Author: Christy H. Clutter

Scientist, outdoor reveler, outgoing introvert, voracious learner. Lover of people and the planet.

Joy is a form of resistance

Christy H. Clutter

I heard this quote recently in a meeting with other scientists, and it encapsulated many of the  slippery thoughts I’ve had in these new and uncertain times for researchers. 

It is a tenuous time to be a scientist in America. It hurts to see our international collaborators lay off hundreds of staff in important life-saving global health work. It hurts to see the layoffs domestically in critical areas of research. It is fearful to think of how these changes impact not just our own careers, but the careers of young scientists, diverse scientists, and important research that makes our nation stronger, healthier, and more competitive. 

But. Fear and anger are too easy. They are all too quickly accessible. And, in my own experience, they’re too blinding and inundating to be effective. Feel them. But don’t let them drag you into an abyss of bitterness. Instead, let them act as resistance training to make you stronger in joy, in resilience, in creativity, and in hope. Anger is predictable, ignorable even. Joy is resistance. 

No matter what happens to our paychecks, our funding, our regulations, nothing stops us from being scientists at heart: 

People who care about how the world works and who want to make it better. 

People who know how to analyze complex data and make sense of it. 

People who have been trained to think critically and carefully in an unbiased manner.

People who have had the beauty and luxury of working alongside brilliant minds from all over the world at our institutions. 

People who have our own very particular expertise that – funding or no funding – holds answers to some of the most complex problems of our time. 

It may be that our science looks a lot more like citizen science for awhile. But it doesn’t cease to be science. 

It may be that our institutions are compelled to remove certain language from how they talk about diversity, but we don’t stop valuing and making space for the incredible asset that diversity of all kinds brings to both our science and the strength of our work. We know that the best science is driven by many minds.

It may be that we are forced to make career shifts that we didn’t anticipate, but we can still find ways to use our skills as scientists to contribute to our community and country. 

It may be that we feel like strangers in our own country at times, embarrassed on an international stage for what “America” has come to stand for. But America is not its leadership, it is its people. And we are those people. Don’t surrender so easily. 

Joy is not the only form of resistance, but in my opinion, it is an especially needed one. Joy is not wishful thinking or pretending that things are not hard. Joy is a form of resistance because it isn’t dependent on our circumstances. It thrives in defiance of them. Joy is a buoy that keeps us above the inundating sorrow or despair. It allows us to remain productive and alive. It keeps us from spiraling. It keeps us creative and resourceful. Joy keeps our heads clear enough to see straight, and to act with dignity in times of indignity. Joy is powerful. 

Stay strong. Stay hopeful. Stay grounded. Stay joyful.

Joy is resilience. 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead

Sincerely,
Christy Clutter
Immunologist

But have you seen Nature Microbiology’s climate feature??

Christy H. Clutter

Just in time for COP28 (the UN Climate Change Conference), Nature Microbiology is out with an issue dedicated to the role of microbes in climate change!

The issue highlights the need for microbiologists to have a greater voice in the climate space, as we know and continue to learn just how crucial microbes are for the maintenance of a healthy climate, and how shifting weather patterns threaten to offset many delicate microbial ecological balances.

Head on over and check it out to read up on the ocean microbiome, climate’s impact on vector-borne diseases, soil microbes in an age of wildfires and drought, and much more!

The woeful wilds: climate in an age of anxiety

Christy H. Clutter

For many people I know, the climate crisis looms large and terrifying. You don’t have to be a scientist to have a front-row seat to the disconcerting news unfurling daily.

Even as someone with limited scope on social media platforms (on purpose), I nevertheless feel an urgency in these moments, a call to stop, and see and care.

It’s not that we don’t care. To the contrary, “climate anxiety” is on the rise, especially in younger generations.

But my personal hypothesis is that caring is more costly than we can wrap our heads around. Caring illuminates the cavernous gap between our consumption and our planet’s hope, and we simply don’t know how to balance the checkbook of our values and our actions. This is not all on us of course. We are strapped to extractive and consumptive engines, complicit with them in the actions that have become alarmingly mundane to our existence. But the incongruence with what is and what should be, and our felt powerlessness to reconcile the gap, breed despair and dissociation.

Yet Katherine HayHoe‘s words haunt me: “There’s little functional difference between dismissives who reject climate change and doomers who decide we can’t fix it.”

Environmentally destructive behaviors are woven into our nostalgia, our patterns of daily life and community, the meals we eat three times a day, the clothes we put on our backs. To dare to be different is not only socially alienating but also potentially self-limiting. To prioritize the planet is to deprioritize the convenience that has authored the infrastructure of our lives. And even if we are consciously aware of it, we still don’t know what to do about it.

