evidence runs out.

Start with the writing
Doctorate
PhD, Cell and Molecular Biology
Peer-reviewed
Five publications, each linked to its record
Teaching
Two university courses, 2008–2015
Based in
San Antonio, Texas

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Explaining the science without the jargon

Evidence and decisions4 min read

What can wastewater tell us about an outbreak?

Most outbreak data depends on people deciding they feel ill enough to get tested. Sewage does not. People shed traces of many infections in stool and urine, often before they feel sick, and sometimes without ever feeling sick. Testing at a treatment plant measures everyone connected to it at once. It is good at showing which way an outbreak is moving, and when it started to move. It can also find something nobody was looking for yet. It is poor at counting people, because turning a concentration into a number of cases needs too many guesses. And it says nothing about any individual. The sample is a mixture.

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A finding is not knowledge until someone outside the field can act on it. Most of the distance between the two is explanation.

<p>Research produces results. Turning those results into something a clinician, a journalist or a parent can use is separate work, and it is mostly the work of explaining carefully — saying what is known, what is likely, and what nobody has established yet.</p>

How a bacterium knows where it is

A switch made of temperature

One RNA message, folded shut when cool and open at body temperatureThe same stretch of RNA is shown twice. In cool water it folds back on itself into a hairpin whose stem lies across the ribosome binding site, and the ribosome cannot attach. At body temperature the hairpin loosens, the binding site is exposed, and the ribosome attaches and begins reading.in water — about 25 °Cbinding site — coveredribosomecannot attachwarmerinside a person — 37 °Cunpairedbinding site — exposedattaches and readsthe temperature is not a signal the bacterium reads — it is what unfolds the switch
In Vibrio cholerae, a folded piece of RNA keeps certain genes unreadable in cool water and relaxes at body temperature, so the instructions beneath it can be read. The bacterium is not measuring anything — the warmth itself unfolds the switch. This was the subject of Gregor’s doctoral research.
Described in words

The same stretch of RNA is shown twice. In cool water it folds back on itself into a hairpin whose stem lies across the ribosome binding site, and the ribosome cannot attach. At body temperature the hairpin loosens, the binding site is exposed, and the ribosome attaches and begins reading.

Areas of work

Where science meets real-world health

Experience

Where the work has been applied

  • Turning research into evidence

    Ten years at the bench, asking how bacteria decide to cause disease — and publishing what the experiments actually showed.

  • Making evidence usable

    Evidence that nobody can find, read or act on has not been generated. This is the work of deciding what to study next, and making sure the answer reaches the people who needed it.

  • Educating scientific and professional audiences

    Seven years teaching university microbiology, and more than eight years since explaining evidence to clinical and scientific audiences in the United States and Europe.

  • Supporting vaccine readiness and public health

    Preparing clinicians, health departments and health systems for vaccines before they arrive — including a cholera vaccine, twenty years after studying the bacterium it protects against.

All experience and impact →

Research

Selected publications

All research and publications →

Speaking, media, mentoring and collaboration

Contact

Stay in touch

A few times a year, when there is something worth reading

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