📣 The Whelan lab is hiring a bioinformatics postdoc 📣

Together with @fabricejpierre.bsky.social, we are offering a 1-year bioinformatic PDRA position in comparative genomics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To find out more please visit whelanlab.co.uk/contact/. Applications close 3 April 2026!

Professor Jo Fothergill and Professor Steve Paterson talk to @timeshighered.bsky.social about their pioneering Microbiome research - a key pillar of our Infection Resilience frontier.💡

Read the article ➡️ www.timeshighereducation.com/.../how-micr....

Wait. Hair scrunchies weren’t a thing but are now a thing again? What else have I missed?

How does treatment induced antibiotic resistance happen in real-world infections? We analysed 25k Pseudomonas isolates from 180 patients in a clinical trial to find out! TLDR: The ecological and evolutionary paths are surprisingly diverse & complex even in patients receiving identical treatment…

BBSRC, NERC and Future Leaders fellowships are fantastic opportunities for ECRs to transition to independence. My institute (IVES) at Liverpool Uni is keen to support applicants (vet/ecol/evol/infection/omics etc.). Get in touch with me (ives.fellowships@liverpool.ac.uk) if you're interested!

ECR Spotlight – Flora Whiting-Fawcett ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career res...

Nice profile of my former student @zoologist-flora.bsky.social work on bats and white-nose disease in J Exp Biol with Thomas Lilley and others. Nice to see @jexpbiol.bsky.social promoting ECRs
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Flora's now doing great stuff with @orlyrazgour.bsky.social

A navy blue gradient title card that reads 'University receives funding to train next generation of bioengineers' with a translucent image of a female scientist'

In partnership with the University of Manchester, we've secured a prestigious Doctoral Focal Award from UK Research and Innovation for a new PhD programme aimed at shaping the future of bioengineering in the UK

📅 Applications will open on 6 February 2026

🔗 bit.ly/3MyLwIy

#TeamLivUni #EPSRC #NERC

I’m also unprepared for that detail. I have though recently bought a Big Joe kamado grill which could probably smoke an ostrich.

Happy thanksgiving. I have the job of smoking a spatchcocked turkey on Saturday. I feel culturally unprepared

A navy blue news title card that reads 'New Microbiome Innovation Network to drive UK bioscience research and impact' in white text. A translucent image of a scientist wearing blue latex gloves is holding a petri dish.

NEWS | Researchers from the Microbiome Innovation Centre are part of a UK-wide consortium awarded £644,000 by #BBSRC to establish the Microbiome Innovation Network (Microbiome-Net)

➡️ bit.ly/4nCPKfv

#TeamLivUni | #Microbiome | @news.ukri.org | @ukbiofilms.bsky.social

Gets worse, if you ask AI to generate your bioinformatics code it can pick it up from bogus GitHub pages designed by hackers to introduce viruses and vulnerabilities

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation - Nature Reviews Genetics In this Review, Ascensao and Desai discuss how methodological advances in genotype and phenotype manipulation are transforming experimental evolution approaches and providing new insights into the und...

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Postdoctoral Research Associate - Grade 7 at University of Liverpool Apply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate - Grade 7 role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

Exciting postdoctoral opportunity joint between my lab and Mark Viney's at University of Liverpool- Great opportunity if you are looking to apply C. elegans molecular biology skills to study the fascinating role of epigenetics in parasitic nematode lifecycles!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNR771/p...