Limiting human impact on the planet is rarely a discrete or binary endeavor. The intersection of food supply, water use, pollution, energy, and waste can rarely accurately be captured in a sound bite or one-size-fits-all prescription. Except perhaps this: consume less.

So in addition to trying to balance these equations in my own life, I’m also here with my words. They may not be much, but they are part of my craft. I struggle to know how to bring all of myself to my work sometimes. The science world is not interested in feelings, and thoughts, and philosophies. It is interested in data and facts. (And much of the time, I am too.) Furthermore, I am not a climate scientist, I am in immunologist, global health worker and writer. But climate touches all of us in all of our spheres.

So if I have four clumsy words to string together and that’s the best that I can do, I still want to know that they reflected what I thought true and necessary in the world. What I cared about.

And I very deeply care about our planet.
About the weather patterns that have changed in my lifetime.
About the oceans and rivers laced with plastics, industrial pollutants, fertilizers, and trash – the detritus of human society.
I care about the loss of biodiversity in our forests and in our soils.
I care about food security and unsustainable farming practices.
I care about the fate of mountains and other wild spaces, those sacred places that have always cupped my soul in their hands.
And I care about the real human people made destitute by all of this.

I also believe that something – anything – is better than nothing. And that the most powerful somethings will take hard honest reflection and tenacious courage.

Will you care with me?

Best,
CC

Want a healthy gut? We need healthy soil. New Article for ASM.

Christy H. Clutter

I’m a gut girl from way back, but have enjoyed researching and writing my latest piece on another field I deeply care about: environmental stewardship. Today my latest piece for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) went live exploring the soil microbiome in an age of climate change. I am convinced through this project more than ever at the deep interconnectedness of our earth and our bodies.

I love the gut. It’s what I did my doctoral research in. I never grow tired of the connections we continually make to our health through the microbes we harbor in our intestines, I love that food is one of the most important ways to secure their health (did someone say bon appétit?), and I am continually challenged to think about the societal implications of microbes as they relate to inequity.

BUT. The truth is, we can’t have a healthy gut microbiome without a healthy soil microbiome. There is no healthy food without an ecosystem in which to grow it. Much like we exist in intimate communication with our gut microbes, plants rely on their root microbes in the soil for health and resilience. And we rely on plants to fuel a healthy, fiber-rich, immunologically tame gut. Moreover, soil itself is one of our critical carbon storage sites on earth. And yet, this precious resource is gravely threatened by advancing climate change.

To read more about the intricate science of the soil microbiome, plants and climate change, see my latest piece for the American Society for Microbiology below. I hope you enjoy and learn something new!

 

“Unearthing the Soil Microbiome, Climate Change, Carbon Storage Nexus.”

American Society for Microbioloy // May 14, 2021

Joy and health to you all,

Christy

The Latest // Microbes and Neurodegenerative Disease

Christy H. Clutter

Microbes have a complex and unique role in the health of our brains. On the one hand, they are intimately involved in our wellbeing from birth, and on the other, some of them can opportunistically infiltrate the central nervous system. Are they Jekyll or are they Hyde? Read more from my latest piece for the American Society for Microbiology by clicking the link below.

Microbes on the Mind: A Complex Role in Neurodegeneration

American Society for Microbiology // January 26, 2021

Have a safe and scientific Tuesday!

-C

Research Note // Healthcare in the Homeless Population

Christy H. Clutter

Homelessness is an area I crave a deeper understanding of, because it is a complex issue that I am confronted with most days I leave my house. Like many, I feel paralyzed in how to help when I encounter individuals on the street, and often end up simply dismayed by the depth and breadth of an issue that can’t possibly be addressed in a passing encounter.

I appreciated seeing a comment published this week in Nature Reviews Disease Primers discussing the multifactorial needs for addressing healthcare for people experiencing homelessness (1). The paper is a brief two pages with an overview of the complex driving factors of homelessness (structural, systemic and individual/relational factors) as well as how health systems can effectively direct people to care. It highlights several important features:

  • The population of people experiencing homelessness is expanding and diversifying
  • Homelessness arises from complex drivers, including structural, systemic and individual/interpersonal factors. These must be taken into account when addressing the needs of care for people experiencing homelessness.
  • Differences in mortality between homeless people in Canada and the U.S. highlight importance of social institutions for ensuring health in this population
  • The homeless population experiences outlandish barriers to accessing adequate healthcare, and experience research-demonstrated bias in quality of care
  • Healthcare providers have a unique role in potentially establishing relationships with individuals experiencing homelessness, monitoring for cues of harm, referring to adequate services and ensuring those services are accessible.

Having family who have been homeless, and other family who are dependent on social services in the U.S., I know the issue is complex, and I know that referring people to services (especially if those services are understaffed, underfunded, or difficult to access) is not comprehensive.

