Comparison of a long-read amplicon sequencing approach to short-read amplicons for microbiome analysis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09....

to read!

Wish I met the criteria for this (plenty of 2nd and 3rd authorships under my belt at this point but first authorship is not quite here yet)! Perhaps it will help someone else!
#womeninstem

How to have better vaccine conversations A guide to connecting across values and shared humanity

I've been thinking about how I can use what I am learning and wondering how I can still make that difference in the world that motivated me to apply for a PhD in the first place...this was a good reminder that impact starts with listening.
open.substack.com/pub/healthin...

Fig. 2. Summary of pneumococcal and NPS genomes causing discrepancies after in silico assessments of pneumococcal PCR assays. Black circles indicate that a PCR amplicon was detected, and white circles indicate in silico negative tests. (a) Pneumococcal genomes that were in silico negative (n=456) for one or more PCR assays are shown, stratified by combinations of in silico positive tests. (b) NPS genomes that were in silico positive (n=87) for one or more pneumococcal PCR assays, stratified by combinations of positive tests.

Utilizing large and diverse bacterial genome datasets to improve the detection and identification of Streptococcus pneumoniae via PCR-based diagnostics. Published #OpenAccess and fee-free in #MGen using a #PublishAndRead agreement:
doi.org/10.1099/mgen...

Yanomami skin microbiome complexity challenges prevailing concepts of healthy skin Nature Communications - Here, the authors show that the skin microbiome of a remote hunter-gatherer Yanomami community harbors environmental microbes that help maintain skin barrier integrity and...

Yanomami skin microbiome complexity challenges prevailing concepts of healthy skin. rdcu.be/euNaT

I'm so excited that we have gotten this one out into the world! Dr. Marshall and Dr. Le are amazing people and stellar scientist. Please give their stories a read!! 😊
#microbiology

🎙️ Want to learn more about the role of PBPs (penicillin binding proteins) in cell wall synthesis and how their inhibition impacts bacterial survival?
Check out this episode of Let’s Talk Micro!
📍Link in comments.

#microbiology

It's been an intense several months! I'm looking at a to-do list that seems endless, but I'm v excited :) The opportunities awaiting me in the short term are thrilling. Paper 1 is rounding the bend toward being submitted, so now I really get to focus on Paper 2, and after that my PhD defense!!

Toxic Crusaders introduced nearly 600 California high schoolers to environmental health and public health labs in 2024–2025. Learn how APHL ambassador Ori Roe is helping students in our latest blog: buff.ly/M5WoBZY #workforcedevelopment #environmentalhealth #publichealth

@microann.bsky.social and I published a newsletter with the GCC AMR Scholars Committee in the Texas Medical Center! We’re so excited to celebrate our fellow trainees and their cool research! Next issue comes out in 3-months 🥳 www.gulfcoastconsortia.org/wp-content/u...

Black and white ink cartoon of a myovirus-like phage with eyes and eyebrows looking confused with “?!?” above its head. The page is hovering above a hexagonal child’s sorting toy with different shaped holes. On the front of the toy is a simple phylogenetic tree with shapes corresponding to the holes at the end of the branches

Phage taxonomy doesn’t have to be taxing, my latest cartoon for the Phage journal. To illustrate 𝘁𝗮𝘅𝗠𝘆𝗣𝗵𝗮𝗴𝗲 lnkd.in/dAXK4sSt @milja001.bsky.social

christoph: 2 cases where I don't use TSS comp. cells:
· BL21 for protein expression transforms poorly (B strain, not K-12)
· I use(d) electroporation of K-12 target strain carrying pKD46 (ts) for linear transformation of PCR fragments acc. to Datsenko&Wanner
(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...)

It's such a simple protocol that I invite anyone to please try and report back conditions as well as CFU/mL. Could be fun to crowdsource optimizations. A lil community project that benefits anyone working in microbes :)

Autoregulation of the Master Regulator Spo0A Controls Cell‐Fate Decisions in Bacillus subtilis A proposed model for the autoregulation of Spo0A expression in response to nutrient starvation. The levels of the master regulator Spo0A increase gradually during starvation, resulting in temporal bi...

Autoregulation of the Master Regulator Spo0A Controls Cell-Fate Decisions in Bacillus subtilis

@molecularmicro.bsky.social from Masaya Fujita

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

So having this reminder, that all of the MICs and the growth curves and the KOs really do matter to someone's life...well the value of it is immeasurable.

I've been interviewing my lab members as we start our lab website, and every single one of them, when asked, said that they are in this field because they want to improve human health. But it can feel distant sometimes, when you're in the lab and the bacteria will not grow or the assay fails.

One of the wonderful things about going to conferences is hearing all the new advances in the ID field. This particular conference though, the organizers invited a patient to give an address, and I'm pretty sure everyone was in tears. So this year's AMR is going to hold a special place in my heart.

Image: A yellow, spherical particle with legs and an awkward expression stands behind a microphone in a stand in the stage spotlight of a comedy club. The dark club is filled with redspherical particles. Caption: Electron's stand-up set is a riot of hilarious, relatable material about life as a charged particle. Unfortunately, tonight's audience is composed entirely of neutrons.

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

It's behind a paywall, but if you have access, then you can see how the results of this v brief questionnaire will shape the narrative on the social media platform to use for 🧪, #AcademicSky & #MedSky

Interesting to #IDSky & #ClinMicro

I'm trying to do better about talking to people outside my lab, which is great. But this means that I've found myself in a situation where I have to talk about my dissertation project in front of people who could be my boss someday and I'm feeling the stresss. Love going to conferences so much lol.

It's day 1 of wrangling my way through writing a review and revising my original research manuscript. I'm using Wendy Laura Belcher's wkbk even though I don't think it's really written for STEM, but it's the best guide I've come across. #womeninstem if you know of any other guides please recommend!

image of eight dark red agar plates within a metal biosafety cabinet

First plates of the new year! Now if the bacteria in question will kindly agree to be cultivated, then 2025 will be truly off to a good start.