A fun manuscript which came out as a preprint around the same time as I published my own preprint on CRISPR-Cas - TA plasmid interactions, using the same model plasmid RP4!
I loved seeing these single-cell expts which matched up with my observations.
Congrats to all involved on getting this out!
Molecular kinetics dictate population dynamics in CRISPR-based plasmid defense | PNAS https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2525424123
Looks very neat, congrats :)
And the preprint is out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We compared plasmid conjugation in liquid and on solid across 13 AMR plasmids with different types of conjugative pili.
🔊 Looking for a Research Assistant in Bacterial Evolution to join my lab 🦠
🥼Main duties: Research (AMR + microbiome) + lab assistance.
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Pretty sure I gasped in the cinema 😂
This, and the scene where he touches his face *while wearing gloves* really ruins the rewatchability for me.
Project Hail Mary is a beautiful brilliant film. But molecular biologists be warned there's a deeply disturbing scene midway through when Ryan Gosling's scientist places two eppendorfs directly next to each other in an otherwise empty unbalanced microcentrifuge & sets it spinning with wild abandon.
Looks incredible! Congrats all involved 😁
So happy to see this finally published in @plosbiology.org!
This is the first chapter of @julielebris.bsky.social PhD thesis demonstrating how capsules are exchanged by plug-and-play dynamics
w/ @epcrocha.bsky.social
#microsky @klebclub.bsky.social
Link below-
Check out her 🧵 for more details!
Coconuts
It is a pleasure to announce the 4th UK MGE workshop will be in York on 23rd-24th June 2026! Registration is free and we are actively looking for contributors. Interested? If so, please register via the website and select the talk option
www.ukmgeworkshop.org
We look forward to seeing you in York!
meme saying "got an invitation to submit to an actually relevant journal". unfortunately "it's mdpi"
inspired by this morning's inbox
Glad to see our latest work out in Nature Microbiology!!
Extremely grateful to everyone involved in the project.
Check it out!! 👇🏻👇🏻
It's a fantastic & exciting paper, congrats! 😁
Dear Shabana, I notice today that you referred to me in your speech on immigration at the IPPR think tank. You said: “A party leader should not be on the beaches of France encouraging people to make a perilous crossing on small boats.” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised especially after the hateful Labour campaign in Gorton and Denton, but this is just the latest in a string of lies peddled by a discredited Government who intentionally fan the flames of racism and division. When I went to Calais, I was not there to encourage people to travel to the UK. I was there to see at first hand the suffering your Government and successive Governments have done in demonising migrants in a pathetic bid to pander to the base instincts of Reform and the flawed strategy of Morgan McSweeney. As you will know, if you even bothered to research my visit instead of taking Reform talking points, I was there to witness the brutality of families living in tents in freezing temperatures. I filled water tanks and picked up litter. What that visit did do is confirm my belief that if we are to smash the boat gangs and stop the boats, we need to offer safer and managed routes for migrants to come to this country. Showing compassion as a politician is not a crime. In fact, we need to see much more of it. It reminded me of a young MP who in October 2015 spent three days in Lesbos helping migrants fleeing war-torn Syria. She posted videos on X, talked about handing out water and croissants to refugees and food parcels. When she returned to the UK, she wrote a very moving piece in the New Statesman. She said “we have to work with our European partners and create new, safe, and legal routes for refugees to get to Europe. We cannot abandon them to their fate, left as prey for smugglers whilst risking death on the seas.” She said “maybe we can make ourselves feel better by saying no-one is making them get on the boats. And again, the Home Secretary is not entirely wrong when …
Dear Shabana,
Let's clear some things up around migration and remember we're talking about people's lives.
➡️ preprint from the lab! Bacteria have loads of antiviral defences in their mobile genetic elements (MGEs). So when MGEs move between bacteria, the defences move with them, generating a fast turnover of defences in bacteria. But what about the antiviral defence turnover in the MGEs themselves? 🤔
🧵👇
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📢 Opportunity to apply for a PhD fellowship to join our group and work on MGE-MGE interactions and phage defence systems!
@mmsb-lyon.bsky.social
See informations about eligibility and research project on this web page: graduate-plus.fr/immunology-v...
Contact me if you are interested !
Not interested anymore now i know RP4 is apparently your favourite. #pKJK5ForLife
(I'm away for a week but i'll email you when I'm back 😊 )
This election was a choice between hope and hate, and the people of Gorton and Denton chose hope 💚
🎉 Huge congratulations to the Honourable Member for Gorton and Denton! And to everyone who helped make this happen 👏
I can't wait to see you on Monday, Hannah, and give you the biggest, proudest hug
This looks awesome Pedro! I got some really weird RP4 data recently that I have no idea what to make of and would love to chat about with you at some point
New preprint out on bioRxiv!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread?
Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵
Looks great Bram!
In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨
Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)
Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇
doi.org/10.1093/fems...
and that's when bacterial endosymbionts ruin everyone's definition of organism :) i heard an absolutely wild conference talk about beetle endosymbionts that are three distinct species (all are auxotroph), which all fuse their cells but chromosomes still localise to their own "area"
There's some cool work as well on how the polyploid/multicopy nature of plasmids allows genes plasmids to be subject to different evo pressures than genes on chromosomes. To me, this also shows how plasmids evolve different from bacteria, therefore v. useful to consider them as organisms in eco-evo
That's an interesting organism definition that I've not come across, and further I'm not sure why plasmids should have less replication errors - they use their host's machinery, and further can also recombine to e.g. form hybrid plasmids.
I also decided to give it a go to write this up in a way that's accessible without a strict scientific background: davvi36.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/p...