I’m sharing this article today because I desire a deeper understanding of this topic, and was happy to see it being highlighted by a major research publishing group. If you are at all close to this topic, or merely curious, I encourage you to click over and check it out.

~

Cited Resources (which are live links):

  1. Liu, M., Hwang, S.W. Health care for homeless people. Nat Rev Dis Primers 7, 5 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-020-00241-2
    Link here

The Recovery Will Be Long

Christy H. Clutter

As news of a COVID-19 vaccine rollout makes exciting headway, many of us are cautiously optimistic about a future world where we can leave our current restrictions behind and return to a yearned-for sense of normalcy. It’s been a long and strange year, and for some, sorrowful.

But looking at where we are now, even as I celebrate the progress science has made toward recreating a world where it is once again safe to hold our loved ones, I know that for many of us, COVID is far from over. The tension is not in the amount of time it will take to distribute the vaccine, or overcoming the fears of vaccine-hesitant Americans, but in the emotional and physical recovery of the many people who have been firing on all cylinders for months on end.

It’s not over for women who have had to make disproportionate professional sacrifices to care for young children home from school. Nor is it over for those who have lost someone dear to preventable pandemic surges. It won’t be over for those whose economic situation is drastically different. And as a former front-line essential worker in the pandemic, I am convinced that the impact of long months of unforgiving hours at the forefront of the response is something that has taken a physical, mental and emotional toll on so many of our healthcare workers and public health professionals. Those impacts aren’t benign.

To be sure, there are positive impacts we can hopefully pull out of COVID too, in a lemonade-from-lemons sort of way. Hopefully some will have discovered new things about their families, rhythms, home lives and patterns that empower them to make a better new normal in the time to come. We’ve seen how powerfully a dramatic reduction of human activity is rejuvenating for the environment. Many have geographically located for varying reasons, and this will echo through the legacy of families. Perhaps some of the directions we’ve been forced into professionally may break up the rigidity of the path we were on in a way that allows us to reimagine our way forward. Hopefully as a society, COVID will have given us time to reflect on who we are, who we want to be, and what is or isn’t working.

My hope though is that we make space for the reality of post-COVID. It doesn’t all go away at once, for better or for worse. We still need to stand in the gap for each other. We still need to be mindful of the year we’ve all had. For some people this year has been devastating or at minimum overhauling. For others, the impact has been relatively minor. I wished above all that this year could be unifying for the American people, a threat to come together over. But more than 10 months into the American response, I fear that may be a lost dream, a casualty of the pandemic. We chose division instead, and we have paid a heavy price.

Even as our society begins to tick back to something more recognizable, know that many may still be recalibrating internally. And we may need space to do that for a long time.

All the best to you and yours,
Christy

Book Review // I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

Christy H. Clutter

I love to read because I love to learn. For that reason, I’m always curious what books others are learning from. In case that’s you too, I thought it would be fun to leave reviews of relevant books that I’ve recently finished here, as a way to pass on what I’ve enjoyed. I welcome comments on related book suggestions too!

It’s rare for me to read books about science for the general public that I wholeheartedly enjoy. It’s not that I don’t love science – I do. It’s that each scientific niche demands its own precise language to parse interrelated ideas, and the balance of striking technical correctness with literary interest is a formidable challenge. I’m often either a little too familiar with the subject matter (if it’s close to my research field) or else left wanting to know more of those juicy technical nitty gritty details that are deemed too in the weeds for most readers. The middle ground is hard to strike, at least for me.

That said, Ed Yong’s I Contain Multitudes is a delightful exception. His book, the full title of which is I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life (Ecco 2016) really does offer that: a grander view of the world we live in through the lens of symbiosis to the microbes in and around us.

But not just us. What I appreciate about it’s exploration is that it is suprahuman. It is not myopic in solely focusing on how microbes impact us, but gamely explores symbiosis and the fascinating role of microbes in numerous contexts, from bioluminescence to the inner environments of buildings. Yong is both careful and artful in his language, and presents his scientifically accurate reporting in a delightful way. It ushered me out of my own research background in the gut and into a much broader picture of interrelatedness between ourselves and our microbes.

One very beautiful thing that Yong accomplishes very early in the book is inspiring wonder in his readers. The book stayed just as interesting the whole way through. I often get end-of-book fatigue, where an author’s ideas start to blur together after awhile and I’m aware that I’m nearly finished. Not so here. The storytelling remained compelling and relevant from start to finish. As a new reader of Yong’s, it primes me for his next work and establishes trust in his precise and careful reporting of otherwise highly technical details. I know I will be back for more.

If the microbiome even kind of interests you, or science in general, I think this book is a great read. Happy pages!

COVID and the Holidays

Christy H. Clutter

I know. You know. COVID doesn’t look good right now.

