Quand le financement de la recherche menace l’autonomie des universités La structure des investissements des chaires de recherche Impact+ pose des problèmes majeurs.

www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idee...

Open Positions -

Open postdoc position in my lab on HGT and interbacterial competition. We seek candidates with a PhD in microbiology (or related fields)+ strong 1st-author publications.
Curious, highly motivated, and dedicated team players ready to contribute fully are encouraged to apply. Details: tiny.cc/cz01101

Neither Conservative nor Liberal Canadian gov'ts understand how university research works. They think that a few top people are key, don't provide increased funding once these hotshots move in, so that more proposals are chasing the same $. Lots of 🇨🇦 talent unfunded and unseen. 🧪

Trump slump? Attendance plummets at some science meetings, but others hold steady | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Selective elimination of donor bacteria enables global profiling of plasmid gene expression at early stages of conjugation Abstract. Conjugative plasmids are a major driving force for the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. During conjugation, plasmid DNA is transferred

academic.oup.com/nar/article/... Collaboration with Y. Yamaichi. Killing donor bacteria in conjugation mixes using water enables transcriptomic profiling of early plasmid genes ! Superb tool for studying zygotic induction of these early genes, which include anti-SOS and anti-RM factors. #microsky

#ASM #microbiologist #boycottUSA
I have been a member of the ASM for over 20 years. As a Canadian scientist and member of the LGBTQ+ community, I will not support a society in a country that demonstrates a complete lack of respect for Canadians and minorities.
I won't renew my membership for 2026.

Great opportunity! www.usherbrooke.ca/emplois/offr...

The Palestine Exception in Science (opinion) A small act in recognition of Palestinian humanity during a scientific presentation should not have been met with a reprimand.

Thanks to @insidehighered.com for publishing my perspective about being reprimanded by the Gordon Research conference after my display of empathy for Palestinian victims of genocide.
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Gaïa posing... 🐶
Devilish cuteness #dog #golden

Large study of scientists who move their labs reveals how location drives productivity Concentrating funding at high-powered universities can maximize output, paper argues, but may sacrifice broader benefits

Needless to say, it also helps when the institution provides professional help for grant writing, which is not the case in smaller universities.

Large study of scientists who move their labs reveals how location drives productivity | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Wildlife at home #wildlife

First flowers of my 16 years old Cornus kousa (red dogwood tree) I grew from seeds. 🌳🌸🍁
#garden #springtime #dogwood #patience

Join the Blokesch lab (@EPFL) as a postdoc in Molecular Microbiology 🤩
Study Vibrio cholerae defense systems (phage/plasmid) in a dynamic, collaborative environment in Lausanne close to Lake Geneva in 🇨🇭!
Please visit my lab's webpage for details about the position and how to formally apply.

🔬 Ph.D. position in Environmental Microbiology
The LCPME is offering a 3-year Ph.D. position to work on the biology of conjugative plasmids carrying antibiotic resistance genes in environmental contexts. This project will combine bacterial genetics, microcosm experiments, and bioinformatic.

Conjugative transfer inhibition of IncA and IncC plasmids by pervasive SGI1-like elements via relaxosome assembly interference Broad-host-range IncA and IncC conjugative plasmids propagate multidrug resistance in bacteria and mobilize chromosomal resistance islands, including Salmonella Genomic Island 1 (SGI1) across genera. ...

Preprint: Conjugative transfer inhibition of IncA and IncC plasmids by pervasive SGI1-like elements via relaxosome assembly interference
#plasmid #relaxase #bacteria #parasite #MGE #plasmidbiology
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Réservez les dates! Le BiSP (bactériologie intégrative, symbiose et pathogénèse) aura lieu le 5 et 6 novembre à l'Université de Sherbrooke - un événement qui sera en "symbiose" avec le MicrHub, rencontre annuelle de tous les microbiologistes de Sherbrooke. À ne pas manquer!

Many thanks! I agree, there are probably intermediates out there.

Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 11 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41579-025-01157-yIn this Review, Lang and colleagues present an overview of the current knowledge landscape regarding mobile genetic elements in bacteria, with a focus on their…

New online! Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements

Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements - Nature Reviews Microbiology In this Review, Lang and colleagues present an overview of the current knowledge landscape regarding mobile genetic elements in bacteria, with a focus on their evolutionary relationships and interacti...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In collaboration with Andrew Lang and Alison Buchan, we just published a review on the complex and sometimes convoluted interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements.
#phage #plasmid #evolution #bacteria #plasmidbiology #MGE

Gulf of Mexico - Wikipedia

Go to Google
Search "Gulf of Mexico"
Click the 3 little dots next to "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)"
Choose "Send feedback"
Click "Gulf of America"
Click "Inaccurate content"
Click "Incorrect"
Tell Google the correct name
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of...

FJP Lab @ USherbrooke Welcome!

It took me longer than I wanted, but I finally have an official lab website! www.fjplab.com

Large serine integrases utilise scavenged phage proteins as directionality cofactors Abstract. Recombination directionality factors (RDFs) for large serine integrases (LSIs) are cofactor proteins that control the directionality of recombina

Officially published now: RDFs for Large Serine Integrases that are moonlighting proteins.
With collaborators the Olorunniji group @femijohn.bsky.social we find the TG1/phiC31 family RDF is an SSB, and the Bxb1 RDF has the fold and activity of an exonuclease.

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Screen shot of webpage for the CSM conference in Montreal showing a nighttime view of Montreal with a huge Leonard Cohen mural on a building in the foreground.

Speaking of which, the Canadian Society of Microbiologists annual meeting is June 17-20 in beautiful Montréal. The EDI Workshop is on the Thursday afternoon event.fourwaves.com/scm-csm2025u...

It's fall 🍂🍁

Surface exclusion of IncC conjugative plasmids and their relatives Author summary Bacterial conjugation plays a pivotal role in the evolution of bacterial populations. The circulation of drug resistance genes bolsters the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, w...

Just out in PLOS Genetics: Surface exclusion of IncC conjugative plasmids and their relatives.
journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...
Congrats to all the authors!
#plasmids #plasmidbiology

Beautiful auroras last night above Sherbrooke #auroras #nothernlights

1/5
Can random sequences encode meaningful functions and allow de novo gene birth? To explore this, Michael Laub and I screened 100 million random genes, without sequence similarity to natural genes, for their ability to rescue growth arrest of E. coli cells producing the ribonuclease toxin MazF.