Tasting opportunity How birds retuned sour perception to eat fruits

Eve Schneider & I wrote a @science.org Perspective on a striking new study by Zhang et al.:

Read how a small genetic shift in a taste receptor, led to a big leap in ecological opportunity for birds
🍒🐦

🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#evolution #sensorybiology #taste #birds

Within-host competition causes pathogen molecular evolution and perpetual microbiota dysbiosis Abstract. Pathogens newly invading a host must compete with resident microbiota. This within-host microbial warfare could lead to more severe disease outco

I'm very pleased to share the latest paper from my post doc with @kayla-king.bsky.social. We looked at how host microbiota can influence pathogen virulence evolution in a C. elegans model of infection: academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Revolutionise your biodiversity surveys with eDNA! 🧬 Our in-person training (Sept 8-12, 2025) covers wet lab techniques (DNA extraction to Illumina library prep) & bioinformatics (raw data to taxonomy & diversity analysis). Choose one or both! Register by July 21st: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A blog title card that reads "A day in the life of a NERC Environmental Omics Facility Research Associate" in white text against a transparent photo of Dr Adam Burke in a lab with a navy blue background.

Join Dr Adam Burke in our latest blog as he discusses his work as a NERC Environmental Omics Facility Research Associate.

➡️ bit.ly/3FmPO2e

@livuni-livsrf.bsky.social | #Metabolomics | #TeamLivUni

Some millionaires taking the bus

12/12 📰 For more background and wider context, check out the @liverpooluni.bsky.social press release covering this study’s impact on understanding and diagnosing infectious intestinal diseases: news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/05/20/a...

Not pets but ugly great tit chicks in my bird box

Superspreaders have lower gut microbial alpha-diversity and distinct gut microbial composition in a natural rodent population - Animal Microbiome The microbiome is well known to drive variation in host states (e.g. behaviour, immunity) that would be expected to modulate the spread of infectious disease—but the role of microbiotal interactions i...

Our new paper, just out “Superspreaders have lower gut microbial alpha-diversity and distinct gut microbial composition in a natural rodent population”.

Highlights gut microbial signatures for those individuals that have the potential to spread the most infectious disease.

doi.org/10.1186/s425...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

*JOB ADVERT LIVE!* Come be my next MRC-funded postdoc in London, studying uropathogenic E. coli virulence/host response in our lovely human urothelial microtissue model! Great collaboration with @gpollara.bsky.social & @scottishwormboy.bsky.social #UTISky #UTI Join us! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

A young man wearing protective goggles looks up at a petri dish. Text overlaid reads 'NEWS: LCR to become global powerhouse in fighting disease'

NEWS | £1m of Life Sciences Innovation Zone funding will support the creation of a Microbiome & Infectious Disease Innovation Hub (MaID) to harness our expertise in the rapidly expanding field.

More ⬇️

news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/04/23/l...

@livunihls.bsky.social @lpoolcityregion.bsky.social

🔈🎉 I will soon be advertising a postdoc in my friendly London lab, funded by MRC @ukri.org, to decipher uropathogen virulence and host response pathways in our 3D-UHU human urothelial model! A great collaboration with co-Is @gpollara.bsky.social and @scottishwormboy.bsky.social #UTISky #UTI

Genome Science 9th - 11th July 2025, Newcastle University

UK Genome Science 2025 is going live for this year - www.genomescience.org.uk - get registering!

Senior Lecturer/Reader/Chair in Ecology:Manchester

Job alert ‼️
2x professorships available @uniofmanchester.bsky.social
- ecology www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
- organismal biology (inc genomics, evolution etc.) www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMI506/s...

Nothing says science more than a blue disco light. Looking forward to getting these into our genomics workflow. @nerc-eof.bsky.social @livuni-livsrf.bsky.social @sptlabtech.bsky.social

23andMe files for bankruptcy protection The company said that it will now attempt to sell itself under the supervision of a court.

Now might be a good time to protect your data if you’ve used this service.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Decoding soil: eDNA's breakthrough in sustainable farming A recent study published proves the potential of Environmental DNA (eDNA) as a tool for monitoring earthworm populations. Paving the way to inform agricultural policy and practices for sustainable soi...

A new study supported by NEOF proves the potential of eDNA as a tool for monitoring earthworm populations, paving the way to inform agricultural policy and practices for sustainable soil management www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/news/decoding-soil-ednas-breakthrough-sustainable-farming

Happy Persian new year