It’s been an exhausting year for all of us: students, teachers, healthcare workers (bless you), and regular people trying to work from home or stay employed. We’re tired of the constant deviation from normality, and the strain it has put into the routines we otherwise recognize as life-giving or healthy. Not one person I talk to hasn’t had something to give up this year, and it’s been a long nine (nine) months of pandemic.

I’ve sometimes wondered about the mental health impact of all this isolation. My husband and I think of the singles in our sphere, or people in the fringe, or friends we know who moved to a new city just in time for it to shut down. In a pre-COVID era, developmental psychologist Susan Pinker said, “Social isolation is the public health risk of our time,” referring to the deep importance and health impact of strong community ties. The burden is ever heavier this year, and I just want to pause and say, I see that. Let’s never be intellectually dishonest enough not to acknowledge the complexity of the issues in front of us.

But as a public health professional married to an ER doc, I can’t look past the human toll of COVID. I know our ICU beds are full, I know our healthcare workers are exhausted. I know that a year of more preventable death is not preferable to a year of creative caution. COVID is now the third cause of death in the U.S., nestled in below heart disease and cancer. I would like to say it doesn’t discriminate, but unfortunately it does. The already-unjust distribution of health in the U.S. is amplified by this pandemic, which disproportionately affects people of color and people in poverty. To dismiss the data because we “don’t know anyone with COVID,” only underlines a saddening sense of indifference and privilege. If this is you, I beg you to reconsider.

One week from today and throughout the next month, people all over the nation will be gathering in the homes of family members to celebrate the holidays. Young, old, sharing a table indoors, eating together, laughing and talking. Under normal circumstances, this would be beautiful. Necessary, even. But under the present circumstances – with COVID skyrocketing nationwide – it has the potential to be devastating.

My husband and I made the difficult decision to suspend all holiday travel this year. With three sets of extended family between the two of us, it was either show favoritism or meet individually with three separate vulnerable groups of people across three different states within the space of a month. We couldn’t justify either. This comes during a year when we have already excluded some of the most beloved people among our family and friends from attending our wedding, which went from a 240 person gathering to a 20 person gathering outside with masks. Some of the people we wish to see the very most – our grandparents – are also the people we are least willing to endanger. The decision is heart-breaking, but in our opinion, must be made.

I don’t know what your family situation is this year. Some people live in places where social distancing and eating outdoors are more feasible, or have already been in a tight bubble with their family members. Some people have already been quarantining in anticipation of the holidays (bravo!), in an effort to avoid carrying anything nefarious home. I would encourage you to consider making every possible step to make this holiday safe, which may mean having an unconventional year at home, or with people whom you have already been in a bubble with. Unconventional does not have to be unfortunate, and it doesn’t mean you love your family any less. If anything, your willingness to protect them shows a deep sense of caring for their wellbeing. As much as we’re all zoom-weary, it still is a way to see our loved one’s faces and hear their voices on these important days, to send gifts of merriment or share pictures of new recipes we tried this year. For us, the creativity of making it beautiful and meaningful is our focus, and the sacrifice of going without our loved ones’ hugs this year is still better than putting them or others in danger.

We long for the days when we can give great big hugs and laugh about stories at the table. But how much sweeter will those things be in time to come. I know the holidays are an especially charged time for people, and making sacrifices can be extremely difficult. But I would ask you to strongly consider ways to make it as safe as possible. Your family’s and community’s health may be to thank for it.

Stay healthy,
Christy

Introduction: Why I’m here

Christy H. Clutter

Hey there!

I’m Christy. I’m a scientist by training but a communicator at heart. My professional background is in the immunological sciences and public health, but more specifically the way our gut microbes interact with nearly every facet of our lives. I find this fascinating, which is why I’m here to write about it! But that’s not all.

In science, we often have to be reductionist and narrow in our approach in order to be sure that what we’re seeing is reliable. This can have the unintended side effect of blinding us to what’s going on in the other research neighborhoods. But if anything, my time in different pockets of the science world has continued to convince me how deeply everything is connected, and how much I want to talk about these connections. We know, for instance, that social defeat directly impacts the immune system, or that gut microbes alter our behavior. We know that poverty sinks its fingers into our biology and tinkers with our health.

These connections are both exciting and sobering, and reveal us as societies. Data holds a mirror up to our strengths and weaknesses, and to how we care for our own. It offers compassion through deeper understanding. It provides strength through knowledge. I believe data can make us more mindful people. That’s why I’m here.

This website is a mixture of updates, portfolio and recommended resources. While providing my own content, I also hope to highlight other work that I’ve learned from recently, both scientific and non-scientific. I want to highlight how we are connected, both within our bodies and to one another, through data. I hope this excites you as much as it does me.

Let’s go.