New preprint alert!!! 🚀🤓 We are very happy to finally share this with the world — the result of seven years of work and a new tool to study integrons and discover new functions encoded in these bacterial platforms.
If you want to know more, here is a thread 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Horizontal gene transfer is often depicted as a process distributing pre-existing functions to novel genetic backgrounds. Yet HGT can also increase the rate of functional innovation after transfer. Here's a brief review on the topic: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... #evosky #microsky
Cancer therapies exploit DNA repair defects to kill tumours. We asked whether the same logic could constrain antibiotic resistance evolution...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Conjugation structures plasmid populations through host-lineage restriction www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...
🚨 New preprint 🚨
How promiscuous really are conjugative plasmids, and what does that mean for plasmid co-occurrence?
A pleasure to collaborate with @craigmaclean.bsky.social on the first paper of my fellowship!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
If you're interested, click on www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g... - Life and Medical Sciences, Clinical Medicine 04!
Neisseria gonorrhoeae carries an unusually large number of restriction–modification systems (up to 16!), many of which are phase-variable. How does this affect plasmid transmission in gonococci? doi.org/10.64898/202...
🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution.
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Please do!
Excited to share some new work on plasmid host specificity and co-occurrence!
Delighted to have played a small part in this great study from colleagues in CaPES: doi.org/10.1038/s414...
There's a PhD position now available with me in Bath, on the evolution of symbiosis. www.findaphd.com/phds/project.... The supervisory team also includes @anja1.bsky.social @phil-donoghue.bsky.social and others. NB, this is open both to UK-based students *and* to international students :)
We have a fully funded PhD studentship available @modmedmicro.bsky.social in Oxford to work on a really cool project looking at population heterogeneity in bloodstream infections www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/study/dphil-... Please spread the word/get in touch if you'd like to chat.
Please feel free to message me with any questions! ☺️
🔊 Fully-funded 4yr PhD studentship with the NWB DTP, working on novel regulators of bacterial nitrogen metabolism 🦠
Primary supervisor: @ariannebabina.bsky.social (University of Glasgow)
Co-supervisors: myself (Queen’s Belfast)+ Dónal Wall (Glasgow)
🌟 please share 🌟
www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...
Come and work with Nicole Stoesser and I in Oxford with the fantastic team @modmedmicro.bsky.social - great opportunity for a postdoc in microbial genomics to do some creative research with great datasets as part of our HPRU.
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Now published in @natcomms.nature.com 🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
With Gillian Rodger, @nstoesser.bsky.social, @samlipworth.bsky.social, @stat-sarah.bsky.social, and many others!
Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n
New pre-print from my lab!
Plasmids link antibiotic resistance and phage defense.
E.coli plasmids are hotspots for both antibiotic resistance and phage defense. Phage therapy has the potential to accidentally select for antibiotic resistance!!!
#microsky#AMR#phage
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....
Plasmids link antibiotic resistance genes and phage defense systems in E. coli www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07....
New Comment—Reinforcing social safety for transgender and non-binary communities amidst global legislative threats tinyurl.com/v3jvjzs5
Delighted to see this paper from danderson123.bsky.social 's PhD out. We have been building tools for AMR gene detection for over a decade now, but multicopy genes remain challenging. Dan shows that with a gene-space de Bruijn graph and long reads, you can do well
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
That was fun: 2 days of bacterial genome evolution in beautiful Bath
Ta @edfeil.bsky.social @eseb.bsky.social
Great to see @craigmaclean.bsky.social @wtmatlock.bsky.social @jpjhall.bsky.social @taylorlabgroup.bsky.social @zaminiqbal.bsky.social @epcrocha.bsky.social @jomcinerney.bsky.social &co
The leading region of many conjugative plasmids is depleted in restriction-modification targets www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04....
Congrats! A brilliant demonstration of how slick PanGraph is 👏
Deadline in ‼️3 weeks‼️ for this project with me & @paulhoskisson.bsky.social 🦠 🧫
Yes!! 🎉 We should catch up soon…
Very cool!
🆕New in @plosbiology.bsky.social: we show compensatory mutations make plasmids play Rock-Paper-Scissors and turn conjugation into a weapon🛡️💫✂️🦠
w/Rosanna Wright, Jamie Wood, @mbottery.bsky.social, @kmudz.bsky.social, @scottishwormboy.bsky.social, Ellie Harrison & @brockhurstlab.bsky.social #MicroSky
